Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

The issue before the Supreme Court in this case was whether defendant could be guilty of second degree murder for leaving her two small children home alone in the middle of the night, during which time a fire broke out and one of her children died in the fire. After reviewing the facts and the applicable law, the Court found that a conviction for second degree murder could not be supported where defendant’s criminally negligent act of leaving her young children alone in the middle of the night was not a "direct act" of killing, but was instead a criminally negligent act of lack of supervision which resulted in death. For that reason, the Court reversed the judgments of the lower courts and found defendant guilty of the lesser included offense of negligent homicide. View "Louisiana v. Small" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari in this case to determine whether the court of appeal erred in overturning Defendant’s conviction for aggravated burglary. Jerome Bryant, Jr. argued that the State failed to prove that he actually entered the victim's home. Finding the evidence sufficient to support the trial judge’s finding that Defendant entered the victim’s home, the Court reversed and reinstated the trial court's judgment. View "Louisiana v. Bryant" on Justia Law

Defendant James C. Magee was indicted by a grand jury for the first degree murder of Adrienne Magee, the first degree murder of Ashton Zachary Magee, the attempted first degree murder of S.M., and the attempted first degree murder of L.M. Following the close of evidence, the jury found the defendant guilty as charged on all counts and, at the conclusion of the penalty phase of the trial, recommended two sentences of death. In accordance with that recommendation, the district court sentenced the defendant to death by lethal injection for the murders of Adrienne and Zack Magee and to two consecutive terms of 50 years of imprisonment at hard labor without benefit of parole, probation or suspension of sentence for the attempted first degree murders of S.M. and L.M. Defendant appealed his convictions and sentences, raising seventeen assignments of error. "After a thorough review of the law and the evidence," the Supreme Court found no merit to any of Defendant's assignments of error, and affirmed his sentences and convictions. View "Louisiana v. Magee" on Justia Law

The state charged Defendant Ricky Cure by bill of information with possession of heroin in violation of La.R.S. 40:966. After the trial court denied his motion to suppress the evidence, Defendant entered a plea of guilty as charged, reserving his right to seek review of the trial court's adverse ruling on the suppression issue. The trial court sentenced him to four years imprisonment at hard labor, suspended, with four years of active probation. On appeal, the Fourth Circuit reversed Defendant's conviction and sentence on grounds that the trial court erred in denying the motion to suppress. The Supreme Court granted the state's application to review the decision below and reversed: "even assuming that [one of the responding officers] did not act reasonably when she opened the door of the Defendant's car, the lawful recovery of all of the evidence in the vehicle would have inevitably occurred once Defendant opened his hand at the officer's order and dropped the two papers of heroin onto the dashboard of the car."

The state charged Defendant Courtney Savoy by bill of information with simple escape from the Winn Correctional Center in January of 2007. After trial by jury, Defendant was found guilty as charged and sentenced to the maximum term for the offense of five years' imprisonment at hard labor, to run consecutively to the sentence he was already serving at the time of the escape. At sentencing, the trial court specifically took into account Defendant's rap sheet which revealed 13 prior felony convictions. The court also considered as an aggravating factor that Defendant had (in the court's opinion) lied in his testimony at trial in which he denied any complicity in the escape. On appeal, the Third Circuit reversed Defendant's conviction and sentence on grounds that the trial court improperly precluded the defense from impeaching state witnesses with their prior inconsistent statements. On remand of the case, the state filed an amended bill of information charging Defendant with the more serious crime of aggravated escape. Defendant filed a pro se motion to quash the amended bill on grounds of prosecutorial vindictiveness in the substitution of a more serious charge for the original to punish him for success on appeal. The state rendered the motion moot by filing a third bill of information recharging Defendant with simple escape. After trial by jury in 2010, Defendant was again found guilty as charged and the trial court resentenced him. The state thereafter filed an habitual offender bill charging Defendant as a third offender on the basis of two sets of prior convictions entered on January 25, 2000, and on January 31, 2005. Defendant filed another pro se motion to quash, alleging selective prosecution and prosecutorial vindictiveness. The trial court denied the motion summarily and after a contradictory hearing, adjudicated Defendant a third felony offender. The court sentenced Defendant to ten years. On appeal, the Third Circuit affirmed Defendant's conviction but reversed his sentence as excessive and remanded for resentencing. The Louisiana Supreme Court granted the state's application for review and reversed the decision below: the Court concluded Defendant's sentence was excessive. The Court concluded resentencing Defendant as a habitual offender to a term of imprisonment twice as long as originally imposed did "not comport with due process of law."

