William Ray Parks v. State of Mississippi

WILSON, J.,

FOR THE COURT:

¶ 1. William Parks claimed that he shot and killed Joshua Tarver in self-defense, but a Copiah County jury convicted him of heat-of-passion manslaughter. The circuit court sentenced Parks to twenty years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections, with two years suspended and two years of post-release supervision. On appeal, Parks argues that the jury should not have been instructed on heat-of-passion manslaughter, that the deputy medical examiner was not qualified: or competent to testify as to Tarver’s cause of death or about Tarver’s autopsy, that…