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Ely v. State

The trial court's error in allowing the state to impeach three defense witnesses with inadmissible prior convictions was harmless, given the defendant's failure to renew his objection after the trial court struck that evidence and gave a curative instruction.

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Paul Page Ely was found guilty of murder and burglary in this death penalty case in which the jury returned a sentence of life without parole. He appeals the denial of his motion for a new trial.1 Finding no reversible error, we affirm.

1. The jury was authorized to find that on the morning of February 12, 1998, the victim, Martha Ann Fricks, returned to her trailer home after taking her daughter to school and purchasing food for breakfast when she was attacked and her throat slit twice, causing her to bleed to death. A relative discovered the body and telephoned the police. The victim’s food and her wallet, empty of money, were found on a kitchen countertop. Fricks was a known drug dealer and areas in the home typically used as hiding places for drugs had been searched. There were indications that drugs and/or drug money had been taken from the home. Because the killer tracked bloody footprints in the home after the attack and there were no bloody footprints in areas which showed signs of search, the jury was authorized to conclude that the killer had been inside searching the home before the victim returned.

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