Derrick Wayne Chavers a/k/a Derrick Chavers v. State of Mississippi

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI

NO. 2024-KA-00551-COA

DERRICK WAYNE CHAVERS A/K/A DERRICK APPELLANT
CHAVERS

v.

STATE OF MISSISSIPPI APPELLEE

DATE OF JUDGMENT: 02/21/2024
TRIAL JUDGE: HON. KATHY KING JACKSON
COURT FROM WHICH APPEALED: GREENE COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT: JOHN ANTHONY PIAZZA
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLEE: OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
BY: BARBARA WAKELAND BYRD
DISTRICT ATTORNEY: ANGEL MYERS McILRATH
NATURE OF THE CASE: CRIMINAL - FELONY
DISPOSITION: AFFIRMED - 11/04/2025
MOTION FOR REHEARING FILED:

BEFORE WILSON, P.J., WESTBROOKS AND McCARTY, JJ.

WILSON, P.J., FOR THE COURT:

¶1. Derrick Chavers drove a utility task vehicle (UTV) into a group of people who were

leaving a party, killing two individuals and injuring a third. Following a jury trial, Chavers

was convicted of two counts of manslaughter and one count of aggravated assault. On

appeal, Chavers argues that the trial court erred by giving a voluntary intoxication jury

instruction, that he was entitled to a new trial after the jury was mistakenly given written jury

instructions that had been “refused” or “withdrawn,” and that the evidence was insufficient

to support his convictions. We find no reversible error and affirm.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
¶2. In December 2020, Chavers drove his UTV into a crowd of people who were leaving

a party in Leakesville, striking Wesley Smith, Levi Lewis, and Cody Smith. Wesley and Levi

died as a result of the injuries they sustained, and Cody was seriously injured. In July 2022,

a Greene County grand jury indicted Chavers for two counts of culpable-negligence

manslaughter and one count of aggravated assault.1 The trial court granted Chavers’s motion

for a change of venue, and his trial was held in Jackson County.

¶3. Blake Fontenot testified that he hosted a party at his home in Leakesville on December

12, 2020. When Fontenot met Chavers at the party, Fontenot asked Chavers to leave because

Chavers “was older” than most of the other guests, who were teenagers or in their twenties.

Fontenot testified that Chavers arrived at the party on a UTV and was drinking alcohol.

Later on, “50 or 60” people began fighting inside Fontenot’s house, and he told everyone to

leave. As the crowd exited the house, they began arguing again, and Fontenot walked toward

the road to try to break them up. Suddenly, Chavers’s UTV “came up the hill” and drove into

the crowd. Fontenot estimated that the UTV was traveling between 60 and 65 miles per

hour. “From the time [Fontenot saw] the headlights in the road to the time it topped the hill,

nobody had time to get out of the way. It just happened that fast.” The UTV struck Wesley

first and then hit Cody and Levi. The UTV “slowed down a lot by hitting [them], and then

it just rolled to a stop until it touched [Fontenot’s] mailbox.” Fontenot testified that Chavers

was driving and that he threw “the keys out of the [UTV]” and then “rolled out.” Chavers

tried to tell Fontenot that Chavers’s son, Brenton, had been driving the UTV.

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Chavers was also indicted for tampering with physical evidence; however, the court
dismissed that count on the State’s own motion at the close of the State’s case-in-chief.

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¶4. Christian Havard attended the party and used her phone to video the altercation

outside the house. As Havard was videoing the altercation, Chavers’s UTV “came out of

nowhere and ran [the victims] over.” Havard’s video was entered into evidence and played

for the jury at trial. Havard told officers that she estimated that the UTV was traveling

between 20 and 30 miles per hour.

¶5. Several other guests at the party testified regarding the collision and the events leading

up to it. One witness testified that she saw Chavers with “a beer in his hand, but [she] did

not see him take a sip.” Another witness testified that Chavers was drinking at the party.

Additional witnesses identified Chavers as the driver of the UTV.

