Opposition Brief — Damian Desmond Buck, aka Damien Buck, Petitioner v. Mississippi

No. 25-7635

IN THE

Supreme Court of the United States

————

DAMIAN BUCK,

Petitioner,

v.

THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI,

Respondent.

————

On Petition for a Writ of Certiorari to the

Mississippi Court of Appeals

————

BRIEF IN OPPOSITION

————

LYNN FITCH

Attorney General

BARBARA BYRD

Special Assistant

Attorney General

Counsel of Record

MISSISSIPPI ATTORNEY

GENERAL’S OFFICE

P.O. Box 220

Jackson, MS 39205-0220

Barbara.Byrd@ago.ms.gov

(601) 359-3680

Counsel for Respondent

i

QUESTION PRESENTED

At petitioner’s trial for first-degree murder, the State’s evidence against him

included testimony from a forensic pathologist. The pathologist did not perform the

victim’s autopsy but reviewed the autopsy photographs and related materials before

offering his own opinions on the victim’s cause of death (gunshot wounds) and manner

of death (homicide). The jury convicted petitioner of manslaughter with a firearm

enhancement. The Mississippi Court of Appeals affirmed. Petitioner did not contend

on appeal that the pathologist’s testimony violated the Confrontation Clause.

Nevertheless, in a footnote, the court of appeals concluded sua sponte that the

testimony did not violate the Clause and that, even if it did, any error was harmless.

The question presented is whether that ruling warrants further review.

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

QUESTION PRESENTED ............................................................................................. i

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES ......................................................................................... iii

OPINION BELOW......................................................................................................... 1

JURISDICTION............................................................................................................. 1

STATEMENT ................................................................................................................. 1

REASONS FOR DENYING THE PETITION .............................................................. 4

CONCLUSION............................................................................................................. 14

iii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Page(s)

Cases

Bullcoming v. New Mexico,

564 U.S. 647 (2011) ..................................................................................................... 1

Busby v. Mississippi,

No. 25-6885, — S. Ct. —, 2026 WL 1780189 (U.S. June 22, 2026) ................... 10, 12

Chapman v. California,

386 U.S. 18 (1967) ....................................................................................................... 5

Commonwealth v. Gordon,

266 N.E.3d 369 (Mass. 2025) .................................................................................... 12

Crawford v. Washington,

541 U.S. 36 (2004) ....................................................................................................... 1

Delaware v. Van Arsdall,

475 U.S. 673 (1986) ..................................................................................................... 5

Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts,

557 U.S. 305 (2009) ..................................................................................................... 1

Pitts v. Mississippi,

607 U.S. 1 (2025) ..................................................................................................... 6, 7

Pitts v. State,

405 So. 3d 20 (Miss. Ct. App. 2023) ........................................................................... 7

Pitts v. State,

405 So. 3d 1238 (Miss. 2025) ...................................................................................... 7

Smith v. Arizona,

602 U.S. 779 (2024) ................................................................................ 1, 2, 4, 5, 7-11

State v. Hall-Haught,

569 P.3d 315 (Wash. 2025) ....................................................................................... 12

State v. Jaramillo,

272 P.3d 682 (N.M. Ct. App. 2011)........................................................................... 13

iv

State v. Thomas,

334 A.3d 686 (Me. 2025) ........................................................................................... 12

United States v. Seward,

135 F.4th 161 (4th Cir. 2025) ................................................................................... 12

Watkins v. State,

912 S.E.2d 574 (Ga. 2025) ........................................................................................ 12

Constitutional Provisions

U.S. Const. amend. VI ............................................................................................... 1, 8

U.S. Const. amend. XIV ................................................................................................. 1

Statute

28 U.S.C. § 1257 ............................................................................................................. 1

1

OPINION BELOW

The Mississippi Court of Appeals’ opinion affirming petitioner’s conviction and

sentence (Petition Appendix (App.) A) is reported at 428 So. 3d 432.

JURISDICTION

The Mississippi Court of Appeals’ judgment was entered on September 2, 2025.

See App. A. The Mississippi Supreme Court denied discretionary review on February

25, 2026. See App. C. The petition for a writ of certiorari was filed on May 22, 2026.

This Court’s jurisdiction is invoked under 28 U.S.C. § 1257(a).

STATEMENT

1. The Confrontation Clause provides that “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the

accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” U.S.

