Case Name: Martin Luther WILSON v. STATE of Mississippi
Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Mississippi
Decision Date: 1994-06-30
Citations: 639 So. 2d 1326
Docket Number: No. 91-KA-00563
Parties: Martin Luther WILSON v. STATE of Mississippi.
Judges: HAWKINS, C.J., PRATHER, P.J., and SULLIVAN, PITTMAN and JAMES L. ROBERTS, Jr., JJ., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 639
Pages: 1326–1334

Head Matter:
Martin Luther WILSON v. STATE of Mississippi.
No. 91-KA-00563.
Supreme Court of Mississippi.
June 30, 1994.
Rehearing Denied Aug. 18, 1994.
Randall L. Miller, Quitman, for appellant.
Michael C. Moore, Atty. Gen., Charles W. Maris, Jr., Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.

Opinion:
SMITH, Justice,
for the Court:
Martin Luther Wilson was convicted in Hinds County Circuit Court of the crime of business burglary and sentenced to serve six years with the Mississippi Department of Corrections. We affirm his conviction and sentence.
THE FACTS
Wilson was arrested on May 14, 1990, for burglarizing an old historic home which was not then being used as a residence but as a place to store property of the owner, Ruth Champion, and her family. Wilson was apprehended and arrested by Officers Robbie Stevens and Steve Bailey of the Hinds County Sheriffs Department.
The officers testified that at 10:10 a.m. on May 14,1990 they were dispatched to answer an alarm on Champion Hill Road. Since the house is not immediately accessible by car, the officers parked their car and walked to the house. As they approached the house, they heard noise coming from the inside, as if someone were "rummaging around." Approximately five to ten minutes later, Wilson crawled out of a window of the house, throwing a car stereo amplifier and a magazine on the ground. When the officers stopped Wilson, he told them he had permission to be in the house because he was there for some type of "business transaction." When asked, Wilson could not tell the officers who was the owner of the house. Wilson was then arrested and taken to the Hinds County Detention Center.
Wilson was indicted for burglary under Miss.Code Ann. § 97-17-33 (Supp.1990), commonly referred to as "business burglary" but which includes breaking and entering of buildings other than a dwelling. Wilson entered a plea of not guilty.
At trial Wilson maintained that he was at the house to meet a friend named "Jimmie Mack." According to Wilson, Jimmie Mack owed him twenty dollars and had agreed to give Wilson the car stereo amplifier in repayment of the debt. Wilson claimed Mack told him that the house belonged to Jimmie Mack's mother and that he was living there. Wilson stated that Mack gave him directions to the house and told him to meet him there on the morning of May 14, 1990. Wilson testified that when he arrived nobody answered the door, but he spotted the amplifier through an open window and took the amplifier off the bed some two to three feet from the window. Wilson denied crawling out of the window or having done more than reach inside the house.
After being found guilty as charged, Wilson perfected this appeal.
DISCUSSION
Wilson raises several issues, only one of which warrants discussion:
WHETHER THE COURT ERRED IN DENYING DEFENSE INSTRUCTION D-6 WHICH WOULD HAVE ALLOWED THE JURY TO FIND MARTIN WILSON GUILTY OF THE LESSER INCLUDED OFFENSE OF TRESPASS.
Wilson contended at trial that Jimmie Mack had told him he could have the amplifier in settlement of the debt owed Wilson. Wilson also contended that Wilson had invited him to the property to pick up the amplifier. Wilson was not able to produce Jimmie Mack at trial or even to produce anyone else other than himself who could even verify that Mack ever existed.
Wilson would have this Court reverse and remand this case for a new trial based on the failure of the trial judge to give an instruction to the jury on a lesser included offense for which there is no evidentiary basis. The lesser included offense of trespass was never argued as a defense and no proper instruction was offered.
At trial, Wilson defended on two theories: that he was not guilty of any crime because he had permission to be on the property and to take the amplifier and that the crime charged should have been "house burglary" rather than "business burglary." There is not a single indication from Wilson's testimony or any of the arguments or questions of his counsel that Wilson presented at trial a defense that he was not guilty of burglary, but at most guilty of trespass, as is erroneously contended. The only testimony from which to even surmise this defense is a single equivocal answer given by Wilson and this answer leading to this surmise was only brought out in cross-examination by the prosecution. When asked if Jimmie Mack had told him to break in if he was not there, Wilson answered: "No, he didn't tell me — he told me where the amp was and he told me, said if — he told me that if he weren't there, which I told him I would prefer that he had been, there, but he said if he weren't there, he told me where the amp was gonna be and it was exactly were he told me it was."
