Mendenhall v. State

18 So. 3d 915, 2009 Miss. App. LEXIS 670, 2009 WL 3175282
CourtCourt of Appeals of Mississippi
DecidedOctober 6, 2009
Docket2008-KA-00226-COA
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 18 So. 3d 915 (Mendenhall 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
Mendenhall v. State, 18 So. 3d 915, 2009 Miss. App. LEXIS 670, 2009 WL 3175282 (Mich. Ct. App. 2009).

Opinion

CARLTON, J.,

for the Court.

¶ 1. A Hinds County grand jury indicted Rodney Mendenhall, for aggravated assault with a weapon, armed robbery, and business burglary, all in connection with the July 6, 2006, shooting of Curtis T. Addison, Jr. A jury found Mendenhall guilty on all charges. The trial court sentenced Men-denhall to the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC). After denial of post-trial motions, Menden-hall timely appeals. Upon review, we find that the trial court violated Mendenhall’s right of confrontation in prohibiting defense counsel from impeaching the credibility of the trial testimony of a material state witness as to a material fact in issue through cross-examination with a prior inconsistent statement. This limitation on the scope of Mendenhall’s cross-examination of the sole eyewitness unfairly compromised Mendenhall’s fundamental right to a fair trial. Therefore, we reverse Men-denhall’s conviction and sentence and remand this case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

¶ 2. On the morning of July 5, 2006, Addison noticed that a pair of yellow, Suzuki motor scooters were missing from his business, Addison’s Body Shop, in Jackson, Mississippi. Addison called his friend, James Hampton, to see if Hampton had borrowed the scooters over the Fourth of July holiday. Hampton had not, but he promised Addison he would keep an “eye out” for the missing scooters. After speaking with Hampton, Addison called law enforcement and filed a report about the missing scooters.

¶ 3. Later that day, Hampton rode through the neighborhood, finding a man, whom he later identified as Mendenhall, riding one of the missing scooters. Hampton testified that he possessed a visible gun when he confronted Mendenhall, but he did not draw his gun on Mendenhall. Hampton obtained the scooter from Men-denhall, and Addison later retrieved the scooter from Hampton.

¶ 4. On the evening of July 6, 2006, Addison dozed off in front of the television at his business. Addison testified that he woke up around midnight with “a gun stuck in [his] face.” Addison said the intruder motioned with his gun for Addison to follow him from the television room into *917 the hallway. Addison described the hallway as well-lit. Once in the hallway, the intruder told Addison to take his pants off.

¶ 5. Once Addison removed his pants, the intruder knocked Addison to the ground and fired twice, shooting Addison in the leg. Addison fled, and the man left the area through the heavy metal swinging shop doors. Addison then went into the office area of his shop where he attempted to call 911, but the assailant returned and shot Addison two more times. Addison testified that the two of them talked for about five minutes before the man shot him again. Addison again fled and hid in the shop’s kitchen.

¶ 6. Thinking the man had finally left, Addison again tried to call 911, but the man returned a third time, and threatened to kill Addison. The man shot Addison two more times, firing until the gun clicked on an empty chamber. At this point, Addison testified that he reached for his rifle, and the man ran out of the rear of the shop. Addison finally managed to call 911. Officers arrived and emergency personnel immediately transported Addison to the hospital.

¶ 7. After the hospital released Addison, he provided law enforcement with a description of his assailant. Addison described his attacker as “kind of a dark brown color,” between 5'10 and 5'11 in height, “kind of slim,” and between twenty and twenty-three years of age. Addison also stated that the intruder wore a scarf “halfway around his face” 1 and a baseball cap on his head.

¶ 8. Hampton also gave law enforcement a description of the man on the stolen scooter that he had recovered. Hampton described this man as six feet tall, slender, and “with a low haircut.” Detective Reginald Cooper, with the Jackson Police Department, testified at trial that at the time of the shooting, Mendenhall weighed 150 pounds, measured six feet in height, and was either twenty-two or twenty-three years of age. At trial, Addison identified Mendenhall as the man who had shot him multiple times, and Hampton identified Mendenhall as the man from whom he had obtained one of Addison’s stolen scooters.

¶ 9. Additionally, during the evening of July 8, 2006, two days after the shooting, Jackson Police Officer Ben Williams saw someone on Capitol Street in Jackson riding a yellow scooter that matched the description of Addison’s other stolen scooter. Officer Williams gave chase in his car. The rider, whom Officer Williams could not identify, lost control of the scooter, crashed, and fled on foot. Law enforcement subsequently recovered the scooter and tested it for fingerprints.

¶ 10. While law enforcement waited for the results of the fingerprints taken from the recovered scooter, they developed Mendenhall as the main suspect in Addison’s case. Law enforcement then put Mendenhall’s photograph in a photographic lineup consisting of six black males. On July 13, 2006, Detective Cooper took the photographic lineup to Hampton’s workplace where Hampton identified Menden-hall as the man from whom he had retrieved the scooter on July 5, 2006.

¶ 11. Later that same day, law enforcement showed Addison the same photographic lineup, and Addison identified Mendenhall as his assailant. Additionally, fingerprints from the scooter, which law enforcement had recovered two days after *918 Addison’s assault, matched the fingerprints taken from Mendenhall.

¶ 12. A grand jury indicted Mendenhall, and he was tried by a jury on the charges of aggravated assault with a weapon, armed robbery, and business burglary, all in connection with the July 6, 2006, shooting of Addison. The jury found Menden-hall guilty on all charges. The trial court sentenced Mendenhall to the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) as follows: (1) twenty-five years for Count I, armed robbery; (2) twenty years for Count II, aggravated assault, to run consecutively to the sentence for Count I; and (3) seven years for Count III, business burglary, to run concurrently with the sentence for Count I.

¶ 13. Mendenhall appeals and alleges the following errors: (1) the trial court erred in refusing to allow Mendenhall to stand before the jury in closing argument in order to draw particular attention to the size of his nose; (2) the trial court erred in granting the State’s motion in limine that barred Mendenhall from impeaching Addison regarding medical records that indicated that Addison had consumed alcohol on the night his attacker shot him; and (3) the evidence at trial was legally insufficient to support his convictions. We find merit to the second and third assignments of error.

DISCUSSION

I. Presentation of Mendenhall’s Nose to the Jury During Closing Arguments

¶ 14. Mendenhall contends that the trial court denied him the opportunity to present a meaningful defense, in violation of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, by denying his request to stand before the jury in closing argument to exhibit his “large” nose.

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Bluebook (online)
18 So. 3d 915, 2009 Miss. App. LEXIS 670, 2009 WL 3175282, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mendenhall-v-state-missctapp-2009.