Background
On the night of July 9–10, 2021, Dederico Wilson shot and killed Jacobe Davis during a dispute over a shotgun and $200. Davis arrived at Wilson’s apartment complex in Jackson, Mississippi armed with an assault rifle and a handgun. A physical altercation erupted in which Davis pointed the rifle at Wilson; Wilson grabbed the barrel and redirected it as Davis fired three shots. The fight continued onto the balcony outside Wilson’s apartment, during which Wilson gained control of the assault rifle.
Wilson fired three shots at Davis: first in the hip, then in the back, and finally in the back of the head. During a recorded post-arrest police interview, Wilson admitted he waited approximately five minutes between each shot. He claimed self-defense throughout, noting Davis had initiated the confrontation and that associates of Davis fired shots at Wilson from the parking lot below. The forensic pathologist confirmed the cause of death was multiple gunshot wounds and that two of the three shots were fired from back to front from at least four feet away.
The Hinds County Circuit Court jury convicted Wilson of first-degree murder, and the trial court sentenced him to life imprisonment. Wilson appealed, challenging two jury instructions and the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict.
The Court’s Holding
The Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and sentence unanimously. On the first jury instruction challenge — that Instruction S-9 improperly restricted Wilson’s self-defense claim by focusing on excessive force — the Court found Wilson had procedurally defaulted the argument by objecting at trial only on the ground of duplication, not on the constitutional or legal theory he raised on appeal. Procedural bar aside, the Court held the instruction correctly stated Mississippi law: a defendant claiming self-defense may only use force reasonably necessary under the circumstances, and an excessive-force instruction does not eliminate a valid self-defense claim but properly frames its evaluation.
On the second jury instruction challenge — that Instruction S-7 impermissibly commented on the weight of the evidence by allowing the jury to infer malice from use of a deadly weapon — the Court reaffirmed its settled precedent distinguishing “infer” from “presume.” Because the instruction used “infer” rather than “presume,” it did not shift the burden to the defendant; it merely allowed the jury to draw a permissive inference from evidence already in the record. The Court noted it had upheld the identical instruction in multiple recent cases, including Watts v. State, 402 So. 3d 744 (Miss. 2025).
On sufficiency of the evidence, the Court reviewed the record de novo and found ample support for the verdict. Wilson’s own admission — that he waited roughly five minutes between each of the three shots while Davis lay wounded and was “still talking” — permitted a rational jury to find deliberate design rather than necessary self-defense. The Court declined to disturb the jury’s factual determination that the delayed, sequential shots were calculated acts of murder.
Key Takeaways
- A defendant who objects to a jury instruction at trial on one specific ground (here, duplication) is procedurally barred from raising a different ground on appeal; the objection must be specific enough to give the trial court a meaningful opportunity to rule.
- Mississippi’s excessive-force self-defense instruction is legally sound: it does not burden the defendant or foreclose a self-defense claim, but rather directs the jury to evaluate whether the force used was reasonably necessary under the circumstances.
- The “infer vs. presume” distinction in deadly-weapon malice instructions remains controlling in Mississippi; using “infer” creates a permissive inference rather than a burden-shifting presumption and does not constitute an improper comment on the weight of the evidence.
- Where a defendant’s own recorded admissions — including a five-minute pause between shots against a disarmed victim — are in evidence, the sufficiency bar is readily met; the jury may reject a self-defense theory even when the victim initially provoked the confrontation.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces several well-established but frequently litigated principles in Mississippi criminal practice. Defense counsel are reminded that trial objections must be specific and legally grounded — a boilerplate “duplicative” objection will not preserve a substantive constitutional challenge for appeal. For practitioners arguing self-defense, the case illustrates that disarming an attacker and gaining control of the situation can undercut a self-defense claim for subsequent shots, particularly where the defendant’s own statements describe deliberate pauses between firings.
The Court’s reaffirmation of the “infer” versus “presume” framework also signals that challenges to the standard deadly-weapon malice instruction face a steep climb in Mississippi courts. Defendants seeking to overturn this line of precedent will likely need to present the issue in a factual context that more starkly demonstrates prejudice, as the Court here — consistent with Watts and prior decisions — treated the argument as foreclosed by settled authority.