Veto F. Roley v. Chinelo J. Roley

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI

NO. 2024-CP-01004-COA

VETO F. ROLEY APPELLANT

v.

CHINELO J. ROLEY APPELLEE

DATE OF JUDGMENT: 08/12/2024
TRIAL JUDGE: HON. MARK ANTHONY MAPLES
COURT FROM WHICH APPEALED: JACKSON COUNTY CHANCERY COURT
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT: VETO F. ROLEY (PRO SE)
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLEE: CHINELO J. ROLEY (PRO SE)
NATURE OF THE CASE: CIVIL - DOMESTIC RELATIONS
DISPOSITION: AFFIRMED - 10/28/2025
MOTION FOR REHEARING FILED:

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

WESTBROOKS, J., FOR THE COURT:

¶1. In 2017, the Jackson County Chancery Court granted Chinelo Roley (Chinelo) a

divorce from Veto Roley (Roley) on the ground of habitual cruel and inhuman treatment.

This Court affirmed that judgment on direct appeal. Roley v. Roley (Roley I), 329 So. 3d 473,

481 (¶2) (Miss. Ct. App. 2021). Roley then filed a motion under Mississippi Rule of Civil

Procedure 60 asking the chancery court to set aside the divorce. The chancellor denied the

motion, and this Court again affirmed on appeal, finding that Roley impermissibly attempted

to use Rule 60 to overturn a mandate issued by an appellate court. Roley v. Roley (Roley II),

394 So. 3d 985, 989 (¶¶15-16) (Miss. Ct. App. 2024). Now, Roley again appeals pro se from

the chancellor’s denial of a newly filed Rule 60 motion in which Roley again argues that the

divorce decree should be set aside. We affirm the chancellor’s denial of the motion.
FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS

Roley I

¶2. At the 2017 divorce hearing, Chinelo and two corroborating witnesses testified in

support of a finding of habitual cruel and inhuman treatment. Roley I, 329 So. 3d at 493

(¶55). The testimony indicated that Roley exhibited a repeated pattern of uncontrollable

anger, including pushing Chinelo, pinning her to a wall, punching walls, shouting, screaming,

and verbal abuse toward Chinelo in front of their two minor children. Id. at 481-82 (¶¶6-7).

Roley would tell the minor children, “[M]ommy doesn’t love you . . . your mommy is evil

. . . your mommy doesn’t love you.” Id. at 483 (¶12). He demonstrated hoarding tendencies

and refused to allow Chinelo to clean the downstairs of the house, including the kitchen. Id.

at 483 (¶14). The stove could not be used to cook because of the amount of “stuff” piled on

top of it. Id. at 484 (¶17). Chinelo and one of the corroborating witnesses also testified that

Roley allowed his young son to access pornography on his phone. Id. at 485 (¶26). In

granting the divorce, the chancellor stated in part, “[Roley] was emotionally abusive and

unable to control his temper, that his personal hygiene was extremely repulsive,1 and his area

of the home was filthy, cluttered and repulsive.” Id. at 488 (¶40).

¶3. The chancery court held a subsequent hearing to determine the questions of custody,

visitation, and equitable distribution. Id. at (¶43). The court granted sole physical and legal

custody of the two children to Chinelo. Id. at 489 (¶44). The court denied Roley’s post-trial

motions.

1
Roley would refuse to bathe or brush his teeth, and he refused to wash his hands
after using the restroom.

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¶4. In a fifty-one-page opinion, this Court unanimously affirmed the chancery court’s

judgment granting Chinelo a divorce, finding the issues raised pro se by Roley on appeal to

be without merit. The issues analyzed included:

