Beasley v. State

362 So.3d 112

Javondus BEASLEY a/k/a Javondus M. Beasley, Appellant v. STATE of Mississippi, Appellee

NO. 2021-KA-00948-COA

Court of Appeals of Mississippi.

May 30, 2023

ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT: OFFICE OF STATE PUBLIC DEFENDER BY: W. DANIEL HINCHCLIFF

ATTORNEY FOR APPELLEE: OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL BY: ALEXANDRA LEBRON

BEFORE BARNES, C.J., LAWRENCE AND EMFINGER, JJ.

LAWRENCE, J., FOR THE COURT:

¶1. A Hinds County grand jury indicted Javondus Beasley (Beasley) for three counts of capital murder and one count of felon in possession of a firearm for the murder of Eldra Gibson, Ashley Taylor, and Sharrod Brown. In Beasley's first jury trial, he was found guilty of capital murder and two counts of second-degree murder. On appeal, this Court held that the denial of Beasley's request for a circumstantial evidence jury instruction was reversible error and reversed and remanded for a new trial. At his second trial, he was found guilty of capital murder in Count One and second-degree murder in Counts Two and Three. The trial court sentenced Beasley to life imprisonment without eligibility for parole for capital murder and two terms of thirty years in custody to run concurrently for the two convictions of second-degree murder. Beasley appeals, raising three issues. First, he claims there was insufficient evidence for a rational trier of fact to find that the State met the elements of the crimes charged. Second, he argues the verdicts were against the overwhelming weight of the evidence. Finally, he asserts that under the Weathersby rule, ¹ his version of the events had to be accepted as true, which would have necessitated a directed verdict or, in the alternative, his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to ask for a Weathersby instruction. Finding no error, we affirm.

FACTS

¶2. On October 30, 2013, Barbara Taylor dropped off her sister, Ashley Taylor, at Eldra Gibson's home, located at 175 Moon Street in Jackson, to visit Ashley's boyfriend, Sharrod Brown. Barbara was going to pick up Ashley from Eldra's house after work that night around 11:00 p.m. Barbara called Ashley at 10:56 p.m., 12:05 a.m., and 1:02 a.m., but she never answered. Barbara also called Eldra and Sharrod, but they, too, did not answer.

¶3. The next morning, Barbara went to Eldra's home looking for Ashley. When she arrived, the front gate was open, and the house was unlocked and had been ransacked, which was unusual for Eldra's home. After entering through the front door, she discovered Sharrod's and Ashley's bodies in a bedroom. Barbara immediately called 911 and reported what she had found.

¶4. Officers arrived and found Ashley, Sharrod, and Eldra deceased inside the house. Sharrod's body was on the floor, protruding halfway into the hallway from a bedroom, and Ashley's body was on the bed with her pink laptop. The officers found Eldra's body in an adjacent room with gym equipment.

¶5. Investigators quickly noticed that the home had metal bars on the windows preventing entry, and they all appeared undisturbed. The house had two doors. The front door was the only working entrance because the side door would not open. The house's foundation had been raised several years ago, which created a bulge that blocked the side door from opening inward. Furthermore, the side door's outer storm door could not be opened outward because it had been nailed shut for years. The State introduced a picture of the aluminum storm door sealed shut with a rusted nail. Lead Investigator Robert Bufkin concluded that there was no forced entry.

¶6. Investigators also quickly noticed that a motion-activated surveillance camera was posted outside the front door of the house. The investigators secured the camera and obtained video footage from it. The video footage showed Beasley as the last person to enter the home on the night of the crime. Beasley entered the house at approximately 10:24 p.m. and left at approximately 10:48 p.m. The video footage clearly showed someone from inside the house opened the front door to allow Beasley to enter. Beasley was arrested the following day and gave a statement to police denying the killings. A Hinds County grand jury originally indicted Beasley for three counts of capital murder for the deaths of the three victims. In his first trial, he was convicted by the jury of one count of capital murder and two counts of second-degree murder. Beasley v. State , 283 So. 3d 745, 747 (¶1) (Miss. Ct. App. 2019). After this Court reversed his convictions and remanded for a new trial, the State sought convictions for one count of capital murder and two counts of second-degree murder as was determined by the jury in his first trial. ²

¶7. The second trial commenced on May 10, 2021, and ended on May 17, 2021. The State's first witness was Robert Bufkin. At the time of the crime, Bufkin worked with the crime-scene investigation unit for the Jackson Police Department and was the lead crime-scene investigator for these deaths. Investigator Bufkin testified that he responded to the crime scene and started his investigation. Inside the house, he found the three deceased victims. He determined that the only usable entrance was the front door. The side door was not usable and was nailed shut. The windows had metal bars. He testified there was no forced entry to the side door or windows.

