Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant Rudy Trosclair pled guilty to sexual battery of a child under thirteen years of age, for which he was sentenced to serve thirty months imprisonment at hard labor "without benefit." Shortly after his incarceration, La. Rev. Stat. sec. 15:561.2 was amended to provide for lifetime supervision. Upon his release from custody, Defendant was placed under lifelong supervision in accordance with the amended provision. Defendant then filed a motion in the district court challenging the retroactive application of the amendment as a violation of the Ex Post Facto Clause. The district court denied the motion, but the court of appeal granted writs and found the amendment increased the penalty for the offense and could, therefore, not be applied retroactively to the defendant. The State appealed to the Supreme Court. Upon review, after first converting this appeal to an application for supervisory writs, the Court concluded the amended supervised release provisions were predominantly nonpunitive in both intent and effect, and therefore, their retroactive application to this Defendant did not offend the Ex Post Facto Clause. Accordingly, the Court granted the State’s application and reversed the judgment of the court of appeal.

The State charged Defendant-Respondent Aubrey Brown by bill of information with one count of simple burglary of a religious building, and one count of simple burglary. The two crimes were apparently unrelated and the State ultimately severed the second count before bringing Defendant to trial. A jury convicted Defendant by a non-unanimous vote. The trial court sentenced Defendant to twelve years imprisonment at hard labor without benefit of probation, parole, or suspension of sentence. On appeal, the First Circuit noted Defendant's conviction stemmed from a proceeding in which a six-person jury offense had been mistakenly tried in a 12-person jury. Accordingly, the court of appeal reversed his conviction and sentence, and remanded the case to the district court for further proceedings. The State appealed. Upon review, the Supreme Court reversed the court of appeal's judgment, finding that Defendant acquiesced to the error by actively participating the selection of the jury without objection at any stage of the proceedings, and thereby waived any relief on appeal on grounds that the panel selected was composed of a greater number of jurors than required by law. Accordingly, the decision of the court of appeal was reversed and the case was remanded for further proceedings.

In what the state termed as "particularly egregious and predatory acts of contractor fraud in New Orleans" following Hurricane Katrina, 63-year-old Defendant-Respondent John Colvin, a former elected state representative in Alabama, entered guilty pleas in November 2009, to six counts of felony theft. The trial court ordered a presentence investigation and in 2010, conducted a sentencing hearing at which the victims on each count or members of their family, testified about their losses. The defense called several witnesses in mitigation. At the close of the hearing, the trial court sentenced respondent on each count to consecutive terms of 10 years imprisonment at hard labor, for a total of 60 years imprisonment at hard labor. On appeal, the Fourth Circuit affirmed Defendant's convictions but vacated his sentences as excessive and remanded the case to the trial court for resentencing. The Supreme Court granted the State's request to review the Fourth Circuit's decision and reversed, finding that given the circumstances in this case, there was no abuse of discretion. Accordingly, the sentences by the trial court were reinstated, and the case was remanded for execution of sentence.

Defendants Glen Dale Nelson and Melvin Goldman were convicted by jury of one count of illegal use of weapons, four counts of armed robbery, and one count of conspiracy to commit armed robbery. Both received substantial sentences as habitual offenders. Defendants appealed their convictions, asserting the trial court's handling of jury selection, specifically its handling of a "reverse-Batson" challenge by the State were all in error. Finding no error by the trial court, the court of appeal affirmed. The Supreme Court granted Defendants' writ applications to review the correctness of the court of appeal's decision. The sole issue was the reverse-Batson issue. In total, seventeen of the eighteen peremptory challenges exercised by Defendants were used to excuse white prospective jurors. The State used seven out of ten peremptory challenges to remove prospective black jurors. With a venire that was approximately thirty-three percent black, the eight jurors provisionally selected at that time were evenly divided along racial lines. The State urged a reverse-Batson objection, arguing that defense counsel had used their peremptory challenges to exclude white prospective jurors. The State further argued that because defense counsel conferred before striking prospective jurors, the court should consider their peremptory usage together for purposes of Batson. Upon review, the Court reversed the decision of the court of appeal, finding the trial court erred both in its application of Batson, and in formulating a remedy for the alleged Batson violation. Therefore, the Court reversed the decision of the court of appeal, vacated the convictions and sentences, and remanded the case to the trial court for a new trial.

The Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve a dispute as to the proper application of La. Const. art. I, sec. 17 as applied to this case. Specifically, the Court granted certiorari to determine whether a defendant loses the right to waive a trial by jury when the initial trial date was set within forty-five days of a pretrial proceeding and the district court indicated to the defendant a waiver was permissible. Defendant Gerald Chinn was charged by bill of information with three counts of attempted first degree murder and one count of aggravated criminal damage to property. Following a series of preliminary motions, a status conference was convened, and at that time, the State requested that the trial be set for a date forty-three days away. Defense counsel agreed to the trial date with the caveat that her client be allowed to waive his right to trial by jury. Following a brief colloquy with the defendant, the district court accepted the defendant’s jury-trial waiver, but the State objected. Finding that the court of appeal erred in ruling the defendant should not be allowed to waive his right to trial by jury under the unique facts of this case, the Supreme Court reversed the appellate court's decision and reinstated the ruling of the district court permitting the defendant to waive his right to trial by jury.