The issue before the Supreme Court concerned whether the trial court erred in granting Defendant's motion to quash his indictment. In 2009, police found the victim, Ramon House, lying on the sidewalk, shot in the chest and ankle. He would later die from blood loss at the hospital shortly afterward. An eyewitness reported that Defendant Joshua Dion Williams, then age 19, and Defendant's friend, a juvenile, both shot the victim during a dispute over narcotics. In 2009, a grand jury indicted Defendant for second degree murder. In early 2010, Defendant filed a motion to quash the indictment, in which he contended that La.C.Cr.P. art. 404(B), (which provides that the judicial administrator of the 19th JDC shall perform the function of jury commission in East Baton Rouge Parish), is a special or local law prohibited by La. Const. art. III, sec. 12. Upon review, the Supreme Court found that the manner of selection of the grand jury was not "illegal. . . .In fact, the selection process comported exactly with La.C.Cr.P. art. 404(B), which is presumed to be constitutional. Defendant's complaint, then, [was] not that the manner of selection of the grand jury was illegal in that it violated Article 404(B), it [was] that Article 404(B), itself, [was] unconstitutional. . . . a person can challenge the constitutionality of a statute only if the statute seriously affects his rights, and, here, the Defendant has not made, or attempted to make, any showing that the Article does so."

The state filed a delinquency petition in the Juvenile Court for the Parish of Orleans charging Defendant with distribution of heroin in violation of La.R.S. 40:966(A)(1). After a hearing, the court adjudicated Defendant delinquent and ordered him committed to the custody of the Department of Public Safety and Corrections for a period not to exceed one year. On appeal, the Fourth Circuit set aside the juvenile court's adjudication and disposition order on grounds that "any rational trier of fact, after viewing all of the evidence favorably to the prosecution, must have a reasonable doubt as to the Defendant's guilt." The Supreme Court granted the state's application for review and reversed the decision because the court of appeal erred in substituting its appreciation of the evidence presented at the delinquency hearing for that of the fact finder.

The state charged Defendant Mary Trahan by grand jury indictment with second degree murder in violation of La.R.S. 14:30.1 following the shooting death of her live-in boyfriend/husband. After trial by jury, she was found guilty as charged. The trial court sentenced her to the mandatory term of life imprisonment at hard labor without benefit of parole, probation, or suspension of sentence. On appeal, the Third Circuit reversed Defendant's conviction and sentence on grounds that the evidence presented at trial did not support her conviction for second degree murder and would not support a judgment of guilt on the lesser included and responsive offenses of manslaughter and negligent homicide. The court of appeal accordingly ordered Defendant acquitted. The Supreme Court granted the state's application for review and reversed the decision below: "[j]urors were . . . entitled at the close of evidence to hold the defense accountable for its failure to introduce any evidence in support of the hypothesis of innocence proposed by defense counsel. . . It clearly appears that jurors reasonably rejected the hypothesis of innocence proposed by the defense which produced no evidence in support of it. " The Court reinstated Defendant's conviction for second degree murder and life sentence, and remanded the case back to the district court for execution of sentence.

In 2008, Petitioner Peter Vizzi, M.D. filed an open account against the Lafayette City-Parish Consolidated Government (LCG) for expenses incurred following his treatment of Quinton Contrell Sam. Sam allegedly committed armed robbery in early 2008. He fled the scene of the crime on foot and forced his way into a private residence. When police arrived on the scene, they arrested Sam. Sam was taken by ambulance to Lafayette General Medical center where he was treated for a gunshot wound. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to interpret the meaning of La. R.S. 15:304 to determine whether Dr. Vizzi was legally entitled to recover the expenses he incurred for treatment of Sam. After review of the record, the Court concluded the lower courts erred by holding that LCG was liable for the expenses: LCG argued that the expenses were not caused by the arrest, but were merely the result of an injury prior to the arrest, and therefore, La. R.S. 15:304 was inapplicable. The Supreme Court agreed and reversed the lower courts' holdings.

Defendant Larry Thompson was charged by bill of information with possession with the intent to distribute a Schedule II Controlled Substance (cocaine). Defendant claimed to be visiting his girlfriend and a friend at a motel, and encountered police executing search warrants for two motel rooms. While being questioned by the officers, Defendant admitted he had been previously convicted of a felony and stated he possessed both a gun and crack cocaine in his truck, parked nearby in the motel’s parking lot. He gave officers permission to search his truck, both verbally and on a written consent form. He then recovered rocks of crack cocaine from the truck and gave them to the officers. During pretrial discovery, Defendant filed a motion to suppress evidence, claiming the consent to search was the product of an illegal detention. After its review of the facts and legal conclusions found by the trial court, the Supreme Court concluded there was no abuse of the trial court’s discretion in denying Defendant’s motion to suppress. The court of appeal’s decision to the contrary was reversed, the ruling of the trial court is reinstated, and the case was remanded to the court of appeal for its review of the remaining assignment of error raised by Defendant on appeal.