Jones v. State

149 So. 3d 1060, 2014 WL 3409075, 2014 Miss. App. LEXIS 388
CourtCourt of Appeals of Mississippi
DecidedJuly 15, 2014
DocketNo. 2012-KA-02031-COA
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 149 So. 3d 1060 (Jones v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Mississippi primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Jones v. State, 149 So. 3d 1060, 2014 WL 3409075, 2014 Miss. App. LEXIS 388 (Mich. Ct. App. 2014).

Opinion

MAXWELL, J„

for the Court:

¶ 1. Thomas Jones seeks a new trial. He was tried and convicted of sexual battery of a thirteen-year-old girl. On appeal, he complains that his trial was a “farce” and the jury’s verdict runs contrary to the weight of the evidence.

¶2. We see no farce. While Jones claims the jury was “tainted” by the possibility that a juror was predisposed to find him guilty, the record shows the court, the State, and Jones’s counsel thoroughly vetted the prospective jurors to ensure each understood the presumption of innocence. Jones also insists a sleepy juror entitles him to a new trial. But the record shows Jones’s trial counsel — while voicing concerns that a juror may have been sleeping — never asked the judge to remove the juror. And Jones has not shown how the judge abused' his discretion by not replacing the juror sua sponte.

¶ 3. We also fail to see how the weight of the evidence undermines the jury’s verdict. Jones’s evidentiary challenge boils down to claiming the jury members were wrong in their credibility assessments and resolution of conflicting evidence. But witness-credibility decisions and what weight to give the evidence are questions within the “exclusive province of the jury.”1 This court only grants new trials in “exceptional cases,”2 “where the evidence [i]s so extremely doubtful that it [i]s repulsive to the reasoning of the ordinary mind.”3 And because the jury’s decision that Jones was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt was reasonable based on the evidence, and because allowing Jones’s conviction to stand [1063]*1063would not “sanction an unconscionable injustice,” 4 we affirm.

Background

¶ 4. Jones was tried by a jury alongside his wife, Elizabeth. Jones had been charged with sexual battery by engaging in penetration of a child under the age of fourteen. Elizabeth had been charged with contributing to the delinquency of the minor, by permitting a minor to consume alcohol to the point of intoxication, which led to the minor being sexually abused.

I. Day of Battery

¶ 5. In September 2010, Jones and his wife drove down from Connecticut to Tuni-ca County, Mississippi, to visit Elizabeth’s sister, Rachel. Rachel lived with her husband, Andrew; their two infant sons; and Andrew’s thirteen-year-old daughter from a previous relationship, Bethany.5 The four grown-ups and three children had all been staying in the same three-bedroom apartment for a week. And though Jones and Elizabeth had planned to stay several more days, when Bethany revealed she had been sexually abused, the couple immediately left for Connecticut.

¶ 6. The day of the attack, Jones, Elizabeth, and Bethany had gone to buy groceries and alcohol. Once back at the apartment, Elizabeth made homemade pizzas for supper, while her sister Rachel worked the night shift at a nearby hospital. When the adults began pouring drinks, Bethany asked her father if she could have one. Andrew consented, saying he would rather his daughter experiment at home than elsewhere. Andrew and Bethany testified that Elizabeth poured Bethany a tall glass of vodka and peach tea. But Elizabeth testified Bethany poured her own cocktail.

Andrew did not stay up to supervise his daughter’s drinking.

¶ 7. At some point that night, Bethany went outside to walk the dog. Bethany testified her step-aunt joined her. Shortly after, Elizabeth helped the increasingly inebriated Bethany back inside to the couch. But the young girl’s drinking did not stop. Jones told Elizabeth to fix Bethany another drink. And Bethany became so drunk that she vomited, and Elizabeth had to help Bethany to her bedroom.

¶ 8. Bethany testified “shortly after that, somebody came into the room, and I’m pretty sure it was Tommy [ (Jones) ]. And it felt like he was holding my wrists back, and I felt pain down there [ (between her legs) ].” When Bethany woke up the next morning, her genitals were “really sore,” and she noticed blood in her urine.

II. Aftermath

¶ 9. Andrew was at work when Bethany woke up. In fact, Jones had driven Andrew to work that morning, and the two men had made plans to grill out that night. But sometime mid-morning Bethany text-ed her father, telling him that she thought she had been raped and that “Uncle Tommy” was the one who did it.

¶ 10. After receiving the text, Andrew called his wife, who had already returned from work early that morning. Rachel asked Bethany to come into her parents room and tell her what happened. Rachel then told Bethany to keep herself locked inside their room until she returned. The plan was for Rachel to go get Andrew from work. But just as Rachel was about to leave, Jones told her that he and Elizabeth had received an emergency phone call. He said they had to return to Con[1064]*1064necticut immediately. Rachel told them she had to go somewhere but would be right back and asked them to delay departing for their two-day trip until she returned. But instead of waiting, Jones and Elizabeth hurriedly packed their belongings and left.

¶ 11. By this point, Rachel and Andrew had called 911, and law enforcement began searching for Jones’s green Jeep Cherokee. The couple was located and pulled over before they could leave Tunica County. Inside their vehicle, sheriffs deputies found a duffle bag containing sex toys and condoms.

III. Investigation

¶ 12. Back at the apartment, deputies interviewed Andrew and Bethany. They then took Bethany to the hospital to take DNA samples. While none of Jones’s DNA was found on Bethany, her DNA was discovered on one of the sex toys.

¶ 13. Two months later, Bethany met with a forensic psychologist, who specialized in working with child sexual-abuse victims. The psychologist testified about her finding that Bethany’s interview was consistent with a child who had been sexually abused. The psychologist relayed what Bethany had shared in the interview — that Jones had come into her room and gotten on top of her, that she felt a sharp pain inside her, and that she thought it was Jones’s penis but was not certain.

IV. Defense

¶ 14. Both Elizabeth and Jones testified in their own defense. Both of their versions diverged from Bethany’s description of what happened at the point Elizabeth and Bethany returned inside from walking the dog that night. According to Elizabeth, she and Jones left the drunk Bethany on the couch, then went into Bethany’s room and had sex, during which they used a sex toy. They claimed they heard a thud out in the living room, so they stopped having intercourse to check on Bethany, who had fallen on the floor. This is supposedly when Bethany threw up. Elizabeth testified that Jones pulled Bethany up from the floor by her wrists and helped her to bed.

¶ 15. Once Bethany was in bed, Elizabeth decided to make more pizzas with the leftover ingredients. And while the pizzas were baking, she and Jones began having sex again-this time on the living room sofa. It was then, according to Elizabeth, that they realized they had left a sex toy in Bethany’s room. Elizabeth claimed she went back into the bedroom to retrieve the object, only to find it in a different spot than where it was left.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
149 So. 3d 1060, 2014 WL 3409075, 2014 Miss. App. LEXIS 388, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jones-v-state-missctapp-2014.