Timothy Allen Wilson v. State of Mississippi

198 So. 3d 408, 2016 Miss. App. LEXIS 149, 2016 WL 1117662
CourtCourt of Appeals of Mississippi
DecidedMarch 22, 2016
Docket2014-KA-01478-COA
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 198 So. 3d 408 (Timothy Allen Wilson v. State of Mississippi) 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
Timothy Allen Wilson v. State of Mississippi, 198 So. 3d 408, 2016 Miss. App. LEXIS 149, 2016 WL 1117662 (Mich. Ct. App. 2016).

Opinions

WILSON, J.,

for the Court:

¶ 1. After a jury convicted Timothy Wilson of receiving stolen property, the Circuit Court of Warren County sentenced him, as a habitual offender, to serve ten years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) and ordered him to pay a $10,000 fine. On appeal, Wilson raises three issues, restated as follows: (1) whether the circuit court properly instructed the jury,. (2) whether his trial counsel was ineffective, and (3) whether his sentence is illegal because he was sentenced under the law in effect at the time of his offense, rather than the law as amended by House Bill 585, 2014 Miss. Laws ch. 457. For the reasons that follow, we find no error in Wilson’s trial or sentence and affirm.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

¶ 2. On April 2, 2012, Paul Powers witnessed two males, later identified as Wilson and Wilson’s brother, use a truck to remove a utility trailer from Powers’s neighbors’ yard'. After learning that the owners of the trailer had not given the men permission to remove it, Powers called law enforcement. Wilson and his brother were eventually arrested, indicted, and tried jointly for receiving stolen property.

¶3. During trial, Wilson presented an alibi defense, but his trial counsel failed to submit an alibi jury instruction. However, the State submitted Instruction S-3, an alibi instruction that informed the. jury, among other things, that the State was not required to disprove an alibi. The circuit judge gave that instruction and Instruction S-4, a prima facie evidence instruction. Wilson’s trial counsel failed to object to either of those instructions.

¶ 4. After the jury convicted Wilson, the circuit court imposed a ten-year sentence under the version of Mississippi Code Annotated section 97-17-70 . (Rev.2014) that was in effect at the time of Wilson’s offense. - Wilson timely filed a motion for a new trial, which the circuit court denied. This appeal followed.

ANALYSIS

I. Jury Instructions

¶ 5. We review a trial court’s-rulings on jury instructions for an abuse of discretion. Thompson v. State, 119 So.3d 1007, 1009 (¶ 3) (Miss.2013) (citing Newell v. State, 49 So.3d 66, 73 (¶ 20) (Miss.2010)). “In reviewing jury instruction issues, this Court reads the instructions together as a whole. No reversible error will be found to exist if, when read together, the instructions correctly state the law and effectuate no injustice,” McKlemurry v. State, 947 So.2d 987, 990 (¶ 3) (Miss.Ct.App.2006) (citing Miller v. State, 919 So.2d 1137, 1141 (¶ 12) (Miss.Ct.App.2005)).

A. Instruction S-3

¶ 6. Wilson argues that Instruction S-3 was improper because it required him to prove the truth of his alibi defense. According to him, the absence of a proper alibi instruction prevented the jury from considering his defense. In response, the State argues that because Wilson failed to object to the jury instructions, as given, this argument is barred.on appeal. In the alternative, the State argues that Instruction S-3 did not shift the burden of proof [411]*411to Wilson and that the jury instructions, taken as a whole, properly instructed the jury that the State bore the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt throughout the trial. The State also argues that it was Wilson’s duty to request an alibi instruction,

¶ 7. While conceding that his trial counsel failed to object to Instructions S-3 and S-4,1 Wilson asks this Court to review this issue as plain error. In Starr v. State, 997 So.2d 262 (Miss.Ct.App.2008), we explained the concept of plain error, stating:

A party who fails to make a contemporaneous objection at trial must' rely on plain error to raise the- issue on appeal, because it is otherwise- procedurally barred. The plain-error doctrine requires a party to prove that an error occurred which resulted in a manifest miscarriage of justice. This doctrine is only available when a defendant’s substantive" or fundamental rights have been violated.

Id. at 266 (¶ 11) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). A “plain error” is a ruling by the trial court that “deviated from a -legal rule” in a manner that “is plain, clear or obvious.” Neal v. State, 15 So.3d 388, 403 (¶ 32) (Miss.2009) (quoting McGee v. State, 953 So.2d 211, 215 (¶ 8) (Miss.2007)). As discussed below, this case involves no miscarriage of justice or clear or obvious error. Therefore, this issue is procedurally barred.

¶8. At trial, Powers testified that on April 2, 2012, between 1, p.m. and 2 p.m., as he was standing'in his yard, he witnessed Wilson and his brother break the lock on the utility trailer in Powers’s neighbors’ yard. Suspicious, Powers called his neighbors and learned that neither Wilson nor his brother had been- authorized to remove the trailer. As Wilson and his brother drove away with the trailer, Powers followed in his vehicle, while contacting law enforcement. Powers provided law enforcement with the tag number on the truck that Wilson was driving.

¶ 9. Lieutenant Randy Lewis, the officer who responded to Powers’s' call, testified that, during his investigation, he learned that the truck used to remove the trailer was registered to Wilson. After Lieutenant Lewis located the' truck and apprehended Wilson and his brother, he located the trailer in a nearby yard. .

¶ 10. Wilson called two alibi witnesses: Willie Dotson and Henry' Ray Hunter. Dotson testified that on the morning of April 2, 2012, he and Wilson worked together cutting trees and bushes. Dotson testified that Wilson “left around [noon] or a little before [noon] for lunch and he never did come back.” Wilson’s trial counsel showed Dotson a photograph that depicted Wilson trimming trees in an attempt to establish that Wilson was‘working with Dotson when the trailer was stolen. However, Dotson’s testimony, which was inconsistent, revealed that he did not know what day or time' the photograph was taken.

¶ 11. Hunter testified that on the morning of April 2, 2012, Wilson was alsp helping him repair a house. “[H]e was going back and forth” between the house and his work cutting trees. According to Hunter, Wilson left for lunch at noon and did not return. Hunter made it clear that on April 2, 2012, Wilson did not work with him after lunch.

¶ 12. As stated, Wilson failed to submit a proposed alibi instruction, but the [412]*412circuit judge gave Instruction S-3, which stated:

[T]he State is not required to disprove an alibi. In other words, the State is not required to prove that any alibi defense is not true; the State is only required to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendants, Randy Charles Wilson and Timothy Allen Wilson, are guilty, beyond a reasonable doubt, of Receiving Stolen Property as charged.

¶ 13. Wilson cites Holmes v. State, 481 So.2d 319 (Miss.1985), as support for his argument that the alibi instruction submitted by the defendant in that case is the instruction that should have been given to the jury in this case. However, in Holmes the issue was not whether the alibi instruction given to the jury was improper or inadequate. Instead, the issue was whether, after the State and the defendant submitted proposed alibi instructions, the trial judge erred by completely failing to give one. Id. at 323.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
198 So. 3d 408, 2016 Miss. App. LEXIS 149, 2016 WL 1117662, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/timothy-allen-wilson-v-state-of-mississippi-missctapp-2016.