Const. amend. VI; see id., amend. XIV, § 1. Under this Court’s precedents, the Clause

generally bars the admission of testimonial hearsay at a criminal trial unless the

declarant is unavailable and the defendant had a prior opportunity to cross-examine

the declarant. See Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 68 (2004).

That prohibition applies to statements in forensic reports. In Melendez-Diaz v.

Massachusetts, 557 U.S. 305 (2009), this Court held that “certificates of analysis”—

affidavits stating the results of forensic tests performed on a substance—are

testimonial and thus subject to the Confrontation Clause. Id. at 307, 308, 329. In

Bullcoming v. New Mexico, 564 U.S. 647 (2011), this Court held that the Clause bars

prosecutors from introducing forensic reports with “testimonial certification[s]” to

prove facts at trial without presenting the testimony of the person who made the

certifications. Id. at 651-52. And in Smith v. Arizona, 602 U.S. 779 (2024), this Court

2

held that prosecutors “cannot introduce an absent laboratory analyst’s testimonial

out-of-court statements to prove the results of forensic testing” through a “surrogate

analyst who did not participate in [the statements’] creation.” Id. at 783, 802.

2. In 2019 petitioner fatally shot Deaubrey Roscoe. App. A ¶¶ 3-24. Petitioner

had confronted Roscoe for fighting with petitioner’s brother, petitioner and Roscoe

exchanged words, petitioner shot Roscoe, Roscoe returned fire, petitioner shot at

Roscoe again, and Roscoe soon died from his wounds. See App. A ¶¶ 3-14. Petitioner

was indicted for first-degree murder. App. A ¶ 1.

At trial, petitioner testified that he shot at Roscoe but maintained that he acted

to defend himself and his brother Samuel Barnes after Roscoe threatened Barnes and

fired first. Tr. 655-59; App. A ¶¶ 20, 23. Petitioner claimed that he shot only twice.

Tr. 657; App. A ¶ 20.

The State called Kimberly Hodges, an eyewitness who knew petitioner and

Roscoe. Hodges’ account differed substantially from petitioner’s. She testified that

petitioner arrived at the scene, entered a nearby residence, emerged holding a

handgun, approached Roscoe, exchanged words with him, and then fired multiple

shots. Tr. 492-504; App. A ¶¶ 7-8. Hodges testified that Roscoe returned fire only after

petitioner had shot him. Tr. 501-03; App. A ¶ 8. She further testified that petitioner’s

brother, Barnes—whom petitioner claimed to be defending—did not participate in

the confrontation until after the shooting started. Tr. 499, 514-15, 522-23; App. A ¶ 8.

To further establish the victim’s injuries and cause of death, the State called

Dr. Mark LeVaughn, a forensic pathologist. Dr. LeVaughn did not perform Roscoe’s

autopsy. Dr. David Arboe did. See Tr. 400; App. A ¶ 12. Petitioner initially moved to

3

bar Dr. LeVaughn from testifying under the Confrontation Clause. See Tr. 98-111;

App. A ¶ 12 n.3. The trial court denied the motion and qualified Dr. LeVaughn as an

expert after ruling that Dr. LeVaughn’s testimony on the cause and manner of death

would relay “his own independent expert opinion” and “conclusions.” Tr. 111; App. A

¶ 12 n.3; see Tr. 399; App. A ¶ 12. The State did not move to admit the autopsy report

prepared by Dr. Arboe. During Dr. LeVaughn’s testimony the trial court admitted

autopsy photographs depicting Roscoe’s injuries. See Exs. 2-4. Based on the

photographs, Dr. LeVaughn testified that Roscoe sustained three gunshot wounds:

one to his back (Tr. 401, 403; App. A ¶ 13); one to his shoulder (Tr. 404; App. A ¶ 13);

and one to his thigh (Tr. 409; App. A ¶ 13). He concluded that Roscoe died from

multiple gunshot wounds and that the manner of death was homicide. Tr. 412-13;

App. A ¶ 12. Petitioner did not object to the photographs’ admission or to Dr.

LeVaughn’s testimony on the cause and manner of death. See Tr. 401-13; App. A

¶¶ 12-14.

The jury found petitioner guilty of the lesser-included offense of manslaughter

with a firearm enhancement. App. A ¶ 24; contra Pet. 2-4 (offering a factual account

that the jury rejected). The trial court sentenced him to 20 years’ imprisonment. App.

A ¶ 24.

3. Petitioner appealed. He argued that the verdict was against the weight of

the evidence and that the prosecutor improperly commented on his constitutional

rights. App. A ¶¶ 2, 25. He did not raise any Confrontation Clause issue.