¶8. Further, Investigator Bufkin testified he located a spent shell casing behind a door in a room with a pool table. There was no victim found in that room. Two of the three victims were found in another bedroom, and the third victim was found in a room where gym equipment was located.

Despite there being three victims, investigators found only one shell casing. Investigator Bufkin testified he recovered a "spent projectile" that had traveled through one of the victims, across the room, "re-entered the Sheetrock," "struck a wooden 2 x 4" and "fell down" in "the interior of the wall." Investigator Bufkin had to "cut the wall to get" the spent projectile out.

¶9. Investigator Bufkin testified that the front door had an installed and working motion-activated surveillance camera. He indicated that Detective Jerry Shoulders collected the camera and its footage. Investigator Bufkin also identified photographs showing a particular bedroom had been ransacked. He explained some of "the drawers were open" and "had been emptied out," the "bed mattress had been overturned," and the "cabinet" in the "lavatory" was "open also." Finally, Investigator Bufkin testified he did not recover any money from the crime scene but did find some marijuana. During cross-examination, Investigator Bufkin admitted he collected numerous items from the scene to be tested for DNA, but they were never tested.

¶10. The State introduced a photograph (through Bufkin) that depicted an open door to a chest freezer in the kitchen. The photograph indicated ice was still in the freezer, meaning it was in working order.

¶11. The State then called Barbara Taylor to testify. She was "best friends" with her sister, Ashley, one of the victims in this case. Barbara had driven Ashley to Eldra's home earlier to visit her boyfriend, Sharrod Brown. ³ Barbara explained she dropped Ashley off around noon and was set to pick her up after work later that day. When Barbara got off work, she called Ashley to see if she was ready to be picked up, but Ashley never answered. As a result, Barbara started driving to the house. "[She] was calling [her] sister the entire time [she was] in route," but Ashley "wasn't responding." Barbara then stopped at her friend's house, and since her sister had not answered her multiple calls, she decided to go home for the evening.

¶12. Barbara testified that the next morning, "something just wasn't feeling right," and after learning that Ashley did not make it to work, Barbara "rushed to the house" to check on her sister. There she first noticed that the gate that was usually closed had been left open. Once she let herself in the house, she saw "a lot of trash, like a lot of [her] sister's belongings from her purse ... on the floor." She also noted that the mattresses were overturned. She testified that she had never seen the mattresses turned over or trash all over the floor when she had previously visited the home. She proceeded through the house and "found Sharrod laid across the door and [her] sister in the bed." Once she saw the two victims, she ran out of the house to call the police. During Barbara's testimony, she noted that she knew Eldra's security camera was motion-activated and that during previous visits to the house, she had watched recordings on Eldra's laptop.

¶13. The State called Bret Gibson Jr. to testify. Bret was Eldra's uncle. He had grown up in Eldra's home where the three victims were shot, so he was familiar with the home. During his testimony, he confirmed Investigator Bufkin's testimony that there was only "one way in and one way out" of Eldra's house. The side door could not be opened because when Eldra and Bret had raised the house's foundation, they "over jacked it" and "left a hump by [the] back door." The "screen door" had "a big nail nailed through the wood" so "you couldn't push the door open." The nail had been there "for years." Thus, the front door was the only workable entrance. Bret explained that the front door had a motion-activated security camera that "worked well" and "was always on[,] working." He noted that he had watched the video recorded from the camera on Eldra's "tablet" and sometimes on his TV.

¶14. The State called Detective Steven McNeal of the Jackson Police Department to testify. During his testimony, he confirmed that the victim's home had a motion-activated security camera that surveilled the home's front door. Before trial, Detective McNeal viewed the security camera footage. Detective McNeal testified that the time stamp on the video was off by approximately two hours, but he was able to determine the correct time because he knew...