Wheeler v. State

826 So. 2d 731, 2002 WL 31087654
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedSeptember 19, 2002
Docket2001-KA-00865-SCT
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 826 So. 2d 731 (Wheeler v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Wheeler v. State, 826 So. 2d 731, 2002 WL 31087654 (Mich. 2002).

Opinion

826 So.2d 731 (2002)

Vincent WHEELER a/k/a Vincent M. Wheeler
v.
STATE of Mississippi.

No. 2001-KA-00865-SCT.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

September 19, 2002.

*733 William Wayne Housley, Tupelo, attorney for appellant.

Office of the Attorney General by John R. Henry, attorneys for appellee.

Before McRAE, P.J., WALLER and COBB, JJ.

McRAE, P.J., for the Court.

¶ 1. Vincent M. Wheeler was tried and convicted in the Lee County Circuit Court of robbery, burglary, and aggravated assault of James Clark. Wheeler was ordered to make restitution to Clark's estate in the amount of $7,500.00 and sentenced to serve fifteen years for each offense in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections. On appeal, Wheeler asserts that (1) there was not sufficient evidence to convict him for robbery and burglary; (2) the trial court erred in denying his motions for directed verdict and for a new trial; (3) the trial court erred in allowing photographs, a photographic lineup, and an out-of-court identification into evidence; (4) he was denied his right to a speedy trial and was subjected to double jeopardy; (5) the trial court erred in not suppressing his statement to police; (6) the trial court erred in not granting a mistrial where witnesses made prejudicial statements; and (7) the cumulative effect of these errors greatly prejudiced him and therefore denied him a fair trial.

¶ 2. We find that the evidence was sufficient to support the convictions of robbery and burglary; that the trial court did not err in denying a directed verdict and new trial and in not granting a mistrial; that the trial court made no harmful evidentiary errors; that Wheeler's right to a speedy trial was not denied; that he was not subjected to double jeopardy; and that there were no cumulative errors which denied him a fair trial. Therefore, we affirm the convictions of robbery, burglary, and aggravated assault.

FACTS

¶ 3. Clark was an elderly man who lived by himself. He had three daughters and a granddaughter who lived nearby and checked on him daily. Clark kept large *734 sums of money on his person or in a hole in his mattress in his house. His two daughters, Barbara and Dorothy Copeland, and one granddaughter knew about the cash he kept on hand. Dorothy's boyfriend, Ozell Williams, apparently overheard Barbara and Dorothy discussing their father's aversion to banks and the large sums of cash he kept in his house. On May 11, 1999, Clark told Dorothy that Williams and another man came into his house in the middle of the night, hit him in the face, and took $1,500.00 from his wallet. Dorothy filed a police report to that effect. Clark and his granddaughter had recently counted his money; according to her, he had between $7,000 and $9,000. Williams was arrested four days later on different charges.

¶ 4. Late at night or in the early morning that Williams was arrested, Clark was severely beaten in his home, and his television and cash were taken. The time of the attack is unknown, but Williams was in jail from 1:00 a.m. until 4:52 a.m. and was not a suspect. The morning of the attack, Clark's granddaughter found him lying on the floor in a puddle of blood, with an extremely swollen face and several of his teeth knocked out. Clark was hospitalized for a couple of weeks and was then moved to a nursing home. He died a few months after the attack.

¶ 5. Wheeler was identified by four witnesses as being one of the men who was attempting to sell Clark's television around 6:00 a.m. the morning of the attack. He first attempted to sell the television to Clark's daughter, Barbara. Then he approached the Buford sisters, and one of them bought the television. The other later identified him through a photographic lineup. Wheeler was brought into the police station a few days after the incident and gave a statement to police admitting that he beat Clark and took the television from his home.

¶ 6. Wheeler was originally indicted for robbery, burglary and aggravated assault. As a result of the injuries sustained, Clark was placed in a nursing home and subsequently died. The prosecution then obtained an indictment for capital murder, and the trial court retired the original three-count indictment. The capital murder indictment was later retired, and the original indictment was reinstated. Wheeler was found guilty on all three counts and was sentenced to serve fifteen years for each crime. The fifteen-year sentence for burglary is to run consecutively with the fifteen-year sentence for robbery, and the fifteen-year sentence for aggravated assault is to run concurrently with the sentence for robbery.

DISCUSSION

I. WHETHER SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE WAS PRESENTED TO CONVICT WHEELER ON THE INDICTED CHARGE OF ROBBERY.

¶ 7. The prosecution was required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt each element of robbery. Miss.Code Ann. § 97-3-73 (2000) provides that the crime of robbery is committed by a "person who shall feloniously take the personal property of another, in his presence or from his person and against his will, by violence to his person or by putting such person in fear of some immediate injury to his person...." The indictment alleged that the property was taken from Clark "against his will by putting [the] victim in fear of some immediate injury to his person."

¶ 8. Wheeler argues that the prosecution did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he took the television from Clark's person or in his presence by putting *735 him in fear of some immediate injury. He submits that his statement to police and the testimony of witnesses that he was in possession of Clark's television was the only evidence connecting him to the crime and that all that this evidence showed was that "a couple of blows were passed and then the TV was taken." Wheeler submits that "Mr. Clark would not have been conscious or in fear of other injury." He contends that the most that prosecution has proven is receiving stolen property.

¶ 9. Wheeler relies upon Clayton v. State, 759 So.2d 1169, 1170 (Miss.1999), in which we found no evidence that the victim was in immediate fear of personal injury until after her purse was taken. He contends that since Clark did not see him take the television, he was not in immediate fear of personal injury. We are not swayed by this argument. In fact it is appalling. There is nothing in Miss.Code Ann. § 97-3-73 that suggests that the victim must be aware that his or her personal property is being taken, and certainly a victim's lack of awareness due to the perpetrator's actions, such as Wheeler admittedly hitting Clark, does not take Wheeler's actions outside of the robbery statute. We have held that "robbing a corpse in close proximity to the death of the victim is still robbery." Arthur v. State, 735 So.2d 213, 219 (Miss.1999). Likewise, rendering a person unconscious and then robbing him is also robbery within Miss.Code Ann. § 97-3-73.

¶ 10. In his statement, Wheeler averred that Clark was asleep when he got inside the house. He also admitted that Clark woke up and that he "hit him and knocked him back into his chair." Wheeler's willful attack on Clark and rendering him unconscious does not make the subsequent action of stealing Clark's television and/or cash something less than robbery. See

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
826 So. 2d 731, 2002 WL 31087654, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wheeler-v-state-miss-2002.