¶6. Cody Smith testified that when he arrived at the party, he saw a UTV with “two 30

packs of Natural Light and a half-drunken bottle of Southern Comfort” inside. After fighting

broke out inside the house, Cody and Wesley decided to leave, and “the majority of the house

followed [them] outside.” As they were trying to cross the street to their vehicles, Cody saw

headlights and heard a UTV just before he was struck. Cody sustained a broken wrist and

fingers, a concussion, herniated discs, injuries to his head, and a torn ACL. Cody testified

that he still “wake[s] up with pain every day.”

¶7. Leah Black testified that during the party, her friend Ashley Clark said she was going

for a ride on a UTV. Black asked Clark if she could go too. Chavers drove the UTV, but

Black did not know him at the time. Black sat in the back of the UTV without a seatbelt, and

Clark was in the passenger seat. Black testified that while in the UTV, Chavers “called

somebody and [asked] why ain’t this thing going over 35 miles an hour. And he [said] oh,

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because it’s not in sports mode.” Black testified that Chavers then “put [the UTV] in sports

mode.” Black did not know how fast the UTV was traveling, but she estimated that its speed

“double[d]” after Chavers put it in “sports mode.” Black testified that she nearly “fell off”

and “had to catch [her]self” after Chavers “hit the gas.” Although Black “grew up riding,”

she was still “a little nervous” riding with Chavers because she “almost f[e]ll off a few

times.” Black was still on the UTV when Chavers struck Wesley, Cody, and Levi. Black

testified that Chavers applied the brakes “a few seconds” after she first saw the group of

people leaving the party.

¶8. Greene County Deputy Sheriff Kenneth Braswell was dispatched to the scene, which

he described as “chaotic.” After Wesley, Levi, Cody, and Ashley were transported to the

hospital, Braswell spoke to Chavers and Chavers’s son, Brenton. Brenton was fifteen years

old at the time. Both Chavers and Brenton told Braswell that Brenton was driving the UTV

and that Chavers was in the passenger seat. They told Braswell that they drove away from

the party in the UTV, later turned around to return, and were traveling “between 45 and 50

miles an hour at the time of impact.” Braswell observed a case of Natural Light beer in the

back of the UTV. Braswell put Chavers and Brenton in his patrol vehicle “[t]o separate them

from the rest of the crowd.” Braswell took Chavers and Brenton to the hospital to obtain a

blood sample from Brenton. Chavers consented to Brenton’s blood draw. Because the

families of the injured victims were at the hospital and “irate and very agitated,” Braswell

brought Chavers and Brenton into the hospital through a side door. Neither Chavers nor

Brenton requested medical attention. When Braswell initially completed the accident report,

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he listed Brenton as the driver, but about a month after the report was completed, he

corrected the report to show that Chavers was the driver.

¶9. Greene County Deputy Sheriff Joe Hinton was also called to the scene. He also

testified that Chavers and Brenton both said that Brenton had been driving the UTV at the

time of the accident. Hinton testified that “Chavers appeared to have a hard time keeping his

balance,” and Hinton “noticed a strong odor of what appeared to be an intoxicating beverage

coming from [Chavers’s] breath.”

¶10. Greene County Chief Deputy Sheriff Brad Warrick searched the UTV. Warrick

testified that the front cup holder had a “glass jar in it” with an unidentified pink liquid, and

there was “a beer box on the back” with one unopened can and one empty can.

¶11. Cheyenne Daughdrill testified for the defense. She was about twenty feet from the

collision when it occurred. She “saw headlights coming around the curve and up the hill”

and testified that the UTV “was going pretty fast.” Chavers was driving, and Daughdrill saw

him hit his head on the steering wheel during the accident and then fall out of the UTV.

