Home/Court of Appeals of Mississippi/Whitehead v. State

Whitehead v. State

967 So. 2d 56, 2007 WL 900972
Court of Appeals of Mississippi·Decided March 27, 2007·No. 2005-KA-01364-COA·Published·Cited by 4 cases

Opinion

¶ 1. Marcus Whitehead was convicted of two counts of aggravated assault by a Hinds County jury. He was sentenced to consecutive terms of twenty years on each count in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections. Aggrieved, Whitehead appeals and asserts (1) that he was denied his due process right to a fair trial, and (2) that the trial court abused its discretion in overruling certain objections and in denying his motion for a mistrial.1

¶ 2. Finding no error, we affirm.

FACTS
¶ 3. Around 3:00 a.m. on November 8, 2003, Dominique Land, Tikeshia Land's daughter, alerted Tikeshia that someone was "pounding" on the door of their apartment at the North Colony Apartment complex in Jackson, Mississippi. Tikeshia opened the door and discovered that it was Whitehead. She allowed him to enter.2 Once inside, Whitehead asked for some water and went into the kitchen to get the water. In the meantime, Takeshia sat on the couch and instructed Dominique to return to bed. When Whitehead returned from the kitchen, he began to stab Tikeshia in the neck with a knife. Dominique heard her mother's screams and came to her rescue by jumping on Whitehead's back in an effort to stop him from stabbing her mother. Whitehead threw Dominique across the across the room and at some point stabbed her in the eye.

¶ 4. At trial, Tikeshia and Dominique, as well as other witnesses, testified against *Page 59 Whitehead. However, since Whitehead does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence against him, we dispense with a recitation of all the facts surrounding the crimes and will only relate additional facts, as appropriate, during our discussion of the issues.

ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF THE ISSUES
1. Denial of Due Process and Right to a Fair Trial

¶ 5. Under this issue, Whitehead argues that he is entitled to a new trial because the prosecutor engaged in improper conduct during her opening statement, her cross-examination of him, and during her closing argument. The Mississippi Supreme Court has held that "where the natural and probable effect of the improper argument of the prosecuting attorney is to create an unjust prejudice against the accused and to secure a decision influenced by the prejudice so created, a new trial should be granted." Craft v. State, 226 Miss. 426,435, 84 So.2d 531, 535 (1956). Therefore, we examine the instances of alleged misconduct in light of this standard.

¶ 6. In the first instance of alleged prosecutorial misconduct, the prosecutor made the following comment during her opening statement:

The last thing that you will hear, you will hear from Detective Amos Clinton. He's the detective that handled this case. He is going to testify about the statement that this defendant gave, and the fact that [the defendant] apparently had no knowledge of who Tikeshia Land or Dominique Land was until [the defendant] asked the Police Department, "did you get any fingerprints." At that point he refused to talk to the police after that.

Our review of the record reveals that the prosecutor was technically incorrect because, although Whitehead stopped relating his version of what occurred on the night of the stabbings, he did in fact continue to talk to the officers. Notwithstanding this fact, the prosecutor's remark was not a comment on Whitehead's constitutional right to remain silent, because Whitehead waived this right by signing a waiver of rights form and did not subsequently invoke it. Therefore, there is no merit to this issue.

¶ 7. In the second incident of alleged misconduct, Whitehead directs our attention to the following remark, also made during the prosecutor's opening statement:

The other part of this is Ms. Land, Tikeshia Land, is going to tell you, she's not real proud of this, but she had just gotten out of a long term relationship. She had been with a man for about three, three and a half years, has children with him. She had broken off with him about a month earlier. Mr. Whitehead starts coming snooping around. And Ms. Land is going to tell you —

Whitehead argues that the prosecutor's characterization of him as "snooping around" contributed to the denial of his right to a fair trial.

¶ 8. Whitehead also argues that the prosecutor's conduct was magnified by the "completely disrespectful manner in which the prosecutor cross-examined [him] by repeating questions [he] had previously answered, repeatedly asking him how Land and Dominique were stabbed when [he] insisted he did not know and continually interrupting his attempts to respond." We quote the specific exchange which according to Whitehead denied him a right to a fair trial:

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Whitehead v. State, 967 So. 2d 56, 2007 WL 900972 (Mich. Ct. App. 2007).

967 So. 2d 56 (Whitehead v. State) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related

Carothers v. State
152 So. 3d 331 (Court of Appeals of Mississippi, 2013)
James v. State
124 So. 3d 693 (Court of Appeals of Mississippi, 2013)
Moffett v. State
49 So. 3d 1073 (Mississippi Supreme Court, 2010)
Eric Moffett v. State of Mississippi
Mississippi Supreme Court, 2006