Pugh v. State

Tom Glaze, Justice.

Appellant James Pugh was convicted of being an accomplice to capital murder and sentenced to life imprisonment for his involvement in the killing of Keith Van Maren. Pugh and a woman named Joy Doss were allegedly friends of Van Maren’s, but Pugh and Doss suffocated and strangled Van Maren while he slept in the early morning hours of December 6, 2000. On appeal, Pugh does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence. Instead, he asserts that the trial court made a number of evidentiary errors that prevented him from effectively demonstrating his affirmative defense of…