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461 So. 2d 770

Docket No. 55277.

Course v. State

Clarence COURSE v. STATE of Mississippi.

Mississippi Supreme Court

Decided December 19, 1984.

Mississippi Supreme Court · decided 1984-12-19

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“Clarence Course appeals from his conviction of the crime of burglary of a dwelling in the Circuit Court of the First Judicial District of Hinds County and sentence to serve ten years in the Department of Corrections. Having also found Course had been previously convicted of two separate felonies, one for armed robbery and another for burglary, all as charged in the indictment, the circuit judge sentenced Course as a habitual offender to serve the full ten years without parole, probation or reduction of sentence under Miss.Code Ann. § 99-19-81. . . . Course has two assignments of error, the first being that the State, simply by producing records that one "Clarence Course" was convicted of the two previous felonies, did not in and of itself identify that person as the defendant on trial. The records did furnish a presumption of such identity, however, which could have been easily overcome if erroneous. See: Branning v. State, 224 So.2d 579 (Miss.1969); Goldsby v. State, 240 Miss. 647 , 123 So.2d 429 , [ 240 Miss. 650 ,] 124 So.2d 297 , [ 240 Miss. 647 ,] 129 So.2d 127 (1960); and 1 Wharton's Criminal. Evidence, § 103, pp. 180-82 (Torcai ed. 13th ed.1972). We do add the State would be well advised to be prepared to go further than mere records, however, especially where the name is not unusual or uncommon. . . .”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Hicks v. State

Applies MS 99 § 99-19-81

Relies on Goldsby v. State · 224 So. 2d 579 - Branning v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1984-12-19

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently December 2007

3 state decisions

10198419902000decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1*771 William B. Kirksey, Kirksey, Brantley & DeLaughter, Jackson, for appellant.

¶2Edwin Lloyd Pittman, Atty. Gen. by Charles W. Maris, Jr., Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.

¶3Before ROY NOBLE LEE, P.J., and HAWKINS and SULLIVAN, JJ.

¶4HAWKINS, Justice, for the Court:

¶5Clarence Course appeals from his conviction of the crime of burglary of a dwelling in the Circuit Court of the First Judicial District of Hinds County and sentence to serve ten years in the Department of Corrections. Having also found Course had been previously convicted of two separate felonies, one for armed robbery and another for burglary, all as charged in the indictment, the circuit judge sentenced Course as a habitual offender to serve the full ten years without parole, probation or reduction of sentence under Miss. Code Ann. § 99-19-81. We affirm.

¶6The attorney for Course on appeal did not represent him at trial.

¶7Course has two assignments of error, the first being that the State, simply by producing records that one "Clarence Course" was convicted of the two previous felonies, did not in and of itself identify that person as the defendant on trial. The records did furnish a presumption of such identity, however, which could have been easily overcome if erroneous. See: Branning v. State, 224 So.2d 579 (Miss. 1969); Goldsby v. State, 240 Miss. 647, 123 So.2d 429 (1960); and 1 Wharton's Criminal Evidence, § 103, pp. 180-82 (Torcai ed. 13th ed. 1972). We do add the State would be well advised to be prepared to go further than mere records, however, especially where the name is not unusual or uncommon.

¶8Course also complains of the trial judge's amendment of one instruction and refusal of another, which we find without merit.

¶9AFFIRMED.

¶10PATTERSON, C.J., WALKER and ROY NOBLE LEE, P.JJ., and BOWLING, DAN M. LEE, PRATHER, ROBERTSON and SULLIVAN, JJ., concur.

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