The Mississippi Court of Appeals rejected petitioner’s arguments and affirmed.

App. A ¶¶ 25-44. Although “[n]either party addressed” any Confrontation Clause

4

issue with Dr. LeVaughn’s testimony, the court of appeals did so in a footnote. App.

A ¶ 12 n.3. First, the court “f[ou]nd no Confrontation Clause violation with regard to

Dr. LeVaughn’s testimony.” Ibid. It explained that Dr. LeVaughn’s testimony “did

not ‘convey[ ]’ Dr. Arboe’s statements ‘in support of his opinion’”: rather, “Dr.

LeVaughn’s testimony was based solely on his own observation of the autopsy

photographs and report.” Ibid. (quoting Smith, 602 U.S. at 783). The court continued:

“Nothing in Dr. LeVaughn’s testimony required the jury to accept the truth of Dr.

Arboe’s findings because only Dr. LeVaughn’s findings were put before the jury.” Ibid.

So Dr. LeVaughn did not offer hearsay testimony and his testimony did not violate

the Confrontation Clause. See ibid. Second, the court ruled that “[e]ven if Dr.

LeVaughn’s testimony violated the Confrontation Clause, any error would be

harmless.” Ibid. “[T]here was,” the court found, “overwhelming evidence to convict

Buck based on Hodges’[ ] testimony and Buck’s admission that he shot Roscoe.” Ibid.

The Mississippi Supreme Court denied discretionary review. App. C.

REASONS FOR DENYING THE PETITION

Petitioner seeks review of an intermediate-state-appellate-court decision on an

issue that the court addressed sua sponte in a single footnote, that is backed by an

express harmless-error ruling, that concerns testimony on issues (cause and manner

of death) that petitioner has never disputed, and that has no bearing on the one issue

that petitioner contested at trial (whether he shot in lawful self-defense). Further

review is not warranted. This case is a poor vehicle, the court of appeals correctly

resolved the Confrontation Clause issue it reached, and this case does not implicate

any lower-court conflict. The petition should be denied.

5

1. Petitioner seeks review on the question whether the Confrontation Clause

“permits a State to introduce forensic pathology results and an autopsy through a

surrogate pathologist who neither performed nor observed the autopsy first-hand,

and whose testimony depends on the truth of an absent pathologist’s statements.”

Pet. i. This case is a poor vehicle for resolving that question or any other

Confrontation Clause issue. The case has at least three vehicle problems.

a. To start, this case does not present the question that the petition asks this

Court to decide. The case does not involve testimony that “depends on the truth of an

absent pathologist’s statements.” Pet. i. As the court of appeals recognized,

Dr. LeVaughn’s testimony “did not ‘convey[ ]’” and did not “require[ ] the jury to

accept the truth of” an absent pathologist’s statements on the cause and manner of

death. App. A ¶ 12 n.3 (quoting Smith v. Arizona, 602 U.S. 779, 783 (2024)). Rather,

Dr. LeVaughn’s testimony “was based solely on his own observation of the autopsy

photographs and report” and put only his own “findings ... before the jury.” Ibid. So

the petition’s question presented is not presented.

b. Next, this Court’s intervention would not affect this case’s outcome. Any

Confrontation Clause error was harmless, so any confrontation issue did not matter

to the decision below.

Confrontation Clause violations trigger harmless-error review. See Delaware

v. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673, 684 (1986). Such violations do not require a new trial if

the State can show “beyond a reasonable doubt that the error complained of did not

contribute to the verdict obtained.” Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24 (1967).

6

The court of appeals held that any confrontation error here was “harmless.”

App. A ¶ 12 n.3. That ruling is correct. The evidence supporting the verdict was

“overwhelming.” Ibid. Petitioner admitted that he shot at Roscoe. Tr. 657; App. A

¶¶ 12 n.3, 20, 23. And Hodges testified that petitioner armed himself, approached

Roscoe, fired first, and then continued firing after Roscoe returned fire. Tr. 496-503;

see App. A ¶¶ 7-8, 12 n.3. The jury heard and rejected petitioner’s competing selfdefense account. Tr. 655-59, 819-20; see App. A ¶¶ 12 n.3, 31-32. It had a powerful

basis to do so. And Dr. LeVaughn’s testimony did not bear on the only genuinely

disputed issue at trial. Contra Pet. 5-6, 7 (claiming that the “autopsy” played a

“central role ... in the State’s case”).