(1) whether the chancellor erred when he granted Chinelo a fault-based
divorce based upon habitual cruel and inhuman treatment; (2) whether the
chancellor erred when he utilized the Albright factors in determining the
custody of the couple’s two minor children; (3) whether the chancellor erred
when he denied [Roley’s] post-trial Mississippi Rule of Civil Procedure 59
motion “without a de novo hearing” and without issuing findings of fact and
conclusions of law pursuant to [Roley’s] Rule 52 request; (4) whether the
chancellor erred when he allowed Chinelo a tax deduction for the couple’s
minor son for the year 2018; (5) whether the chancery court displayed “judicial
bias” during a June 5, 2018 motions hearing; (6) whether the chancellor denied
[Roley] his “constitutional due process rights” when the chancellor enforced
Mississippi Code Annotated section 11-51-29 (Rev. 2019) (requiring
prepayment of appeal costs); (7) whether Mississippi Code Annotated section
93-11-65 (Rev. 2015) (governing testimony by children in divorce proceedings
regarding custody preference) is an unconstitutional “prior restraint to
[Roley’s] children’s right to free speech” and whether the chancellor violated
the “minor children’s First Amendment rights when [he] prevented them from
testifying as to their custody preference”; (8) whether the Mississippi
Electronic Courts (MEC) filing system “gives an unconstitutional advantage
to represented litigants over pro se litigants,” requiring “that pro se litigants be
added to the MEC system” to remedy the situation; (9) whether the chancellor
erred when he denied [Roley’s] post-appeal motion to modify visitation with
his children; and (10) whether the costs in this appeal should be taxed to the
chancery court.

Roley I, 329 So. 3d at 480-81 (¶1).

¶5. Addressing the grant of divorce, the opinion notes, “We include within this

assignment of error [Roley’s] assertions that the chancellor erred (1) when he determined that

Chinelo met her burden of proof supporting a divorce based on habitual cruel and inhuman

treatment using a ‘preponderance of the evidence’ standard.” Id. at n.1. The opinion further

states:

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[Roley] asserts that a preponderance-of-the-evidence standard should not be
applied in a habitual-cruel-and-inhuman-treatment case; he asserts a
clear-and-convincing burden is more appropriate. However, since 1974, the
Mississippi Supreme Court has held that a divorce on the ground of habitual
cruel and inhuman treatment must be established by a preponderance of the
evidence. See, e.g., Wangler v. Wangler, 294 So. 3d 1138, 1142-43 (¶16)
(Miss. 2020), reh’g denied (May 7, 2020); Smith v. Smith, 614 So. 2d 394, 396
(Miss. 1993); Wires v. Wires, 297 So. 2d 900, 902 (Miss. 1974). This Court
has likewise recognized that a preponderance of the evidence standard applies
in establishing this fault-based ground for divorce. See, e.g., Gilmer, 297 So.
3d at 331 (¶15).

Accordingly, we reject [Roley’s] contention on this point because as an
intermediate appellate court, we are bound by established precedent and are
not authorized to overrule a long line of cases that goes back many decades
supporting this principle. As we stated in Beckham v. Beckham, 296 So. 3d
120, 124 n.4 (Miss. Ct. App. 2019): “[T]his Court does not have the authority
to overrule or ignore Supreme Court precedent[.]” (quoting Cahn v. Copac
Inc., 198 So. 3d 347, 358 (¶35) (Miss. Ct. App. 2015)). Instead, we must
follow it. Id. (citing Rivera-Guadiana v. State, 71 So. 3d 1221, 1224 (¶14)
(Miss. Ct. App. 2011), reh’g denied (Mar. 24, 2020), cert. denied, 297 So. 3d
1109 (Miss. 2020)).

Id. at 491, n.10.

¶6. Following this Court’s denial of rehearing, the Mississippi Supreme Court

unanimously denied Roley’s petition for certiorari review.

Roley II

¶7. After this Court’s mandate issued in Roley I, Roley filed a “Rule 60(B)(1)(5)(6)

Motion for Relief From the Divorce Order” in the Jackson County Chancery Court. Roley

II, 394 So. 3d at 987 (¶4). The chancery court denied the motion. Id. at (¶5). On appeal, the

majority of issues raised by Roley were duplicative of the issues that had been directly

addressed in Roley I; we therefore declined to address the merits of these issues, finding that

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they were barred by the mandate rule.2 Id. at 988 (¶6).

Roley III (current proceedings)

¶8. Here, Roley filed another Rule 60 motion in the chancery court again asking that his

divorce decree be set aside. At a hearing on the motion, Roley again argued that the divorce

decree was void because the chancellor applied the wrong burden of proof. He also pointed

to factually contrasting cases in which habitual cruel and inhuman treatment had not been

proven. The chancellor denied the motion. Roley again appeals pro se.

