Francis S. Bowling

This case concerned the Mississippi Public Service Commission's denial of South Central Bell Telephone Company's requested intrastate rate increase, which the company had implemented under bond. The Chancery Court reversed the Commission's order and directed approval of rates sufficient for an 11.85% return on the adjusted rate base. On appeal, the Mississippi Supreme Court reversed the Chancellor, reinstated the Commission's denial, and remanded for further proceedings. The Court held that the Commission, as the expert fact-finder and legislative arm, is entitled to a presumption of validity for its orders when supported by substantial evidence, and the utility bears the burden of proving entitlement to any increase. It found the Commission's determination neither arbitrary nor confiscatory under the applicable statutes and precedents governing utility regulation.

business & regulatory

Jeff Yates was convicted of murder after shooting a man dating his estranged wife and was sentenced to life imprisonment. The main issue on appeal was whether his confession was admissible, given that police refused access to an attorney hired by his parents who arrived at the jail during interrogation, without informing Yates of the attorney's presence, though Yates had received Miranda warnings and signed a waiver of rights. The Mississippi Supreme Court held the confession admissible, ruling that the waiver was knowing and intelligent under the totality of circumstances. The court followed the line of authority that does not require police to notify a suspect of counsel's presence absent a request for an attorney, and it overruled prior state precedent to the contrary.

criminal lawprocedure

Stringer v. State involved the conviction of James R. Stringer in Hinds County Circuit Court for capital murder arising from the 1982 armed robbery and killings of Ray and Nell McWilliams in their home, with the jury imposing a death sentence after a bifurcated trial. On appeal and in a related writ of error coram nobis proceeding, Stringer raised multiple assignments of error, including improper cross-examination about lie detector tests and drug use, admission of unrelated evidence such as a concealed weapon, ineffective assistance of counsel, and questioning a witness about prior charges. The Mississippi Supreme Court reviewed the full record, including accomplice testimony from Mike Meddars and Rhonda Brock corroborated by other evidence, and found no merit in the claims of evidentiary error, procedural unfairness, or ineffective representation. The court therefore affirmed both the guilt-phase conviction and the death sentence, directing execution to proceed. The opinion also catalogs other affirmed Mississippi death penalty cases for reference.

criminal lawprocedure

In Blanks v. State, Kenny Blanks and Paul Robinson were jointly tried and convicted of armed robbery in Newton County Circuit Court and each sentenced to thirty years in prison after the jury could not agree on a sentence. On appeal, they challenged the denial of a severance, the admission of eyewitness identification testimony by Gatha Lackey, the limit on peremptory challenges for jointly tried defendants, a judge's comment during testimony, and the giving of a Sharplin jury instruction. The Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed the convictions, holding that the trial judge did not abuse discretion in denying severance because the evidence did not prejudice one defendant over the other, that the identification was reliable under the totality of the circumstances and not impermissibly suggestive, and that the remaining assignments of error did not constitute reversible error under state law and precedent.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involves Marion Albert Pruett's petition to the Mississippi Supreme Court for leave to file a writ of error coram nobis in the Circuit Court of Lowndes County, seeking to challenge his 1982 capital murder conviction and death sentence, which had been affirmed on direct appeal. The court denied the petition, holding that the claims—such as issues with jury instructions, closing arguments, pre-sentence reports, and appellate review—were either procedurally barred because they were not properly raised at trial or on appeal, or constituted improper attempts to relitigate matters already decided. The core reasoning relied on established principles that coram nobis is an extraordinary remedy limited to correcting errors of fact outside the record that were unknown at the time of trial and not discoverable through due diligence, and that post-conviction proceedings do not allow multiple bites at the apple after the opportunity for a fair trial and appeal has passed.

criminal lawprocedure

The case concerned whether an insurance company could be held liable for punitive damages after denying a policyholder's claim for hospital and medical benefits under a newly issued hospitalization policy. The policyholder, who had a third-grade education, testified that the company's agent completed the application without reading the health questions and was told to obtain medical records from the applicant's physician, while the company later denied the claim based on undisclosed prior medical conditions such as transient ischemic attacks. The trial court submitted both the contract claim and the punitive damages claim to the jury, which awarded $2,416 in actual damages and $158,000 in punitive damages. The Mississippi Supreme Court held that the evidence was sufficient to create a jury question on punitive damages liability, reasoning that the company's arguable basis for denial did not preclude a finding of bad faith given the agent's conduct and the timing of the policy issuance. A dissent argued that the company's knowledge of the applicant's health history provided an arguable reason to deny the claim, precluding punitive damages as a matter of law.

business & regulatorytorts & liability