Opinion ID: 864346
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: whether the state was required to prove an act

Text: DONE BY STARNS TO CAUSE THE DEATH OF ANGELA SCHNOOR. 5 ¶12. Starns argues that neither the indictment nor jury Instruction C-71 stated any act taken by her to cause Angela’s death. Starns moved for a directed verdict, specifically pointing out that the State had failed to establish an act by her that caused Angela’s death. The trial court denied the motion. ¶13. The State argues that Instruction C-7 sufficiently charged the jury with the act committed by Starns, by using the language “causing her asphyxiation.” Instruction C-7 reads as follows: The Court instructs the Jury that, should you find from the evidence in this case, beyond a reasonable doubt and to the exclusion of every reasonable hypothesis consistent with innocence that: 1. On or about the 28th day of July, 1984, in Lauderdale County, Mississippi; 2. The Defendant, Peggy Sloan Starns, did wilfully, unlawfully and feloniously, without authority of law 3. and with deliberate design to effect the death, kill and murder a human being, Angela Schnoor, by causing her asphyxiation, then it is your sworn duty to find the Defendant guilty of Murder. Should the State fail to prove any one or more of these essential elements beyond a reasonable doubt and to the exclusion of every reasonable hypothesis consistent with innocence, then you shall find the Defendant not guilty of Murder. (emphasis added.) ¶14. The State contends that the asphyxiation was itself the act and that it was sufficient to tell the jury that somehow Starns caused Angela to suffer a lack of oxygen which led to her death. The State also argues that the indictment does not have to set forth the manner or means by which the death was caused and that it is sufficient to charge murder in the proper terms. 1 The State offered Instruction S-2(A), which the Court adopted as C-7. Starns refers to C-7 as S-2(A) whereas the State refers only to C-7. 6 ¶15. Starns relies on Edwards v. State, 755 So.2d 443 (Miss. Ct. App. 1999), to support her contention that the State must put forth a coherent theory and prove through evidence that Starns committed an act to cause Angela to asphyxiate. In Edwards, the parents of a four year old child were charged with culpable negligence manslaughter after the child drowned while on a camping excursion with his parents. A review of that case shows that it is inapplicable. Edwards involved reversal and dismissal of criminal charges due to improper jury instructions and insufficient evidence. In the present case, C-7 properly charged the jury on the fact-finding it had to perform. Its job was to evaluate the evidence and determine if Starns asphyxiated Angela. In other words, it had to determine whether the evidence proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Starns stopped Angela from being able to take in oxygen long enough to cause her death. ¶16. The State’s theory was that Starns was the only person with Angela when she stopped breathing. The doctors testified that the couch could not have caught Angela’s arm and held her so she could not breathe, as Starns asserted in her version of the cause of Angela’s death. Whether Starns pressed her face into something by pushing on the back of her head or closed her nose and covered her mouth, the State’s theory of suffocation and death by asphyxiation was sufficiently charged in C-7. This issue is without merit. III. WHETHER THE INDICTMENT PROPERLY APPRISED STARNS OF THE NATURE AND CAUSE OF THE ACCUSATIONS AGAINST HER. ¶17. Starns’s indictment reads in pertinent part: “PEGGY SLOAN STARNS in said County and State, on or about the 28th day of July, A.D., 1984 did wilfully, unlawfully, and feloniously, without authority of law and with deliberate design to effect death, kill and murder a human being, ANGELA SCHNOOR . . . .” 7 ¶18. An indictment must apprise a defendant of the “nature and cause of the accusations” against her. U.S. Const. amend. V; Miss. Const. art. 3, § 26. ¶19. The Mississippi Code instructs: In an indictment for homicide it shall not be necessary to set forth the manner in which or the means by which the death of the deceased was caused, but it shall be sufficient to charge in an indictment for murder, that the defendant did feloniously, wilfully, and of his malice aforethought, kill and murder the deceased. Miss. Code Ann. § 99-7-37 (Rev. 2000). ¶20. The Uniform Circuit and County Court Rules further provide: The indictment upon which the defendant is to be tried shall be a plain, concise and definite written statement of the essential facts constituting the offense charged and shall fully notify the defendant of the nature and cause of the accusation. Formal and technical words are not necessary in an indictment, if the offense can be substantially described without them. An indictment shall also include the following:
2. The date on which the indictment was filed in court; 3. A statement that the prosecution is brought in the name and by the authority of the State of Mississippi; 4. The county and judicial district in which the indictment is brought; 5. The date and, if applicable, the time at which the offense was alleged to have been committed. Failure to state the correct date shall not render the indictment insufficient; 6. The signature of the foreman of the grand jury issuing it; and 7. The words “against the peace and dignity of the state.” URCCC 7.06 (2003). ¶21. Starns argues that her indictment did not apprise her of the nature and cause of the accusations against her because it did not follow Rule 7.06's “plain, concise and definite written statement of the essential facts constituting the offense charged” requirement. She also argues that Section 99-7-37's instruction “[i]n an indictment for homicide it shall not be necessary to set forth the manner in which or the 8 means by which the death of the deceased was caused” should not be followed because it is inconsistent with Rule 7.06 and Rule 7.06 trumps pursuant to Newell v. State, 308 So.2d 71 (Miss. 1975), and Miss. R. Evid. 1103. Furthermore, she also argues that the instruction is unconstitutional because it does not track Miss. Const. art. 3, § 26's “nature and cause of the accusation” language. ¶22. This Court recently addressed this issue in Jones v. State, 856 So.2d 285 (Miss. 2003), where the defendant alleged that his homicide indictment did not apprise him of the nature and cause of the accusations against him because it did not specifically state how he committed the crime. This Court held: [T]he defense is not entitled to notice of specific overt acts charged to have caused a murder. Accordingly, the statute [99-7-37] does not violate Jones’s constitutional notice rights. Moreover, the record makes clear that Jones was not in any way prejudiced by the indictment in the preparation of his defense.