Jones v. State

504 So. 2d 1196
Mississippi Supreme Court·Decided April 22, 1987·No. 56838·Published·Cited by 28 cases

Opinion

504 So.2d 1196 (1987)

James Earl JONES
v.
STATE of Mississippi.

No. 56838.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

March 18, 1987.
As Modified on Denial of Rehearing April 22, 1987.

*1197 James D. Minor, Oxford, for appellant.

Edwin Lloyd Pittman, Atty. Gen. by Leyser Q. Morris, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.

Before WALKER, C.J., and ROBERTSON and GRIFFIN, JJ.

GRIFFIN, Justice, for the court:

James Earl Jones was tried and convicted for rape by the Circuit Court of Lafayette County. He was sentenced to serve a term of 35 years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections.

The basis for Jones' whole attack on his conviction is the asserted illegality of the pre-trial identification. Appellant further assigns as error the search of his home, improper closing argument, and introduction of evidence of separate crimes. We will address only the Fourth Amendment question posed by the search and the pre-trial identification. Other assignments merit no consideration.

I.

The following facts give rise to the assigned error on appeal: On Friday, October 26, 1984, at approximately 5:30 p.m., the victim and a friend went to dinner at a local restaurant in Oxford, Mississippi. The two young women remained there until 9:30 or 10:00 p.m., at which time they departed by car for another establishment to visit some friends.

Upon leaving this last stop, they were approached near their car by a black man estimated by the girls to be around 20 years old. The girls testified that despite their adamant denials to his requests that they give him a ride home, he somehow found his way into the back seat of the car.

Testimony showed that several blocks away at a stop sign defendant forced one girl into the back seat, while he took over driving. The girls testified further that their pleas to offer him money to pay for an alternate ride home went unheeded, and defendant's course carried them to a wooded area off Old Sardis Road. At that time, he produced a switchblade knife, and he directed the girls to remove their clothing.

Following one unsuccessful attempt at escape which left her with severely cut hands from having fought with defendant in fear of her life, the victim's friend escaped into the woods where she wandered for several hours before finally emerging from her ordeal. In the meantime, the defendant, after cutting the victim's clothes from her, raped her and forced her to drive him to another location where he departed. Somehow the victim traveled the rest of the way back to Oxford, where she was discovered by an officer with the police department curled up in a fetal position on the front seat of her car, still unclothed. She was taken to the Oxford-Lafayette Hospital, and was joined shortly thereafter by her friend, who had finally found her way out of the woods.

Within just a few hours of all these events, officers, following directions from *1198 the girls, found the scene of the crime where several items were observed in the area, to-wit: items of clothing of the victim and her friend, a necklace belonging to the victim, and a New York Yankee's baseball cap, allegedly worn by their assailant.

Then, between 8:30 and 9:00 that morning, October 27, 1984, the girls identified, at least to the satisfaction of the officers, the defendant as their assailant, having chosen him from an array of seven pictures presented to them. At 2:00 p.m., the same day, the girls identified appellant from a line-up.

Sheriff F.D. "Buddy" East and several other officers on that same afternoon testified that they had gone to defendant's residence (actually belonging to his father) and upon knocking at the door were told to enter. Defendant was advised of his rights at that time and then taken to the sheriff's office. Prior to their departure, the officers requested, and received permission to confiscate a pair of blue jeans lying on the floor. Appellant was again advised of his rights at the station and questioned about the crime.

Following interrogation of the defendant, the officers obtained a search warrant for the residence, and upon their return to it seized a knife, a dark jacket and a pair of men's underwear, all of which had been sighted by the girls as being worn or used by their assailant and which were included in the affidavit supporting the search warrant.

Appellant moved for suppression of the evidence of the search of his home, but after a hearing his motion was overruled. Appellant proceeded to trial on February 19, 1985, and this trial ended in a verdict of guilty February 21, 1985.

II.

