Byrd

The Mississippi Court of Appeals on Tuesday upheld the 10th Circuit Court’s jury conviction and 49-year sentence for Shon Byrd. 

Byrd was charged in the shooting death of H. L. Putnam, an 87-year-old veteran who was killed while buying flowers at Vowell’s Marketplace for his wife on Mother’s Day in 2014.

Byrd was found guilty of armed robbery and credit card fraud, but not murder, by a Lauderdale County jury in August 2017. 

Byrd appealed to the Mississippi Court of Appeals, arguing that the court had “abused its discretion” by excluding certain 911 calls and “that the jury’s guilty verdicts were against the overwhelming weight of the evidence.”

The court found that Circuit Court Judge Lester Williamson, now retired, hadn’t erred in declaring Byrd’s first trial a mistrial based on the request of Byrd’s defense attorney John C. Helmert. Because of the mistrial, a second jury convicted Byrd.

The court omitted three of four 911 calls and dispatch communications suggested by Byrd’s defense, where emergency responders said they believed that Lyndell Pritchard, who wasn’t involved with the incident, was the suspect. 

During the trial, the defense argued that Pritchard had been the shooter, not Byrd. 

The Court of Appeals upheld the lower court’s judgment, saying “the trial judge reasonably concluded that the additional “chatter” and suspicions of unknown persons in the other recordings were not relevant.”

The opinion ended by stating that “the verdict was not against the overwhelming weight of evidence,” and upheld Byrd’s conviction.