Dr. LeVaughn testified to the victim’s cause and manner of death. App. A

¶¶ 12-13. Those were not disputed issues. Petitioner admitted that he shot at Roscoe

and did not dispute that Roscoe died from gunshot wounds and that the wounds were

not self-inflicted. Nor did petitioner dispute the trajectories of the bullets. Indeed,

petitioner relied on those trajectories in closing arguments, claiming that because

“bullets shoot straight,” Pet. 4, the wound paths corroborated his account of how the

men were positioned during the shooting. Tr. 760, 765-66, 769; App. A ¶ 22. The only

contested issue was whether petitioner acted in self-defense. Dr. LeVaughn’s

testimony on the cause and manner of death added little or nothing to the testimony

and evidence on that issue.

Petitioner states that in Pitts v. Mississippi, 607 U.S. 1 (2025), this Court

summarily reversed a Confrontation Clause ruling without first resolving

harmlessness. Pet. 11-12. Pitts does not help petitioner. In Pitts, this Court rejected

7

a lower-court decision that upheld the use of a physical screen between a child witness

and the defendant, even though the trial court had made none of the case-specific

findings for the screen that this Court’s precedents require. 607 U.S. at 2-4. Pitts is

materially different from this case. In Pitts the lower-court decision conflicted with

settled law, the confrontation issue was preserved and the lower court decided it, and

the lower-court decision under review did not make a harmless-error determination.

Id. at 3-6; Pitts v. State, 405 So. 3d 1238, 1245-55 (Miss. 2025); see also Pitts v. State,

405 So. 3d 20, 31 (Miss. Ct. App. 2023). Here, the lower-court decision is correct (see

infra pp. 8-11); petitioner did not raise a confrontation claim on appeal; the court of

appeals addressed the issue only sua sponte in a footnote; and that court expressly

held that any assumed error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Pitts supplies

no basis for either summary or plenary review.

c. Last, petitioner has not developed a claim or a record that would enable

sound review of any constitutional issue. Petitioner initially moved the trial court to

bar Dr. LeVaughn from testifying on confrontation grounds. See Tr. 98-111; App. A

¶ 12 n.3. But he failed to identify any statements that, in his view, violate the

Confrontation Clause. After the trial court rejected his motion, petitioner did not

object to Dr. LeVaughn’s actual testimony on the cause and manner of death or to the

trial court’s admission of autopsy photographs during that testimony. See Tr. 401-13.

Nor did petitioner raise any confrontation issue before the court of appeals. He does

not even try to make up for those shortfalls now.

To implicate the Clause, an out-of-court statement must be both hearsay and

testimonial, and “those two issues are separate from each other.” Smith, 602 U.S. at

8

800. Thus, although in Smith this Court held that a testifying witness’s statements

conveyed hearsay, it declined to decide whether those statements were testimonial

because the question was not presented. Id. at 801. This Court emphasized that

determining whether the Clause applies requires courts to “consider exactly which of

[the non-testifying analyst’s] statements are at issue.” Ibid. (emphasis added).

Despite this call for precision, petitioner has never identified the out-of-court

statements that he contends were testimonial hearsay. He now makes only wholesale

claims that “[a]ll of Dr. LeVaughn’s testimony relied on Dr. Arboe’s methods and the

assumed truth of his results” and that Dr. LeVaughn’s testimony “violated the Sixth

Amendment.” Pet. 5, 7. The court of appeals did not conduct a statement-specific

analysis (justifiably so, given petitioner’s failure to present it). Petitioner did not

present a confrontation claim that was sufficiently precise at trial—or at all on

appeal. This Court should not grant review when, due to petitioner’s own failures,

the record is so lacking.

2. The Mississippi Court of Appeals correctly resolved the Confrontation

Clause issue that it reached. And this case is materially different from Smith.

The Confrontation Clause applies to “testimonial hearsay”: out-of-court

statements made for the “primary purpose” of use in a criminal prosecution

(testimonial) that are offered at trial “to prove the truth of the matter asserted”

(hearsay). Smith, 602 U.S. at 784-85.

Here, Dr. LeVaughn did not present hearsay on the cause and manner of death.

His key testimony was based on his own observations and assessments of the

admitted autopsy photographs. He testified that the photos documented Roscoe’s

9

gunshot injuries. Tr. 401, 404, 409; App. A ¶ 13. He also explained, based on the

photos, the trajectory of one of the wounds and opined that the fatal injury entered

through Roscoe’s shoulder. Tr. 404-08, 412. That testimony principally rested on Dr.

