The Mississippi Supreme Court reversed Leon Johnson's capital murder conviction and death sentence and remanded for a new trial solely because the trial court erred in denying his motion for a change of venue, Part II concluding that months of intensive pretrial publicity and the testimony of fifteen witnesses to…
Mississippi Supreme Court, 1985
Published opinions from 1985. The case name opens the case page.
1985 opinions
MississippiSamuel Johnson, A/K/A Samuel Bice Johnson v. State of Mississippi.
May 8, 1985477 So. 2d 196
The court affirmed Johnson's capital-murder conviction and death sentence, rejecting challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence, trial rulings, jury instructions, prosecutorial argument, and sentencing procedures.
The court affirmed the capital-murder conviction and death sentence after rejecting each assignment of error. It held that any hearsay error involving the accomplice's account was nonprejudicial, the challenged searches and identification procedure were constitutionally permissible, and the penalty-phase instructions…
The court reversed Fuselier's capital-murder conviction and death sentence because several trial errors undermined the fairness and reliability of both the guilt and sentencing proceedings.