Wansley v. State

734 So. 2d 193, 1999 WL 30208
CourtCourt of Appeals of Mississippi
DecidedJanuary 26, 1999
Docket97-KA-01438 COA
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 734 So. 2d 193 (Wansley 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
Wansley v. State, 734 So. 2d 193, 1999 WL 30208 (Mich. Ct. App. 1999).

Opinion

734 So.2d 193 (1999)

Marion Ornellist WANSLEY, Appellant,
v.
STATE of Mississippi, Appellee.

No. 97-KA-01438 COA.

Court of Appeals of Mississippi.

January 26, 1999.

*194 Edmund J. Phillips, Jr., Newton, Robert N. Brooks, Carthage, Attorneys for Appellant.

Office of the Attorney General by Scott Stuart, Attorney for Appellee.

EN BANC:

COLEMAN, J., for the Court:

¶ 1. Pursuant to the trial of the appellant, Marion Ornellist Wansley, on an indictment for the felony of burglary of a dwelling house "of the property of R.P. Howell, with the ... burglarious intent to take, steal and carry away certain goods... in said dwelling house and being the personal property of R.P. Howell ... kept therein for his use and deposit ....," a jury in the Circuit Court of Neshoba County returned a verdict of "Guilty as charged." Based on the jury's verdict of guilty, the trial court entered its judgment of conviction in which it sentenced Wansley to serve a term of ten years in the Mississippi Department of Corrections. Ms. Wansley has appealed from this judgment and sentence to present for this Court's analysis and resolution the following two issues, which this Court quotes verbatim from Ms. Wansley's brief:

1. The Court erred in admitting into evidence two of the statements made by appellant without requiring that all be introduced.
2. The Court erred in failing to instruct the jury that the testimony of accomplice Joey Farve should be weighed with great caution.

Nevertheless, we affirm the trial court's judgment and sentence imposed on Ms. Wansley.

I. FACTS

¶ 2. Our recitation of the facts is a synthesis of the testimony consistent with the jury's verdict that Ms. Wansley was guilty of the burglary of Robert P. Howell's dwelling. Portions of our recitation are quoted directly from the record. A police officer for the City of Union referred to Robert P. Howell as "Colonel Howell," and so will we.

¶ 3. Around 9:30 a. m. on Sunday, April 13, 1997, Colonel Howell left his home on the Neshoba County side of County Line Street in the City of Union to attend church. Within a few minutes of noon, Howell returned from church. He parked his vehicle at his neighbor's house located across the street from his house so that he could walk his neighbor's dog. While Howell was walking his neighbor's dog, he crossed the street and approached the west end of his house. There, he "heard some ... low voices;" next, he "observed three people running across the vacant lot *195 to the rear of [his] house." Although Colonel Howell could not identify any of these three persons, the one who ran first had "a dark colored skin," and two African Americans followed him.

¶ 4. Colonel Howell and his neighbor entered his home through its kitchen door. As he opened it, he "observed many items scattered across the kitchen floor," which he recognized "had come from a billfold." Howell next walked into the den, where he observed "the sliding doors to the patio, open." Howell knew that he had not left the doors open when he left for church. He noticed that a VCR and a CD player which "had been unplugged from the TV area" were in a chair "near the open door" to the patio from the den. Colonel Howell observed that the sliding-door frame had been bent near the latch.

¶ 5. Colonel Howell then entered the utility room "which [led] into the kitchen." There, he "found the screen ripped and the sliding window to the door ... cracked in the entry and ... open." The intruder "had reached inside and unlocked ... the kitchen door." The first item which Howell knew was missing was a .22 caliber rifle that he kept near the kitchen door. Howell called both 911 and the police station in Union. Union Police Officer James Hanna was enjoying his Sunday lunch at home when both his son, "who work[ed] for the ABC," and another unidentified person called him to report the burglary of Colonel Howell's home.

¶ 6. After Officer Hanna arrived at Colonel Howell's home and confirmed the burglary, someone told him that "Heather Sharp had seen someone leaving Colonel Howell's house." Armed with this information, Officer Hanna was looking for Heather Sharp when he saw Mr. Johnson, who gave him some additional information about the burglary. Based on Mr. Johnson's information, Officer Hanna drove north of Union, "outside the city limits," to a wooded area where he "found fresh tracks." After Officer Hanna "started looking down through the woods," he "saw the wet leaves had been shuffled around, where someone had been walking in the wet leaves." There he "raked some leaves back and saw guns, at least one long gun [he] knew was there at that time." Colonel Howell later identified the "long gun" as the .22 caliber rifle which he had found missing from beside his kitchen door.

¶ 7. Officer Hanna also determined from his inspection of the car tracks left after the car had "backed out" that the "left front tire print ... was slick." After Neshoba County deputy sheriffs had secured the scene in the woods outside the Union corporate limits, Officer Hanna contacted "ABC Agent 32." "ABC Agent 32" told Officer Hanna that he had located a car which matched the description that Mr. Johnson had given Officer Hanna parked at the Union Square Apartments. "ABC Agent 32" further advised Officer Hanna that the car, which Mr. Johnson had described as "a tan car with a kind of sloped off back with three people in it," had a slick tire on the left front.

¶ 8. After Officer Hanna arrived at the Union Square Apartments, he located an automobile that matched this description. However, no one there claimed ownership of the automobile. Officer Hanna checked the registration of the Hinds County license plate and learned that it was "registered to Marion Wansley." Around four o'clock that same afternoon, Sunday, April 13, Officer Hanna arrested Marion Wansley, whom he had not previously known, and took her to the police station in Union. After Officer Hanna advised Ms. Wansley of her Miranda rights not to incriminate herself and after he was satisfied that Ms. Wansley understood those rights, which understanding she demonstrated by signing a waiver of those rights, he handed her a sheet of paper. In her own handwriting, Ms. Wansley gave Officer Hanna a statement in which she admitted her participation in the burglary of Colonel Howell's home, although she denied entering it. Instead, Ms. Wansley wrote that Joey Allen *196 Farve had entered the home while she stood outside as a "lookout."

¶ 9. Two days later, after Officer Hanna had again Mirandized Ms. Wansley, she gave him a second statement, this one oral, in which she admitted that she had entered Colonel Howell's home with Farve and a juvenile. Pursuant to Ms. Wansley's written consent, Officer Hanna searched her car and found a "buck knife" beneath its driver's seat. Colonel Howell later identified it as the knife which he kept in the "radio room" of his home.

II. TRIAL

¶ 10. This was a no-nonsense, straight forward trial which began on the morning of November 12, 1997 and concluded at 2:30 the same afternoon when the jury returned its verdict of "Guilty as charged." The State called four witnesses in the following order: (1) Robert P. Howell, (2) Heather Sharp, (3) Joey Allen Farve, and (4) Union Police Officer James Hanna. We gleaned our recitation of the facts from the testimony of Colonel Howell and Officer Hanna.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
734 So. 2d 193, 1999 WL 30208, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wansley-v-state-missctapp-1999.