Burdette v. Mississippi
Annotate this CaseDerrick Burdette was indicted and tried for the murder of Herman Smith. The jury acquitted him of murder but found him guilty of the lesser offense of manslaughter. Burdette was sentenced to a twenty-year term in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC), to run consecutively with a sentence he already was serving for an unrelated offense. On appeal, Burdette argued: (1) that the jury verdict was against the overwhelming weight of the evidence, and (2) that his Confrontation Clause rights were violated at trial. Upon review, the Supreme Court found that the jury verdict was not against the weight of the evidence. While the Court found error amounting to the violation of Burdette's right to confront the witnesses against him, the error did not result in a manifest miscarriage of justice. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the judgment of the circuit court.
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