¶12. Kage Eubanks testified that on the night of the accident, he and Brenton had attended

a church party and planned to meet Chavers at a hunting camp. On their way to the hunting

camp, they saw that Chavers had stopped his UTV to talk to someone in Fontenot’s front

yard. Eubanks and Brenton stopped and joined the party inside the house. Clark told them

she had never ridden on a UTV, so Eubanks and Brenton offered her a ride. Eubanks stated

that Clark and Black got in the UTV with Chavers, and he and Brenton followed behind them

in Eubanks’s Jeep. Eubanks testified that they were traveling around 25 miles per hour.

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When they returned to the party, there were “people all over the road” that had not been there

when they left a few minutes earlier. When Eubanks went to check on Chavers after the

collision, “[h]e was kind of dazed and wasn’t all the way there.” Then, “somebody [began]

making threats against [Chavers],” and Brenton “stepped in front of them and said that he

was driving.” Eubanks opined that Brenton did this “[t]o save his dad.”

¶13. Brenton testified that he and Eubanks sat in the UTV at the party “to watch it and

make sure nobody messed with it.” Brenton stated that he did not see a case of Natural Light

in the UTV and that neither he nor Chavers drank Natural Light. Brenton testified that he

consumed alcohol at the party, but Chavers did not. Brenton stated that when Chavers took

Clark and Black for a ride in the UTV, he and Eubanks followed behind. Brenton stated that

after the wreck, Chavers was unconscious for “about a minute” before he helped him up.

Brenton testified that Chavers was “out of his mind” and “zoned out” after the wreck.

According to Brenton, “there was a bunch of screaming and hollering,” and someone

“aggressively” approached them wanting to know who had been driving the UTV. At that

point, Brenton said he had been driving. Braswell took Brenton and Chavers to the hospital

and obtained a blood sample from Brenton. Chavers’s father, Lance Chavers, picked up the

two of them at the police station.

¶14. Lance testified that the next morning, Chavers stated that he, not Brenton, had been

driving the UTV. Lance then called a lawyer to have the report corrected.

¶15. Jason Walton testified for the defense as an expert in accident reconstruction. A video

showing the scene of the wreck and direction of travel of the UTV was admitted into

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evidence and shown to the jury. Walton opined that there was no way to calculate the speed

at which the vehicle was traveling based on the video of the wreck. Walton testified that “the

majority of drivers between the age of 18 and 65 . . . perceive and react to a hazard in 1.6

seconds,” with 0.8 seconds to process the hazard and another 0.8 seconds to “decide what to

do.” He opined that a driver must “have sufficient time and distance in order to avoid a

collision.” However, the court sustained the State’s objection when Walton was asked

whether he believed this crash was avoidable. Walton opined that if the UTV was traveling

25 miles per hour, there would have been 0.3 seconds less than the normal reaction time to

apply the brakes. He testified that “because [Chavers] did hit the brakes, that means

perception and reaction had to have occurred; he identified something as a hazard and made

the conscious decision to apply brakes.”

¶16. At the close of the evidence, the trial court denied the defense’s motion for a directed

verdict. After the court read the instructions to the jury and the attorneys presented closing

arguments, the jury retired to deliberate at 2:43 p.m. Around 3:20 p.m., the jury sent a note

to the court that read, “Refused or withdraw[n]? Which do we follow?” At that point, the

court and the parties realized that, by mistake, the jury had been given the written jury

instructions that had been “refused” or “withdrawn.” The court then “immediately

substituted the correct” instructions to the jury. At 4:45 p.m., the jury informed the court that

it had reached a verdict. The jury found Chavers guilty of all counts.

¶17. After the verdict was read, the court asked the jury if the “verdict [was] in any way

based on the first set of instructions[,]” and the jurors responded “No.” One juror stated, “I

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started reading them. . . . But then I was confused by them.” The court asked if that was

when the jury sent the note to the court, and the juror responded in the affirmative. The

entire jury confirmed again that their verdict was not based on the first set of written

instructions provided to them. The court asked whether either party had any questions for

the jurors, and both the defense and the State declined.