DISCUSSION

¶9. Roley characterizes his appeal as “an attack on the legal sufficiency of the burden of

proof required to prove HCIT,” arguing that Wires v. Wires, 297 So. 2d 900 (Miss. 1974),

should be overturned. Roley titled his brief “Rule 60(b)(4) Appeal on Wires” and requested

the Mississippi Supreme Court to take assignment of the case. Given our lack of authority

to overrule controlling supreme court precedent, Roley argues that “[a]ssigning this question

to the COA would be a formal exercise in uselessness.”3 Roley renews the same argument

he made in Roley I and Roley II: that his divorce is void because the standard of proof for a

2
The Court affirmed the chancellor’s decision to hold Roley in contempt for the
failure to pay child support. Roley, 394 So. 3d at 989 (¶17). That issue was not barred by the
mandate rule. Id.
3
Roley has filed a motion asking this Court to find that we lack subject matter
jurisdiction over this appeal due to our lack of authority to overturn controlling caselaw from
the Mississippi Supreme Court. We deny the motion. “The Supreme Court may, by statute,
assign any appeal to” this Court. M.R.A.P. 16(b) (emphasis added). None of the six
statutory exceptions is applicable to this circumstance. See id. (citing Miss. Code Ann. § 9-4-
3 (Supp. 1994)).

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habitual cruel and inhuman treatment divorce should be clear and convincing.4

¶10. For the same reasons we thoroughly set out in Roley II, Roley’s current Rule 60

motion is another attempt to impermissibly sidestep the Court’s mandate in Roley I. “Simply

put, Rule 60(b) is not a procedural vehicle for a trial court to overturn a mandate issued from

this Court.” Roley II, 394 So. 3d at 988 (¶9) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting

Scruggs v. Farmland Mut. Ins. Co., 359 So. 3d 1045, 1046 (¶3) (Miss. 2023)). “Trial courts

lack jurisdiction to entertain such requests[.]” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting

Scruggs, 359 So. 3d at 1046 (¶3)). “Once ‘a case has been decided by an appellate court on

appeal, whatever was before the appellate court, and disposed of by its decree, is considered

as finally settled.’” Id. at (¶11) (quoting Scruggs, 359 So. 3d at 1046 (¶5)); see also Griner

v. Griner, 282 So. 3d 1243, 1250 (¶¶23-25) (Miss. Ct. App. 2019).

¶11. Given that we thoroughly analyzed the mandate rule and its application to Roley’s

divorce in Roley II, we decline to expound further here. As in Roley II, the chancery “court

lacked jurisdiction to entertain [Roley’s] attacks on the prior orders of the chancery court

once they were upheld on appeal,” and “[Roley’s] claims for relief are simply attempts to

evade the mandate from this Court.” Roley II, 394 So. 3d at 987-88 (¶6).5

4
Under the logic of Roley’s argument, all habitual cruel and inhuman treatment
divorces that have been granted since 1974 would be void.
5
Roley argues that the Mississippi Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Howell v. State,
358 So. 3d 613 (Miss. 2023), and Howell’s progeny constitute intervening caselaw that
apply retroactively to void his divorce decree. In Howell, the Mississippi Supreme Court
eliminated the fundamental rights exception to the statutory time bars in the Uniform Post-
Conviction Collateral Relief Act, categorizing the statute of limitations as substantive, not
procedural. See also Ronk v. State, 391 So. 3d 785, 793-94 (¶¶22-23) (Miss. 2024)
(ineffective assistance of post-conviction counsel claims not excepted from time-bar).

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CONCLUSION

¶12. Roley is divorced. This divorce is final. This Court’s mandate affirming the grant of

the divorce issued years ago. The Mississippi Supreme Court unanimously denied certiorari

review of Roley I.6 The chancellor was correct to deny Roley’s renewed Rule 60 motion. As

we held in Roley II, we reiterate again here in Roley III: Rule 60 is not a vehicle to sidestep

the mandate of an appellate court. The judgment of the chancery court is affirmed.

¶13. AFFIRMED.

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

Howell and Ronk do not appear relevant to the question of what burden of proof applies to
at-fault divorces. Regardless, we do not have the authority to overturn controlling case law.
6
The Mississippi Supreme Court dismissed Roley’s petition for writ of certiorari in
Roley II as untimely filed.

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