Colburn v. Mississippi
Annotate this CaseDefendant Gregory Colburn was convicted by jury on two counts of exploitation of a vulnerable person. Colburn met Ruby Frances Hill in 1990 when he began servicing her burial-insurance policy; Colburn would visit the policyholders’ houses each month to collect the premiums. In October 2011, Hill executed a general power of attorney and an advanced healthcare directive, naming Colburn as her agent in both documents. Both documents were notarized, and the notary testified that Hill knew what she was doing when she executed them. In January 2012, Hill moved into Heritage House, an assisted-living facility in Rankin Count, sometime after she was diagnosed with dementia. Colburn was with Hill when she opened a joint checking account at Community Bank in April 2012. Hill wrote several large checks to Colburn in 2012, ranging from around $3,000 to more than $52,000. She also moved $125,000 from a Trustmark account into the joint checking account she shared with Colburn and ultimately closed that Trustmark account. Trustmark officials came across these transactions when they were investigating Hill’s account for an unrelated issue having to do with a Social Security check. Trustmark notified the Attorney General’s Office, which in turn initiated an investigation. After the investigation, a Rankin County grand jury indicted Colburn on three counts of exploitation of a vulnerable person. The trial court sentenced him to twenty years: ten years on each count, running consecutively. Colburn now appeals and argues that the exploitation statute was unconstitutionally vague, that his indictment should have been quashed, that the State failed to present sufficient evidence to support his convictions, and that his defense was hampered by the judge’s evidentiary rulings. Finding no reversible error, the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed.
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