¶18. The court sentenced Chavers to consecutive terms of twenty years in the custody of

the Department of Corrections for the manslaughter counts and twenty years for aggravated

assault to run concurrently with the manslaughter sentences. Chavers filed a motion for a

new trial or judgment notwithstanding the verdict, which was denied, and a notice of appeal.

ANALYSIS

¶19. On appeal, Chavers argues (1) that the circuit court erred by giving a voluntary

intoxication jury instruction; (2) that he was entitled to a new trial after the jury was

mistakenly given the written jury instructions that had been “refused” or “withdrawn”; and

(3) that the evidence was insufficient to support his convictions.

I. Voluntary Intoxication Jury Instruction

¶20. Chavers argues that the circuit court erred in giving Jury Instruction S-6, a voluntary

intoxication instruction, because intoxication was not an element of the charged offenses, the

instruction was not supported by the law, and the instruction was misleading. In general, our

standard of review for rulings on jury instructions is “abuse of discretion.” Newell v. State,

49 So. 3d 66, 73 (¶20) (Miss. 2010). “The trial court enjoys considerable discretion

regarding the form and substance of jury instructions.” Higgins v. State, 725 So. 2d 220, 223

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(¶15) (Miss. 1998). “[T]he instructions actually given must be read as a whole. When so

read, if the instructions fairly announce the law of the case and create no injustice, no

reversible error will be found. There is no error if all instructions taken as a whole fairly, but

not necessarily perfectly, announce the applicable rules of law.” Newell, 49 So. 3d at 73-74

(¶20) (quoting Rubenstein v. State, 941 So. 2d 735, 785 (¶224) (Miss. 2006)).

¶21. Here, instruction S-6 stated:

The Court instructs the Jury that if a defendant, when sober, is capable of
distinguishing between right and wrong, and the defendant voluntarily
deprives himself of the ability to distinguish between right and wrong by
reason of becoming intoxicated and commits an offense while in that
condition, he is criminally responsible for such acts.

At trial, Chavers objected to S-6, arguing that there was “no caselaw . . . to support” it and

that it “would be confusing to the jury.” The State argued that Thornton v. State, 841 So. 2d

170 (Miss. Ct. App. 2003), supported the instruction and that the jury “need[ed] to

understand that . . . [Chavers] can’t argue the fact that he was drinking could take away his

intent to do these acts that were done.” The court gave instruction S-6. At Chavers’s

request, the court also gave jury instruction D-4-A, which stated:

The Court instructs the jury that the operation of a motor vehicle while under
the influence of intoxicants may be a factor indicating criminally culpable
negligence if the influence of intoxicants proximately contributed both to the
negligence of . . . Chavers and to the resulting death. The influence of
intoxicants must have created an abnormal mental and physical condition in
. . . Chavers which deprived him of the clearness of intellect and control of
himself in which he would not otherwise process [sic2].

2
The last sentence of the instruction should have omitted “not” and should have
stated “possess” instead of “process.” See Cutshall v. State, 191 Miss. 764, 772, 4 So. 2d
289, 292 (1941). However, the transcript shows that the court orally instructed the jury in
accordance with the written instruction (as quoted above).

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¶22. Voluntary intoxication is not a defense to culpable-negligence manslaughter or

aggravated assault since they are both general-intent crimes. Shaw v. State, 139 So. 3d 79,

94 (¶58) (Miss. Ct. App. 2013) (Carlton, J., specially concurring). “The rule is that if a

defendant, when sober, is capable of distinguishing between right and wrong, and the

defendant voluntarily deprives himself of the ability to distinguish between right and wrong

by reason of becoming intoxicated and commits an offense while in that condition, he is

criminally responsible for such acts.” Mills v. State, 376 So. 3d 1215, 1220 (¶19) (Miss.

2023) (brackets and quotation marks omitted).