LeVaughn’s own observations of the admitted photos rather than any out-of-court

assertions by Dr. Arboe. Because “only Dr. LeVaughn’s findings were put before the

jury” and “[n]othing in Dr. LeVaughn’s testimony required the jury to accept the truth

of Dr. Arboe’s findings,” he did not present hearsay testimony and so did not trigger

the Clause’s prohibitions. App. A ¶ 12 n.3.

Petitioner contends that the decision below conflicts with this Court’s decision

in Smith. Pet. 5-7. It does not. Smith reiterated that “[a] State may not introduce the

testimonial out-of-court statements of a forensic analyst at trial”—including

statements in forensic reports—“unless” the analyst “is unavailable and the

defendant has had a prior chance to cross-examine her.” 602 U.S. at 802-03. A State

also may not introduce such statements “through a surrogate analyst who did not

participate in their creation.” Id. at 803. And a State may not introduce such

statements by having a surrogate “present[ ]” them “as the basis for [her] expert

opinion.” Ibid. In that last scenario, the out-of-court statements “come into evidence

for their truth”—and thus are hearsay—“because only if true can they provide a

reason to credit the substitute expert.” Ibid. And if the out-of-court statements of the

absent analyst are also “testimonial,” then “the Confrontation Clause will bar their

admission.” Id. at 783.

The decision below comports with Smith. As the court of appeals recognized,

App. A ¶ 12 n.3, Dr. LeVaughn did not introduce at trial any of Dr. Arboe’s “out-of-

10

court statements,” nor did he present any such statements “as the basis for his expert

opinion” on the cause and manner of death. See Smith, 602 U.S. at 802-03. Because

Dr. LeVaughn did not offer hearsay—out-of-court statements that “c[a]me into

evidence for their truth,” id. at 803—the Confrontation Clause posed no barrier to his

testimony. Id. at 784-85; see App. A ¶ 12 n.3.

Petitioner argues that “[a]ll of Dr. LeVaughn’s testimony relied on Dr. Arboe’s

methods and the assumed truth of his results.” Pet. 7. The record does not support

that claim. Dr. LeVaughn formed his own opinions on the cause and manner of death.

He testified that those opinions were “absolutely” independent of Dr. Arboe’s. Tr. 401.

He then explained the location, trajectory, and effect of Roscoe’s gunshot wounds by

referring to the admitted autopsy photographs and his own review of the medical

evidence. Tr. 401-12; App. A ¶¶ 12-14. Although no photograph depicted the shoulder

entry wound itself, Tr. 420; App. A ¶ 14, Dr. LeVaughn explained that the admitted

photographs depicted the exit wound and reentry wound from that same bullet path

and he relied on those photographs in describing the bullet’s trajectory and resulting

injuries. Tr. 405-07. Nothing in Dr. LeVaughn’s testimony required the jury to accept

the truth of any factual assertion made by Dr. Arboe before crediting Dr. LeVaughn’s

opinions.

In a plea for summary reversal, petitioner cites Busby v. Mississippi, No. 256885. Pet. 5 & n.2. Busby does not help him. In Busby, the petitioner argued in his

petition for certiorari that a lower-court Confrontation Clause ruling conflicted with

Smith, the State filed a response agreeing with that point and urging this Court to

vacate the lower-court decision, and this Court summarily vacated in light of the

11

State’s position. Busby v. Mississippi, No. 25-6885, — S. Ct. —, 2026 WL 1780189, at

*1 (U.S. June 22, 2026); see Brief in Response 5-9, Busby v. Mississippi, No. 25-6885

(filed May 14, 2026).

Busby involved three critical features that are absent here. First, the lowercourt decision in Busby squarely conflicted with Smith. The court in Busby allowed a

non-testing drug analyst to testify to the results of forensic drug testing when the

non-testing analyst could do that only by accepting the truth of what the testing

analyst had reported about her work. So that testimony contained hearsay

statements that—to the extent that the statements were testimonial—implicated the

Confrontation Clause. The State said all this in Busby and thus urged vacatur. See

Busby Brief in Response 5-9. The decision here, by contrast, is correct and comports

with Smith. Supra pp. 8-11. Second, Busby involved forensic drug testing of a

controlled substance and not (as is at issue here) forensic pathology. Forensic

pathology frequently involves an expert’s evaluation of objective medical evidence—

including wounds, trajectories, and autopsy photographs—from which another

qualified pathologist may independently draw medical conclusions. By contrast,

forensic drug testing involves machine-based testing of a substance, so an analyst

who lacks access to the substance and who did not perform the relevant testing can

form conclusions about the substance only by accepting the truth of the testing

analyst’s conclusions. Third, in Busby the lower-court decision did not address

whether any error was harmless. See Busby Brief in Response 9. Here the court below

expressly ruled that any error was harmless. App. A ¶ 12 n.3.

