King v. State

Summary

The Mississippi Supreme Court reviewed Mack Arthur King’s appeal from a 2003 resentencing trial in which he received a death sentence for capital murder. King raised eleven claims, including denial of expert assistance, procedures for determining intellectual disability, jury selection, victim-impact evidence, aggravating circumstances, and jury instructions. The court found no reversible error and affirmed the trial court’s judgment.

Holdings

1. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying funds for an independent pathologist or mental-health expert because King failed to demonstrate a substantial need or prejudice. The State's pathologist's testimony was effectively challenged on cross-examination, and the jury heard evidence concerning King's mental functioning.
2. King received a constitutionally sufficient Atkins hearing, and the trial court properly found that he had not established mental retardation by a preponderance of the evidence.
3. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying a change of venue because King failed to establish an irrebuttable presumption of community prejudice, and the State showed that an impartial jury was impaneled.
4. King was barred from challenging the indictment at his resentencing because the claim was untimely under the Mississippi Post-Conviction Collateral Relief Act and had not been raised earlier.
5. King's approximately twenty-five-year incarceration on death row did not constitute cruel and unusual punishment or independently bar resentencing, and references to death row did not establish unavoidable jury bias.
6. The trial court properly excused prospective jurors Stewart and Tucker for cause because their responses showed that their views would substantially impair their ability to follow the law and perform their duties.
7. King could not relitigate his guilt or present residual-doubt evidence that someone else killed Patterson during the resentencing proceeding.
8. The victim-impact testimony describing the effect of Patterson's death on her daughter and family was permissible and did not render the resentencing fundamentally unfair.
9. The HAC instruction, although not phrased exactly as previously directed, satisfied the minimum constitutional and state-law narrowing requirement, and the evidence sufficiently supported submission of the aggravator.
10. The trial court did not commit reversible error by refusing mercy instructions, by using the challenged weighing instruction, by asking the jury to correct the form of its verdict, by submitting the avoiding-arrest aggravator, by refusing an accomplice mitigator, or by refusing a circumstantial-evidence instruction.
11. No individual or cumulative error required reversal, and the death sentence was neither arbitrarily imposed nor excessive or disproportionate.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the trial court abused its discretion by denying funds for independent pathologist and mental-health experts.
2. Whether the trial court followed constitutionally adequate procedures in determining that King was not mentally retarded and therefore was eligible for execution under Atkins v. Virginia.
3. Whether the trial court abused its discretion by denying a change of venue.
4. Whether the indictment was insufficient to support the death penalty because it identified burglary without specifying the felony underlying the burglary.
5. Whether King's lengthy incarceration on death row and alleged resulting jury bias barred imposition of the death penalty.
6. Whether prospective jurors were improperly excused because of their views on capital punishment.
7. Whether King could present evidence at resentencing that he was not Patterson's actual killer.
8. Whether victim-impact testimony rendered the resentencing fundamentally unfair.
9. Whether the especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel aggravator was improperly instructed or unsupported by the evidence.
10. Whether the jury instructions improperly denied mercy, misstated the weighing process, failed to require an Enmund finding, improperly submitted the avoiding-arrest aggravator, omitted an accomplice mitigator, or required a circumstantial-evidence instruction.
11. Whether cumulative error required reversal.
12. Whether the death sentence was disproportionate or imposed under passion, prejudice, or another arbitrary factor.

Disposition

affirmed