¶23. Instruction S-6 tracks the language of Mills and other cases and, thus, correctly states

the law regarding voluntary intoxication. Nonetheless, Chavers argues that it is “confusing

and [could] be understood by any reasonable juror to find that if [Chavers] was intoxicated,

then they must find him guilty.” He further argues that the instruction is flawed because it

refers to “an offense” rather than to the specific crimes charged in this case.

¶24. This argument is without merit. Instruction S-6 correctly states the law regarding

voluntary intoxication. In addition, the jury was separately instructed on the essential

elements of each count of the indictment, and “the instructions . . . must be read as a whole.”

Newell, 49 So. 3d. at 73 (¶20) (quoting Rubenstein, 941 So. 2d at 785 (¶224)). Read as a

whole, the jury instructions required the jury to find that Chavers committed each essential

element of each offense and further instructed the jury that if Chavers committed “an

offense” while voluntarily intoxicated, then his intoxication was no defense. Because the

instructions as a whole fairly announced the applicable law, the trial court did not abuse its

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discretion by giving instruction S-6. Id. Moreover, by giving instruction S-4-A at Chavers’s

request, the trial court made clear that the jury could not convict Chavers solely because they

found that he was intoxicated at the time of the accident.

¶25. In addition, the evidence at trial warranted the giving of instruction S-6. There was

conflicting testimony about whether Chavers was drinking or intoxicated prior to the

collision, so there was a factual basis for the instruction. Accordingly, the trial court did not

abuse its discretion by giving the instruction.

II. Refused and Withdrawn Jury Instructions

¶26. Chavers next argues that he is entitled to a new trial because the wrong written

instructions were accidentally submitted to the jury. As discussed above, at the outset of the

jury’s deliberations, the jury was accidentally given the wrong instructions. Specifically, the

jury was given the written instructions marked “refused” and “withdrawn” rather than the

“given” instructions that the court had just read to them on the record. The court and the

attorneys were seemingly unaware of the mistake until the jurors sent out a note asking if

they should follow the refused or withdrawn instructions. The court immediately

“substituted the correct” instructions, and the jury continued deliberating. After the jurors

returned their verdict, the court questioned them regarding the issue and whether it had any

impact on their verdict. The jurors stated that their verdict was not based on the first set of

instructions. Further, only one juror stated that she had “started reading them” and was

“confused,” so the jury then sent out the note. When the issue was addressed immediately

after the verdict, the court asked whether either party had any questions for the jury, and both

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the defense and the State declined. In addition, Chavers did not move for a mistrial prior to

or following the jury’s verdict. He raised the issue for the first time in his post-trial motion

for a new trial.

¶27. As an initial matter, Chavers waived this issue by failing to move for a mistrial prior

to the verdict. As the Mississippi Supreme Court has stated,

It is now well settled that when anything transpires during the trial that would
tend to prejudice the rights of defendant, he cannot wait and take his chances
with the jury on a favorable verdict and then obtain a reversal of the cause in
this Court because of such error, but he must ask the trial court for a mistrial
upon the happening of such occurrence when the same is of such nature as
would entitle him to a mistrial.

Taconi v. State, 912 So. 2d 154, 157 (¶18) (Miss. Ct. App. 2005) (quoting Blackwell v. State,

44 So. 2d 409, 410 (Miss. 1950)). By “tak[ing] his chances with the jury on a favorable

verdict” and not “ask[ing] the trial court for a mistrial,” Chavers waived the issue on appeal.

However, we also conclude that the issue is without merit.

¶28. Chavers’s argument relies on the Mississippi Supreme Court’s decision in Reynolds

v. Allied Emergency Services PC, 193 So. 3d 625 (Miss. 2016). In Reynolds, a medical

malpractice case, the trial court read the correct jury instructions to the jury, but the correct

set of instructions was not submitted to the jury for use during deliberations. Id. at 627-28

(¶5). Rather, the bailiff mistakenly provided the jury with a set of instructions that “consisted

of only the defense proposed instructions, including instructions that had been refused [or

withdrawn] during the charge conference” and a peremptory instruction that told the jury to

find for the defendants. Id. at 628, 631 (¶¶5, 16). The jury returned a unanimous defense

verdict, and the court dismissed the jury. Id. at 628 (¶5). The court did not discover that the

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jury had received the wrong set of instructions until after the jury had been dismissed and all

parties had left the courthouse. Id.

