Opinion ID: 864346
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: whether the court erred by failing to grant the

Text: PEREMPTORY INSTRUCTION, MOTION FOR JUDGMENT NOTWITHSTANDING THE VERDICT, OR IN THE ALTERNATIVE, A NEW TRIAL IN THAT THE JURY VERDICT WAS AGAINST THE OVERWHELMING WEIGHT OF THE 9 EVIDENCE AND THE STATE FAILED TO PROVE CRIMINAL AGENCY. ¶24. Starns finally argues that the trial court erred in denying her request for a peremptory instruction and her motion for acquittal or for a new trial. ¶25. This Court will not reverse a trial court’s denial of a motion for acquittal unless, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, the verdict was not based on sufficient evidence. Pruitt v. State, 807 So.2d 1236, 1242-43 (Miss. 2002). This Court will not reverse a trial court’s denial of a motion for new trial unless, accepting the evidence that supports the verdict as true, the verdict was against the overwhelming weight of the evidence. Pruitt, 807 So.2d at 1242-43. ¶26. Starns was the only person with Angela when she stopped breathing. Starns said that she found Angela with her arm caught in the couch face down and that Angela smothered as a result. However, there were no bruises on Angela’s arm, and the doctors who examined her and performed the autopsy, as well as the expert who examined the facts, all said Angela could not have died by having her arm caught in the couch. ¶27. Starns urged that an autopsy should not be done, and she became angry when she learned that one would be done. Dr. Mary Case testified that it was her opinion that Angela died as a result of homicide and not as a result of an accident or suicide. When asked about the report of Angela being found face down on the couch, her arm caught in the mechanism, and that causing her head to be positioned so that she could not breathe, Dr. Case testified: “That is a story that is not a possibility.” ¶28. Dr. LeRoy Riddick, the State Medical Examiner for the State of Alabama, co-signed an autopsy report that Dr. Gary Cumberland, another medical examiner, performed on Angela in 1984. Dr. 10 Cumberland said he was led to believe that Angela died in a full-size hide-a-bed folding couch that rolls out into a full-size bed. He further stated that a photograph of the couch would have been important to him in determining the manner of death. ¶29. Dr. Riddick also testified that the reason given did not make good sense but that it was possible, however, that a four-year-old girl could have died in a folding couch operated by a spring mechanism where the seat could push up against the back of the couch. He said that the photographs of the couch admitted into evidence at trial did not depict the type of couch he had envisioned in 1984, and if he had seen the pictures of the couch in 1984 they would have affected his conclusions. ¶30. The verdict was based on sufficient evidence. The verdict was not against the overwhelming weight of evidence. The trial court correctly denied the peremptory instruction and motion for acquittal or a new trial. This issue is without merit.