Joseph Cook v. State of Mississippi

KITCHENS, Justice,

for the Court:

¶ 1. Joe Cook was convicted in the Rankin County Circuit Court for two counts of sexual battery on his girlfriend’s daughter and for one count of directing or causing a felony to be committed by the girlfriend’s son. The evidence established that, with his penis and fingers, Cook penetrated the vagina of ten-year-old S.J. and forced her brother, nine-year-old H.L., to have sexual relations with his sister. Cook was sentenced as an habitual offender to a life sentence for each of the two sexual battery counts and to twenty years for the single count of causing a…