Case Savion Winters v. State of Mississippi Court Mississippi Supreme Court (En Banc) Date Decided June 4, 2026 Docket No. […]
The Mississippi Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of a paternity disestablishment petition under Mississippi Code Annotated § 93-9-10, holding that the chancellor lacked discretion to grant relief because the petition omitted the required sworn affidavit and the DNA test results were more than one year old at filing—both mandatory threshold requirements—even though the mother and DHS had consented to disestablishment.
The Mississippi Court of Appeals affirmed an irreconcilable-differences divorce decree, upholding a proportional time-of-employment method for splitting a pre-marital IRA (40% marital based on twelve of thirty employment years falling within the marriage), classifying an anniversary diamond ring as the recipient spouse’s separate property, and rejecting a Rule 59 challenge based on post-trial home-sale evidence that did not exist at the time of hearing.
The Mississippi Court of Appeals affirmed first-degree murder and aggravated assault convictions for a drive-by shooting, holding that a combined self-defense and accident-and-misfortune jury instruction was not plain error where the defendant argued self-defense at trial, explicitly agreed to the instruction three times, and the instruction expanded—rather than restricted—the jury’s basis for acquittal.
The Mississippi Court of Appeals reversed and remanded the property division in a 40-year marriage, holding that the chancery court committed reversible error by attributing $290,000 in cash value to Betty Sullivan’s term life insurance policies over her uncontradicted trial testimony and by including post-demarcation assets in the marital estate, and that Rule 59(a) required the court to correct that manifest error when documentary proof was provided on reconsideration.
The Mississippi Court of Appeals affirmed convictions for felon-in-possession and possession of a stolen firearm, holding that constructive possession was proven by the owner-occupant presumption and the defendant’s own statements, that shared gang membership is admissible under MRE 616 to show a defense witness’s bias, and that a cellphone-location officer with ten years’ experience and 1,000+ extractions was properly qualified as an expert under MRE 702.
Case Joseph Anthony Zattoni a/k/a Joseph A. Zattoni a/k/a Joseph Zattoni v. State of Mississippi Court Mississippi Supreme Court Date
Case Samuel Taylor Shipley v. Krystalynn Lopez Shipley Court Mississippi Supreme Court Date Decided May 28, 2026 Docket No. 2023-CT-00814-SCT