The Mississippi Court of Appeals has upheld the accessory after the fact conviction of a man involved in a fatal confrontation in Marion County in 2014.
The court ruled Tuesday that two issues raised by Anthony Ray Abram could not be brought up on appeal because his attorney didn’t address them during his trial.
The 59-year-old is serving 20 years for his role after the killing and burning of the body of Ryan Cooper. Abram’s brother, Jerry Page, shot Cooper in the head in the Expose community. Cooper’s body was found in the bed of his burning truck in the Bunker Hill community, and a trail of blood led investigators to the scene of his death, which followed an argument at a Labor Day barbecue.
Abram and Page were both convicted during a 2016 trial (Page is serving four life sentences).
Abram argued on appeal that the trial judge should not have allowed prosecutors to play in front of the jury an entire recorded statement a witness gave to investigators. The appeals court said he could not appeal the recording issue because his attorney didn’t object during the trial.
However, it did say the correct procedure was not followed in how the recording was played. The recording was used to refresh a witness’s memory about what he had earlier told investigators about two trucks driven by Abram and Page immediately after the shooting. But the appeals court said it wasn’t enough of an error to seriously affect the fairness of the trial because Abram’s own attorney asked for the entire recording to be played.
The appeals court also said a complaint about a jury instruction that may or may not have been read to the jury was without merit because Abram did not alert the judge about it.
Abram remains behind bars in Hancock County for his convictions of accessory after the fact to first-degree murder and accessory after the fact to first-degree arson.
