Opinion ID: 170999
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Michael Mussett

Text: Michael Mussett, who had been an inmate at the McCurtain County Jail with Mr. DeLozier, testified that during an argument Mr. DeLozier yelled to another inmate, Rodney Broades: I've already killed two men, mother fucker; I won't hesitate to kill you. Id. at 726. Mussett explained that because he was a trustee, he was not in a cell with the rest of the inmates, but was able to roam the jail's L-shaped hallway. When the statement was made, he was standing at the elbow, or pivot point of the L, looking in both directions. He could see Mr. DeLozier's ten-man cell (the Thunderdome) to the right, and Broades's seven-man cell on the hallway to the left. Broades was screaming at the door of the seven-man cell and Mr. DeLozier's face was visible through the Thunderdome's bean hole (a head-level opening in the cell door about six inches wide and 14 inches high). Mussett reported the incident to officials the following day. Although he admitted that his trustee status reduced his time to be served, he claimed to have received no special treatment for reporting the incident. On cross-examination Mussett admitted that someone standing at the pivot point of the hall could not see into the Thunderdome and that he wouldn't know [Mr. DeLozier's] voice from Adam. Id. at 730. Perrine further elicited that Mussett had known the victims all his life and knew when he went to jail that the people accused of killing them would be there. When asked whether he felt that he was helping the Morgans and Bullards by testifying, he said that he did not know. After Mussett testified, Perrine requested that the jury be permitted to visit the jail, saying, I went down there at lunch time and looked and ... [t]here's no way; you can't get enough of your face in that bean hole to identify who it is. Id. at 770. He argued that the defendant is entitled to have this jury go look for themselves to determine whether or not the witness Mussett is telling the truth about the way he identified the speaker of those words, because he said that was the only way he could identify them is by looking at him and seeing him through the bean hole. Id. The court denied the motion. Perrine later moved for permission to call a witness to rebut Mussett's testimony. The court granted the request, but the witness was never called.