Court says Page’s issues don’t merit reversal
An appeals court has upheld the murder conviction of a Marion County man who had lashed out at the judge and prosecutors during sentencing.
Jerry Page (aka Jerry Abram), 60, is serving four consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole in the 2014 shooting of Ryan Cooper.
Page gave 11 reasons through his court-appointed attorney and a document he submitted on his own why he thought the conviction should be overturned, but the Mississippi Court of Appeals found Tuesday that none of the issues warrant reversal, saying most of them were without merit and that the only error was “harmless.”
Cooper’s body was found in the bed of his burning truck in the Bunker Hill community. A trail of blood led investigators more than six miles to the scene of Cooper’s death in the Expose community. Witnesses testified they saw Page shoot Cooper during an argument after a Labor Day barbecue.
During a four-day trial in 2016, more than a dozen witnesses testified. The jury deliberated about an hour before convicting both Page and his brother Anthony Abram. Page was convicted of first-degree murder, arson, possession of a firearm by a felon and simple assault on a law enforcement officer. During sentencing held in Lawrence County, Page launched into a profane tirade against Circuit Judge Prentiss Harrell and members of District Attorney Hal Kittrell’s staff. He had to be restrained by deputies and removed from the courtroom.
In the appeal, Page, through his attorney W. Daniel Hinchcliff of the state public defender’s office, argued his convictions should be reversed for four reasons:
1. The judge erred by admitting an unredacted copy of Page’s New Jersey Superior Court criminal case file. The appeals court said that was necessary to prove the charge of possession of a firearm by a felon after Page’s attorney declined to stipulate that Page was a felon.
2. His lawyer provided ineffective counsel by refusing to stipulate that Page was a convicted felon, which led to the admission of the New Jersey file. The appeals court said at times that has been found to be a “reasonable trial strategy” but left it open for Page to raise the argument again in a post-conviction hearing.
3. The judge erred by allowing the jury to hear the audio of a witness’s statement to investigators and by allowing jurors to have a transcript of the statement while it was played. The appeals court said Page had requested in court that the whole interview be played, which it was, and that giving jurors the transcripts was not an abuse of the judge’s discretion.
4. The judge erred by limiting Page’s cross-examination of a prosecution witness regarding the witness’s criminal history. The witness said on the stand he was a felon, but when Page’s attorney asked him to say what crime, the judge sustained prosecutors’ objections. The appeals court agreed that Page’s attorney should have been able to ask about what the felony was but said the error was “harmless.”
Page also wrote a brief himself making several claims:
1. The judge abuse discretion by excluding witnesses Page claims would have provided an alibi or testified they knew why the victim was killed and that it had nothing to do with Page. The appeals court said Page’s attorney on the morning of the trial couldn’t state what the witnesses might say and whether any of them would attempt to provide an alibi, admitting they had provided little information to investigators and probably wouldn’t be called as witnesses.
2. The judge shouldn’t have told the jury that Page had been indicted on four counts, including possession of a firearm by a felon. The appeals court said that was without merit.
3. The judge abused discretion by denying Page’s motion to exclude one page from a lab report that was allegedly omitted from the state’s discovery. The appeals court said the trial judge found the error was unintentional and that Page never articulated how it would have prejudiced his defense.
4. Various claims about jurors becoming emotional or sleeping and the judge restating a question to a witness to clarify what was asked. The appeals court said those were procedurally barred or without merit.
