An appeal by a Starkville man convicted of attempted murder and other charges after shooting a gas station attendant in January 2015 has been denied by the state Court of Appeals.
Court documents show 36-year-old Cederic “Monster Supreme” Young appealed his conviction, arguing the court erred in dismissing a juror and that his counsel was ineffective.
Circuit Judge Lee Howard sentenced Young to 50 years in prison on armed robbery, attempted murder and felon in possession of a weapon charges after Young shot gas station attendant Timothy Crook in the head during an attempted robbery at the B-Quik gas station on Louisville Street.
Assistant District Attorney Marc Amos requested the maximum penalties for Young because of his prior criminal record.
Young was out on post-release supervision for an armed robbery conviction when he shot Crook.
The Court of Appeals found no abuse of discretion in the court’s juror dismissal and said Young’s claims against his counsel are more suited for a post-conviction relief motion.
As for the juror, Young argues that Oktibbeha County Circuit Court erred in removing one juror and replacing him with an alternate.
Court documents say the juror had written notes on the transcript given to the jury to assist them in watching a video exhibit. The jurors had not been instructed to write on the transcript and some of the removed juror’s notes were asterisks.
On the back page of the transcript, the juror wrote: “[v]ideo is not as dramatic. Several people spotted him but no witnesses presented. Page 12: That’s him (both). It’s all drama after [page] 8[.] 12, still no proof only someone turning him in. Up to page 11 they were in denial and asked questions.”
The juror was then removed, with the court claiming it was an unintended communication from a juror to an attorney in the case.
Judge Howard said the trial was at a stage where there was no verdict, so the “simplest cure” was to replace the juror.
“It is misconduct,” Judge Howard wrote. “It was misconduct for the juror to assume I guess that he was going to get to keep his transcript and to write on it, take notes without any instructions from the Court concerning note-taking.”
While the court acknowledges that the incident may not have been intentional misconduct, it did result in communication from a juror to an attorney. Also, court documents say the notes indicated that the juror had made up his mind about the case before all evidence had been presented by both sides.
Young argued that his trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective for “failure to object to hearsay and failure to request a cautionary instruction where witnesses allegedly received a benefit for their testimony.”
The Court of Appeals dismissed Young’s claim, saying he will be able to raise the issue in post-conviction proceedings.