Fulks v. State

Summary

The Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed Tomarcus Monte Fulks’s conviction for armed robbery following his second trial. The court held that the trial court properly admitted Fulks’s prior testimony, denied his motion for judicial recusal, permitted the State to disclose a coindictee’s guilty plea during voir dire, and admitted the former testimony of an unavailable witness. The court found no abuse of discretion or plain error.

Holdings

1. A defendant's voluntarily given testimony from a prior criminal trial may be admitted in a subsequent trial as the defendant's own statement under Mississippi Rule of Evidence 801(d)(2), even when the defendant does not testify at the later trial.
2. The trial judge did not have to recuse himself because the record did not create a reasonable doubt about his impartiality, and Fulks failed to show manifest error.
3. The prosecutor's unobjected-to comments during voir dire concerning Glenn's guilty plea and sentence did not constitute plain error.
4. The trial court properly found Sherry Franks unavailable under Mississippi Rule of Evidence 804(a)(4) and admitted her former testimony under the former-testimony exception.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the trial court properly admitted Fulks's testimony from the first trial as a statement by a party-opponent.
2. Whether the trial judge committed manifest error by denying Fulks's motion for recusal based on remarks concerning the reversal of the first trial.
3. Whether the prosecutor's remarks during voir dire concerning Joshua Glenn's guilty plea and sentence constituted plain error.
4. Whether the trial court properly found Sherry Franks unavailable and admitted her former testimony under Mississippi Rule of Evidence 804.

Disposition

affirmed