An appeals court Tuesday denied a Greenwood man’s attempt to overturn his life sentence for killing his stepson, who was the longtime radio voice of Jackson State University athletics.
Walter Carpenter, now 81, shot Maurice “Bob” Carpenter, 46, in 2004 at the family’s home on Dewey Street. The younger man had intervened in an argument between his stepfather and mother, Jewell, about paying for air-conditioner repairs.
Bob Carpenter called play-by-play for Jackson State football and basketball for 23 years.
Walter Carpenter argued that his wife shouldn’t have been allowed to testify against him and that it wasn’t proven that he intended to kill his stepson during his 2006 murder trial before Judge Margaret Carey-McCray in Leflore County Circuit Court. He also claimed, among other things, that his due process rights were violated because of a four-year delay in reviewing motions he made after the conviction.
But the Mississippi Court of Appeals rejected those assertions.
It found that “deliberate design” to murder someone can be inferred from the use of a deadly weapon, in this case Walter Carpenter firing a gun, regardless of whom he was aiming at.
The court also ruled that communications between spouses made in the presence of a third party don’t qualify as confidential.
Bob Carpenter had been standing behind his mother when the fatal shot was fired on June 11, 2004.
Jewell Carpenter testified she thought her husband, who had been drinking, may have been aiming the gun at her. She said she leaned over just as Walter Carpenter pulled the trigger, and the bullet hit her son. She said “heat” from the bullet struck the side of her face.
Walter Carpenter admitted to police immediately afterward that he shot Bob Carpenter and also said he raised his stepson and was not going to let him run his house.
Later he claimed he fired in self-defense after Bob Carpenter made a move toward him and that he was afraid the younger, bigger man would beat him up. But the appeals court said there was no evidence that Bob Carpenter had threatened his stepfather.
As for the delay in ruling on the post-conviction motions, the court said that it was the responsibility of Walter Carpenter’s attorney, Johnnie Walls of Greenville, to seek a hearing and that Walls failed to do so. It said Carpenter also could have taken initiative and asked about the ruling on his motions but didn’t until three years later when he got a new attorney. Carpenter was represented in the appeal by Ross Barnett Jr. of Jackson.
Barnett said this morning that he doesn’t know if further appeals will be filed because he hasn’t talked with his client yet. He said Carpenter gets around with a walking stick and is “just sitting there” in prison. Carpenter is jailed at the state penitentiary at Parchman.
• Contact Charlie Smith at 581-7235 or csmith@gwcommonwealth.com.
