Joseph Ronald Hartfield v. State of Mississippi

CHANDLER, Justice,

for the Court:

¶ 1. A jury convicted Ronald Hartfield of conspiracy to murder his wife but acquitted him of her murder. The Circuit Court of Lamar County sentenced Hart-field to twenty years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections. Hartfield appealed, and this Court assigned the case to the Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded for a new trial based on the trial court’s exclusion of a coconspirator’s letters offered as statements against her penal interest under Mississippi Rule of Evidence 804(b)(3). This Court granted the State’s…