The Mississippi Court of Appeals has upheld the 2009 murder conviction of a Marion County man.
The court issued the decision April 12 on Terry Lee Coleman’s request to withdraw his guilty plea. Coleman, 49, pleaded guilty in 2009 in Marion County Circuit Court to the 2008 fatal shooting of Edward Charles Martin Jr., which had followed a dispute over a dice game.
In 2019 Coleman filed a motion to withdraw his guilty plea, claiming there was no factual basis for his conviction because the evidence did not prove every element of the crime, including deliberate design; that he was not advised of his right against self-incrimination; and that his lawyer’s assistance was ineffective.
Circuit Judge Tony Mozingo had previously ruled that Coleman’s motion to withdraw his plea was filed too late because the law requires it within three years of the date that Coleman pleaded guilty and that Coleman failed to provide an exception to that rule. The appeals court unanimously upheld that decision.
Coleman is serving a life sentence at the Marshall County Correctional Facility in Holly Springs.
