Appeals court finds no errors in Pascagoula murder trial

The state Court of Appeals has upheld the 2014 convictions for murder and aggravated assault of Adrian Moore, serving life plus 20 years.

Moore, 29, had claimed he did not receive a fair trial in Jackson County Circuit Court in the Pascagoula shooting that killed Hardy Parker Jr., 51, and wounded Parker's younger brother, Alfred Durden, Jan. 20, 2013.

The appellate court issued its written opinion Tuesday.

Moore was convicted July 25, 2014, and sentenced by Judge Robert Krebs.

The brothers had left a nightclub and were shot while walking on a worn path to cut through a vacant lot between Convent and School streets.

At trial, Durden identified Moore as the man who came out of bushes and started shooting. Parker was shot three times. Durden was shot once.

Moore later asked the trial court to reverse the verdict or give him a new trial. His motions were denied. He appealed on two points of law.

He claimed the trial court had erred by pressuring a deadlocked jury into giving a unanimous verdict and by refusing to allow his attorney to enter into the record testimony the judge had ruled inadmissible.

Court of Appeals Judge Donna Barnes, writing for the court, found no merit to either claim.

A jury foreman had told Krebs the jury was deadlocked 10-2 and the judge issued the Sharplin instruction. The instruction urges jurors to consult with each other, question themselves and deliberate in attempts to reach agreement if possible.

The judge asked the jury if going home for the night and coming back the next day would help, and each juror agreed, the transcript showed.

"We find nothing in the record to indicate that the trial court pressured or coerced the jurors," Barnes wrote.

Moore also claimed the trial court had ruled some testimony inadmissible but refused to let the defense enter that testimony into the record of the case.

It had come up in testimony that Moore had confessed he had shot a man named Jackie Davis in self-defense in 2010. Moore claimed when Durden first told police who shot him and his brother, Durden couldn't remember Moore's first name, saying the shooter was the man who had shot Davis.

"The trial court determined that since nothing had been ruled upon in the Davis case, (the judge) would not allow any questioning regarding that issue," Barnes wrote.

Moore also claimed a police investigator may have been biased, feeling Moore had escaped justice in the Davis case, and tried to implicate him in the 2013 shooting.

Moore's attorney was allowed to say what he thought questioning the investigator would show and was allowed to enter that into court records for a judge to see, but not the jury, the judge said.

This story was originally published March 9, 2016 at 5:29 PM with the headline "Appeals court finds no errors in Pascagoula murder trial ."