3. Last, the decision below implicates no lower-court conflict.

12

In claiming otherwise, petitioner cites (Pet. 7-11) cases that mainly involve

drug testing (rather than forensic pathology) and that forbid a practice that did not

occur in this case: an in-court witness conveying at trial a non-testifying analyst’s

testimonial hearsay. See State v. Thomas, 334 A.3d 686, 690, 702-04 (Me. 2025) (a

chemist who did not perform lab testing on substances seized from the defendant

relied on an out-of-court chemist’s notes, and with “no further calculation or analysis”

accepted the substances’ weight “as determined by [the out-of-court chemist]” and

“testified to that weight for the truth of the matter asserted”); Commonwealth v.

Gordon, 266 N.E.3d 369, 374, 382, 385, 392-93 (Mass. 2025) (testifying analyst’s

“opinion as to the identity of the controlled substance” depended on the truth of an

out-of-court

analyst’s

statements

and

“merely

replicate[d]”

that

analyst’s

“conclusions”); Watkins v. State, 912 S.E.2d 574, 587 (Ga. 2025) (lab analyst’s

testimony merely “relay[ed] the factual assertions and conclusions” from an out-ofcourt analyst’s report stating that a substance seized from the defendant “was in fact

cocaine”); State v. Hall-Haught, 569 P.3d 315, 322 (Wash. 2025) (analyst relied on

out-of-court colleague’s toxicology report, which was “admitted for its truth”); United

States v. Seward, 135 F.4th 161, 168 (4th Cir. 2025) (testifying DNA expert “relied”

“exclusively on the work produced by another analyst” and conveyed the “nontestifying analyst[’s] statements” “for their truth”). This case does not involve an incourt witness conveying a non-testifying analyst’s testimonial hearsay. Here, Dr.

LeVaughn testified to his own opinion, based on materials that included non-hearsay

photos, of Roscoe’s cause and manner of death. Supra pp. 8-11. Nothing in that

13

testimony required the jury to accept as true any testimonial assertion by the nontestifying pathologist.

The only autopsy-related case that petitioner invokes is State v. Jaramillo, 272

P.3d 682 (N.M. Ct. App. 2011). There, the New Mexico Court of Appeals held that a

trial court’s admitting an autopsy report generated by a pathologist who did not

testify at trial violated the defendant’s confrontation rights. Id. at 684. Jaramillo is

materially different from this case. In Jaramillo a witness who did not conduct the

victim’s autopsy “read directly from the autopsy report” when discussing facts about

the young victim’s age and cause of death, and the “entire report was thereafter

admitted as evidence.” Ibid. Unlike Dr. LeVaughn, the witness in Jaramillo did not

convey his own opinion: he simply read from and conveyed the absent pathologist’s

conclusions, and the autopsy report itself was presented to the jury. The court in

Jaramillo also held that the error of admitting the report into evidence was not

harmless because the testimony on whether the victim’s death was “human caused,

rather than accidental,” was crucial to the case and the “wrongfully admitted report”

bolstered testimony on that “critical” issue. Id. at 689. No such errors occurred here:

Dr. LeVaughn’s testimony was not relevant to the key disputed issue—whether

petitioner acted in self-defense. And again, any error here was harmless. Supra pp.

5-7. Further, the “multiple gunshot wounds” that caused death here were discernable

from the photos themselves and did not require any further analysis from out-of-court

statements in the report. Jaramillo turns on facts that are absent here.

14

CONCLUSION

The petition should be denied.

Respectfully submitted.

August 10, 2026

LYNN FITCH

Attorney General

BARBARA BYRD

Special Assistant Attorney General

Counsel of Record

MISSISSIPPI ATTORNEY

GENERAL’S OFFICE

P.O. Box 220

Jackson, MS 39205-0220

Barbara.Byrd@ago.ms.gov

(601) 359-3680

Counsel for Respondent