¶29. On appeal, the Supreme Court reasoned that it was “difficult to imagine a scenario

more prejudicial to a party than what [had] occurred.” Id. at 631 (¶16). The Court

emphasized that the jury received only the “defendants’ proffered instructions,” including

instructions that had been refused or withdrawn. Id. Indeed, the very “first instruction [the

jury] read” was a peremptory instruction that “told them to find for the defendants.” Id. In

addition, “the bailiff—an extension of the court and trial judge—provided the instructions,

which carrie[d] with it the imprimatur of authority.” Id. (quotation marks omitted). Under

these circumstances, the Supreme Court held that the plaintiffs were entitled to a new trial

because there was a “likelihood” that the mistakenly submitted defense instructions were

“confusing and prejudicial.” Id.

¶30. Reynolds is materially distinguishable from the case at hand. Here, the record shows

that the mistake was corrected during the jury’s deliberations. The record shows that one

juror was “confused” by the initial set of instructions, so the jury sent out a note, and the

court immediately provided them with the correct set of instructions. The jury then continued

deliberating and returned a verdict based on the correct set of instructions. Finally, the

jurors affirmed in court that their verdict was not based on the incorrect set of instructions

initially provided to them. This case is a far cry from Reynolds, where the mistake was not

corrected, and the jury actually returned a verdict based on the wrong set of instructions—the

defendants’ proposed instructions, including a peremptory instruction.

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¶31. Unlike Reynolds, the record does not establish a “likelihood” that Chavers was

prejudiced by the trial court’s initial mistake, which the court promptly corrected while the

jury was in deliberation and waiting for the judge to respond to their note. The incorrect

instructions were retrieved, and the jury was given the correct instructions and instructed to

continue deliberating. “This Court presumes that jurors follow the instructions of the court.

To presume otherwise would be to render the jury system inoperable.” Neal v. State, 15 So.

3d 388, 402 (¶30) (Miss. 2009) (ellipsis and quotation marks omitted) (quoting Moore v.

State, 787 So. 2d 1282, 1291 (¶30) (Miss. 2001)). While it was certainly error for the court

to give the jurors the wrong set of jury instructions, the mistake was corrected during

deliberations, and we presume that the jurors deliberated and returned their verdict in

accordance with the correct set of jury instructions provided to them. Accordingly, Chavers

is not entitled to a new trial.

III. Sufficiency of the Evidence

¶32. Finally, Chavers argues that the evidence is insufficient to support his convictions for

manslaughter and aggravated assault. Chavers insists that “this was just a tragic accident”

and that he “was not operating his vehicle in a culpably negligent manner.”

¶33. We review a challenge to the legal sufficiency of the evidence de novo. Johnson v.

State, 904 So. 2d 162, 166 (¶7) (Miss. 2005). “[W]e view the evidence in the light most

favorable to the State and decide if rational jurors could have found the State proved each

element of the crime.” Lenoir v. State, 222 So. 3d 273, 279 (¶25) (Miss. 2017). “We are not

required to decide—and in fact we must refrain from deciding—whether we think the State

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proved the elements. Rather, we must decide whether a reasonable juror could rationally say

that the State did.” Id. (citation omitted) (quoting Poole v. State, 46 So. 3d 290, 293-94 (¶20)

(Miss. 2010)). We must affirm the conviction as long as there is sufficient evidence for a

rational juror to find that the State proved all elements of the offense beyond a reasonable

doubt. Poole, 46 So. 3d at 293-94 (¶20).