Defendant Terrance Carter was indicted in 2006 for the first degree murder of Corinthian Houston. After initially pleading not guilty, Defendant changed his plea to a dual plea of not guilty or not guilty by reason of insanity. The district court denied his motion to suppress his statements following a hearing conducted in 2008. After finding aggravating circumstances of aggravated kidnapping, second degree kidnapping, aggravated arson, and a victim under the age of 12 years, the jury returned with a unanimous recommendation that Defendant be sentenced to death. Defendant appealed his conviction and sentence of death, asserting twenty-five assignments of error and three supplemental assignments of error. The Supreme Court addressed the "most significant" of the alleged errors. After a thorough review of the law and the evidence, the Supreme Court affirmed Defendant's first-degree murder conviction and the imposition of the death sentence.

The Supreme Court granted certiorari to determine whether the court of appeal erred in finding that the amendments to the state sex offender registration statutes did not apply to Defendant Jimmy Smith, because application of those amended statutes would violate the prohibition set forth in the ex post facto clause of the state and federal constitutions. Defendant was convicted of two sex offenses prior to the enactment of the amendments to the sex offender registration statutes but before his initial registration period had expired. The amendments at issue increased the duration an offender is obligated to register and created a new requirement for sex offender designation codes on drivers' licenses and identification cards. The court of appeal found the 1999 amendment to former La. Rev. Stat. 15:542.1(H) (providing for a lifetime requirement to register for multiple offenders, did not apply to persons convicted of a sex offense prior to July 1997) and that the restriction code to be placed on an offender's driver's license or identification card requirements added by the legislature in 2006 did not apply to Defendant in this case. Upon review, the Supreme Court found that the 1999 amendment to former La. Rev. Stat. 15:542.1 applied to Defendant as a multiple sexual offender. Furthermore, the Court found no violation of the ex post facto clause in the application of the sex offender registration statutes to Defendant. The Court reversed the ruling of the court of appeal, and reinstated the district court's judgment denying Defendant's petition for injunctive and declaratory relief and ordering him to register as a lifetime sex offender.

The Supreme Court granted certiorari in this case to determine whether the district court erred in sua sponte declaring that the jury waiver procedure described in the Louisiana Constitution (Article 1, section 17A) was unconstitutional for "depriving [Defendant] of his due process guaranteed under the 5th and 14th Amendments to the United States Constitution." Defendant Timothy Bazile was indicted for second degree murder. His trial was set for October, 2011. At a September hearing, Defendant indicated he wished to waive his right to a jury trial, and the State objected. The State argued that Defendant's waiver was less than forty-five days from the trial date, and pressed to continue with a jury trial. The district court expressed doubt as to whether the federal constitution allowed the State to tell a defendant he couldn't have a jury trial "even on the day it's set for trial." Defense ultimately asked for a continuance, and a bench trial was reset for a few days later than the original trial date. The court found that La. Const. art. I, sec. 17(A) "effectively allowed the state to 'force' a defendant into deciding whether to be tried by a judge or jury. However, 'the decision to have a bench trial or jury trial rests with the defendant." The State appealed the district court's decision. Upon review, the Supreme Court concluded that because the constitutionality of the jury waiver procedure was never raised by Defendant, the Court found that the district court erred in declaring the jury waiver procedure unconstitutional.

In 2006, a Morehouse Parish grand jury indicted Defendant Lee Roy Odenbaugh, Jr., for the 2006 first degree murders of Jessie Mae Porter and Sondra Porter Odenbaugh and attempted first degree murder of Jessica Cooper. After the penalty phase, the jury unanimously recommended a sentence of death for each first degree murder count, finding Defendant knowingly created a risk of death or great bodily harm to more than one person. Defendant appealed his conviction and death sentence on the basis of thirty-six assignments of error. After careful review of all of Defendant's arguments on appeal, the Supreme Court affirmed his conviction and death sentence.

Defendant Michael Anthony Wright was convicted by a jury of aggravated incest and sentenced to eighteen years imprisonment at hard labor. Finding the trial court erred in admitting certain evidence which was inadmissible pursuant to Louisiana Code of Evidence article 412.2, and in denying the Defendant's related motions for mistrial, the court of appeal reversed the conviction, vacated the sentence and remanded the matter for a new trial. The Supreme Court granted the State's writ application to review the correctness of the court of appeal's decision. Upon review, the Court vacated the decision of the court of appeal, and remanded the case for further proceedings, finding no abuse of discretion in the trial court's decision to allow evidence of the alleged victim's age to be submitted to the jury. Because the court of appeal found the admission of other crimes evidence constituted reversible error, it did not address defendant’s remaining assignment of error.