DID THE TRIAL COURT ERR IN ALLOWING THE IN-COURT IDENTIFICATION OF DEFENDANT FOLLOWING WHAT HE ALLEGES WERE SUGGESTIVE PRE-TRIAL IDENTIFICATION PROCEDURES?

Appellant challenges the legal adequacy of the photographic spread and subsequent lineup, and claims that these out of court identifications influenced and tainted his in court identification as the perpetrator of the crime. In support thereof, he cites Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 87 S.Ct. 1967, 18 L.Ed.2d 1199 (1967), a United States Supreme Court case in which it was held that a criminal defendant may claim that an identification procedure was so unnecessarily suggestive and conducive to irreparable mistaken identity that it led to a denial of due process of law. Appellant contends that that case also stands for the proposition that the determination to be made must be on the totality of the circumstances.

Also, in support of his case he cites Manson v. Braithwaite, 432 U.S. 98, 97 S.Ct. 2243, 53 L.Ed.2d 140 (1977), in which the United States Supreme Court delineated the following factors to be considered in analysis of the legal sufficiency of the identification procedure: (1) opportunity to view; (2) the degree of attention; (3) the accuracy of the description; (4) the witness's level of certainty; and (5) the time between the crime and the confrontation.

Appellant claims that several of these factors were not met in his own identification as the alleged assailant in the rape, and as such the identification procedure suffers from a legal inadequacy. Hence, he avers, his cause is therefore reversible.

Our own law concerning the admissibility of identification both pre- and post-trial is set out at length in York v. State, 413 So.2d 1372 (Miss. 1982). In York, we presented the history of trial court problems with identification and traced the United States Supreme Court decisions dealing with such. See York at pages 1374-1382, citing U.S. v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 (1967); Gilbert v. California, 388 U.S. 263, 87 S.Ct. 1951, 18 L.Ed.2d 1178 (1967); and Stovall, supra. These United States Supreme Court cases have presented a plethora of claims by defendants asserting their constitutional rights have been violated. Numerous causes of action presented to this Court *1199 have addressed these claims,[1] but our decision in York, concerning due process violations in the identification, serves as the best reference for the issues in the case at bar.

In York, supra,

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Jones v. State, 504 So. 2d 1196 (Mich. 1987).

504 So. 2d 1196 (Jones v. State) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related

Dalvin Latham v. State of Mississippi
Mississippi Supreme Court, 2020
Curtis Giovanni Flowers v. State of Mississippi
240 So. 3d 1082 (Mississippi Supreme Court, 2017)
Corrothers v. State
148 So. 3d 278 (Mississippi Supreme Court, 2014)
Stewart v. State
131 So. 3d 569 (Mississippi Supreme Court, 2014)
Butler v. State
102 So. 3d 260 (Mississippi Supreme Court, 2012)
Justin Stewart v. State of Mississippi
Mississippi Supreme Court, 2012
Bankston v. State
4 So. 3d 377 (Court of Appeals of Mississippi, 2008)
Jones v. State
993 So. 2d 386 (Court of Appeals of Mississippi, 2008)
Denham v. State
966 So. 2d 894 (Court of Appeals of Mississippi, 2007)
Cochran v. State
913 So. 2d 371 (Court of Appeals of Mississippi, 2005)
Reese v. State
879 So. 2d 505 (Court of Appeals of Mississippi, 2004)
Howell v. State
860 So. 2d 704 (Mississippi Supreme Court, 2003)
Marlon Latodd Howell v. State of Mississippi
Mississippi Supreme Court, 2001
Buggs v. State
754 So. 2d 569 (Court of Appeals of Mississippi, 2000)
Crawford v. State
749 So. 2d 1135 (Court of Appeals of Mississippi, 1999)
Robert Stewart v. State of Mississippi
Mississippi Supreme Court, 1993
Wilson v. State
574 So. 2d 1324 (Mississippi Supreme Court, 1990)
Nathan v. State
552 So. 2d 99 (Mississippi Supreme Court, 1989)
Minnick v. State
551 So. 2d 77 (Mississippi Supreme Court, 1988)