The evidence by which a jury could find Wilson not guilty of burglary was to the effect that he had permission to be on the property and to take the amplifier. Officer Robbie Stephens testified that Wilson told him at the time he was arrested that "he was supposed to be there; that he had permission to be in the house." In his presentation of the case and on direct examination, Wilson testified that he had been given directions to the house and told to come Monday morning and that he "got the amplifier 'cause he told me come get the amplifier." Wilson also testified, "I wasn't in a hurry going to the house 'cause I figured I had permission— legally (sic) permission to go to the property." Wilson's defense was meager and never presented the alternative of guilty of trespass, contrary to what is now argued.
Wilson's entire argument on appeal in support of the contention that he was entitled to a lesser included offense instruction is as follows:
The case sub judice is a perfect case for the allowance of a lesser included offense instruction of trespassing. Wilson asserts this because he steadfastly maintained his innocence of burglary, he stated he was on the property because he had been told to go there, and because he couldn't find the person who told him to go there.
Denying the lesser included offense instruction denied the jury the option of finding him guilty of a misdemeanor. Wilson may have been trespassing and an instruction on the lesser included offense should, for that reason, have been given. See Murphy v. State, 566 So.2d 1201 (Miss.1990); Young v. State, 451 So.2d 208 (Miss.1984); Gayles [Sayles] v. State, 552 So.2d 1383 (Miss.1989). See Clerk's papers 15, R.E. 5).
Wilson fails to state any evidence supporting an instruction on trespass or indicate that he argued this theory to the court or the jury. The most he can muster is that "Wilson may have been trespassing."
As to the propriety of granting the lesser included instruction, this Court stated in Mease v. State, 539 So.2d 1324, 1329-1330 (Miss.1989):
We have repeatedly held that the accused is entitled to a lesser offense instruction only where there is an evidentiary basis in the record therefor. Lee v. State, 469 So.2d 1225, 1230 (Miss.1985): Ruffin v. State, 444 So.2d 839, 840 (Miss.1984); Colburn v. State, 431 So.2d 1111, 1114 (Miss.1983). Such instructions should not be granted indiscriminately. Lee v. State, 469 So.2d at 1230, see, e.g., Ruffin v. State, 444 So.2d at 840; Colburn v. State, 431 So.2d at 1114, nor on the basis of pure speculation. People v. Simpson, 57 Ill.App.3d 442, 448-49, 15 Ill.Dec. 463, 466, 373 N.E.2d 809, 812 (1978); Fairchild v. State, 459 So.2d 793, 801 (Miss.1984).
In the case before the Court there is no evidentiary basis in the record and at best the instruction would be based purely on speculation or surmise.
In Toliver v. State, 600 So.2d 186, 192 (Miss.1992), this Court held:
The jury was clearly and plainly instructed as to each of the essential ingredients of the crime charged, and was clearly and plainly told that unless it found Toliver guilty of every one of those essential ingredients, it must under its oath return a verdict of not guilty and discharge him. To have been entitled to a lesser included offense instruction, it was incumbent upon Toliver to point to some evidence in the record from which a jury could, other than by mere surmise, find him not guilty of the crime for which he was charged and at the same time find him guilty of a lesser included offense. Whitehurst v. State, 540 So.2d [1319] at 1327 [ (Miss.1989) ]; Harper v. State, 478 So.2d [1017] at 1021 [ (Miss.1985) ]; Fairchild v. State, 459 So.2d at 799.
(Emphasis in original; underlining added).
