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134 So. 3d 732

Williams v. State

Mississippi Supreme Court

Decided March 27, 2014

Mississippi Supreme Court · decided 2014-03-27

Cited by 11 later decisions — most recently May 2018

11 state decisions

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“The Court instructs the jury that when a defendant makes an overt act and a reasonable person would believe that a deadly weapon is present, there is no requirement that a victim must actually see the deadly weapon. Therefore, if you believe from the evidence in this case that the Defendant, ARTEA CHILTON, intended for TINA GIBBS to believe that he was exhibiting a deadly weapon; to wit: a gun; and if you believe from the evidence in this case that Tina Gibbs did believe that ... Chilton[ ], was exhibiting ... a gun then you may conclude that ... a gun[ ] was exhibited.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Artea Chilton v. State of Mississippi

Applies MS 97 § 97-3-79

Relies on 790 So. 2d 773 - Conley v. State · 744 So. 2d 244 - Gibby v. State · 903 So. 2d 681 - Dambrell v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 2014-03-27

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

DICKINSON, Presiding Justice,

¶1concurring in part and in result:

¶2¶ 27. Because I continue to disagree with this Court’s holding in Dambrell v. State,1and because the trial judge in this case granted the State a jury instruction based on that decision, I concur in part and result.

¶3*739¶ 28. Mississippi’s armed-robbery statute requires the State to prove that the defendant facilitated a robbery by “exhibition of a deadly weapon.”2 And in Gibby v. State, we held that the statute meant what it said, and that a robbery victim’s assumption that the defendant possessed a weapon would not substitute for actual exhibition of the weapon during the robbery.3

¶4¶ 29. But in Dambrell, the defendant— who had entered a store, intending to commit a robbery — carried with him a knife that was completely concealed by a towel wrapped around his hand.4 He was convicted of armed robbery, and he appealed, arguing that he did not exhibit any weapon at all.

¶5¶ 80. A majority of this Court adopted the concept of constructive exhibition, that is to say, the State no longer was required to prove the defendant actually exhibited a deadly weapon (as required by the statute), so long as the State could prove that “a defendant [made] an overt act and a reasonable person would believe that a deadly weapon [was] present... ,”5

¶6¶ 31. Believing that statutes should be applied as they were written by the Legislature, I dissented in Dambrell. As I stated in that case, criminal statutes must be strictly construed in favor of the accused, and the majority opinion impermissibly abrogated a statutory element of armed robbery.6 Simply put, one cannot commit armed robbery without actually exhibiting a deadly weapon.7

¶7¶ 32. In the case before us today, the trial court granted a jury instruction based on this Court’s Dambrell holding. Because I believe Dambrell was erroneously decided, I cannot join the majority’s conclusion that the trial court did not err by granting that instruction. That said, the defendant in this case actually exhibited a deadly weapon, so I join the majority in part, and in result.

¶8CHANDLER, J., JOINS THIS OPINION.

¶9. Dambrell v. State, 903 So.2d 681 (Miss. 2005).

¶10. Miss.Code Ann. § 97-3-79 (Rev.2006).

¶11. Gibby v. State, 744 So.2d 244, 245 (Miss.1999).

¶12. Dambrell, 903 So.2d at 682.

¶13. Id. at 683.

¶14. Id. at 689, 690 (Dickinson, J., dissenting) (citing Conley v. State, 790 So.2d 773, 809 (Miss.2001)).

¶15. Miss.Code Ann. § 97-3-79 (Rev.2006).

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