McCain v. State

Appellant Cleve McCain was convicted of malice murder, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony and possession of a firearm by a first offender probationer in connection with the shooting death of Whitt Bobby Timms.1 The trial court denied appellant’s motion for new trial, and he appeals on sufficiency of the evidence grounds. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.

The evidence presented at trial authorized the jury to find that in 2006 and 2007, the victim and a friend, Ken Waters, were frequent visitors to the home appellant shared with his wife, April McCain, and his cousin, Stephanie Brown, whom the victim was dating. By the spring of 2007, appellant suspected Waters was involved in an intimate relationship with April and he openly opposed Brown’s relationship with the victim, who had accumulated several thousand dollars in unauthorized charges on Brown’s credit cards. After assuring Brown he would keep an eye on the victim as long as she continued to see him, appellant borrowed a .38 pistol from his uncle, Kenneth Folsom. Appellant’s relationship with the victim and Waters continued to deteriorate, with appellant making multiple threats and gestures towards both men, including an angry threat to cut off the victim’s head if he did not stop calling Brown, several overt references to appellant’s ability to kill the men, and an altercation that occurred days before the crimes in which appellant, who was a first offender probationer, became enraged and beat the victim after he learned someone told his mother-in-law about the gun in his possession.