In numerous cases this Court has not hesitated to find that a lesser included instruction was not required where the instruction was not supported by the evidence. See Porter v. State, 616 So.2d 899, 909 (Miss.1993) (Porter's version did not support instruction of simple assault in aggravated assault case.); Toliver v. State, 600 So.2d at 192 (no evidence of simple assault in rape case); Deal v. State, 589 So.2d 1257, 1260 (Miss.1991) (court refused instruction on trespass in larceny case, ruling: "I believe that this case is all or nothing. I don't think there is any proof that shows, either by the State or by the defendant.... a lesser included offense would be authorized."); Colburn v. State, 431 So.2d 1111, 1114 (Miss.1983) (no evidence that wounds inflicted were other than serious with great risk of death and simple assault instruction was not given); Norman v. State, 385 So.2d 1298, 1301 (Miss.1980) ("From Norman's testimony, it is obvious, however, that he was guilty of either aggravated assault or no crime at all. The evidence did not support a 'middle ground' theory."). The present case follows this line of cases. Based on Wilson's testimony he was not guilty of any crime at all. There was no evidence of a "middle ground."
In addition to lacking an evidentiary base and requiring the jury to enter into the realm of surmise, the instruction offered by Wilson has several other flaws. The instruction persistently referred to "house burglary," which is not the crime with which Wilson was charged. Miss.Code Ann. § 97-17-33 (Supp.1991), the statute under which Wilson was charged and convicted, is often referred to as "business burglary" but, as the title indicates, the statute covers "Burglary— breaking and entering building other than dwelling house." The proof showed that the house in question was not occupied or used for a dwelling at the time. This Court in Watson v. State, 254 Miss. 82, 85, 179 So.2d 826, 827 (1965) stated:
The essence of the distinction made by the court in the cited cases between burglary of a dwelling and burglary of a build ing not a dwelling is that in the former the building must then be a place of human abode....
If the building is not - a place where people reside, section 2043 [now Section 97-17-33] applies.
Besides being an incorrect statement of the law, the offered instruction does not set forth the elements of trespass or differentiate between the crimes of burglary and trespass. As noted in Harper v. State, 478 So.2d 1017, 1022 (Miss.1985), "[a] sentence explaining the difference between trespass and burglary would have been appropriate." To have done less would have confused the jury. This Court has condemned confusing and misleading instructions on numerous occasions. Sudduth v. State, 562 So.2d 67, 72 (Miss.1990); Holmes v. State, 483 So.2d 684, 686 (Miss.1986).
As to the duty of the trial judge to reform the instruction, assuming arguendo a factual basis for the instruction exists, this Court stated in Harper v. State, 478 So.2d 1017, 1022 (Miss.1985):
Where the disputed instruction relates to a central feature of the case and where there is no other instruction before the court which treats the matter, Thomas [v. State, 278 So.2d 469 (Miss.1973) ] holds it error to refuse an instruction on grounds that "it has been inartfully drawn." 278 So.2d at 472.
Accord, Lee v. State, 469 So.2d 1225, 1232 (Miss.1985)
To find that "the disputed instruction relates to a central feature of the ease" again requires this Court to create something in or from the record which is not there. Evidence and argument of trespass as a defense were not part of the trial and have not been argued on appeal. If this was presented to the jury it was in arguments not provided to this Court. As has been often stated, it is incumbent upon the appellant to see that the record of the trial proceedings supporting error is brought before this Court. Smith v. State, 572 So.2d 847, 849 (Miss.1990); Walker v. Jones County Community Hospital, 253 So.2d 385 (Miss.1971). That there is support for this contention in the omitted arguments is purely speculation.
CONCLUSION
Under the standard of Thomas and Harper the judge was not in error in failing to reform the jury instruction. Although inart-fully drawn, the instruction did not relate to a central feature of the case based on the record, in addition to lacking an evidentiary base.
If a lesser included instruction can be justified much less required under the circumstances of this case then this Court should hold that a lesser included instruction should be given in each and every case. There was no error in the denial of this jury instruction. Wilson's conviction and sentence are affirmed.
CONVICTION OF BUSINESS BURGLARY AND SENTENCE OF SIX (6) YEARS IN THE CUSTODY OF MISSISSIPPI DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, AFFIRMED.
HAWKINS, C.J., PRATHER, P.J., and SULLIVAN, PITTMAN and JAMES L. ROBERTS, Jr., JJ., concur.
McRAE, J., concurs in result only.
DAN M. LEE, P.J., dissents with separate written opinion, joined by BANKS, J.