¶34. The jury found Chavers guilty of culpable-negligence manslaughter for the killings

of Wesley Smith and Levi Lewis. Mississippi Code Annotated section 97-3-47 (Rev. 2020)

provides that the “killing of a human being, by the act, procurement, or culpable negligence

of another, and without authority of law . . . shall be manslaughter.” Culpable negligence is

defined as “negligence of a degree so gross as to be tantamount to a wanton disregard, or

utter indifference to, the safety of human life.” O’Kelly v. State, 267 So. 3d 282, 291 (¶31)

(Miss. Ct. App. 2018) (quoting McCarty v. State, 247 So. 3d 260, 269 (¶29) (Miss. 2017)).

Thus, “[t]he only requirement is recklessness or a willful disregard for an unreasonable risk.”

Shumpert v. State, 935 So. 2d 962, 967 (¶14) (Miss. 2006).

¶35. Evidence shows that Chavers was driving the UTV at a high rate of speed in the dark

toward a residence where he knew a large group of people were gathered at a party. On

appeal, Chavers argues that “[n]o one was in the street” when he drove away from the party

and that he had “no reason . . . to expect or know people would be on the road when [he]

returned” about eight minutes later. However, various witnesses testified that 50 to 100

guests or more were at the party, that guests were socializing outside the house, including in

the front yard, and that cars were parked all along both sides of the road. The video played

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for the jury at trial likewise shows cars parked along the road. Under these circumstances,

it was easily foreseeable that guests might be in the road returning to their cars at any given

time. There was also conflicting testimony about whether and how much Chavers had to

drink before the wreck, and the evidence permits a reasonable inference that Chavers allowed

his own son to take responsibility for the wreck so that Chavers could avoid submitting to

a blood-alcohol test. Ultimately, there was sufficient evidence for a rational juror to find

beyond a reasonable doubt that Chavers acted and drove with “negligence of a degree so

gross as to be tantamount to a wanton disregard, or utter indifference to, the safety of human

life,” O’Kelly, 267 So. 3d at 291 (¶31)—with a “reckless[] or . . . willful disregard [of] an

unreasonable risk.” Shumpert, 935 So. 2d at 967 (¶14). In addition, a rational juror could

find that Chavers’s culpable negligence caused the death of Wesley Smith and Levi Lewis.

Viewing such evidence in the light most favorable to the State, a rational jury could find

Chavers guilty of culpable-negligence manslaughter beyond a reasonable doubt.

¶36. The jury also found Chavers guilty of the aggravated assault of Cody Smith. To do

so, the jury was required to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Chavers caused serious

bodily injury to Cody “purposely, knowingly or recklessly under circumstances manifesting

extreme indifference to the value of human life.” Miss. Code Ann. § 97-3-7(2)(a)(i) (Rev.

2020) (emphasis added). Chavers and the State agree that the standard for recklessness under

the aggravated assault statute is the same as under the culpable-negligence manslaughter

statute. Kirk v. State, 362 So. 3d 93, 97 (¶14) (Miss. Ct. App. 2023) (“Aggravated assault

committed recklessly under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of

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human life has been declared analogous to our definition of culpable negligence in homicide

cases . . . .” (brackets and quotation marks omitted) (citing Gray v. State, 427 So. 2d 1363,

1367 (Miss. 1983))). Therefore, for the reasons discussed just above, there was also

sufficient evidence for rational jurors to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Chavers was

guilty of aggravated assault.

CONCLUSION

¶37. The trial court did not abuse its discretion by giving the State’s proposed voluntary

intoxication jury instruction, Chavers is not entitled to a new trial due to the initial

submission of incorrect written instructions to the jury, and the evidence is sufficient to

sustain Chavers’s convictions.

¶38. AFFIRMED.

BARNES, C.J., CARLTON, P.J., WESTBROOKS, McDONALD, McCARTY,
EMFINGER, WEDDLE AND LASSITTER ST. PÉ, JJ., CONCUR. LAWRENCE, J.,
NOT PARTICIPATING.

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