State v. Hollins, 2011–KA–1435.

• Decision Date: 29 August 2013
• Docket Number: No. 2011–KA–1435.,2011–KA–1435.
• Citation: 123 So.3d 840
• Parties: STATE of Louisiana v. Henry L. HOLLINS.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Louisiana — District of US

123 So.3d 840

STATE of Louisiana

v.Henry L. HOLLINS.

No. 2011–KA–1435.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Fourth Circuit.

Aug. 29, 2013.

Leon A. Cannizzaro, Jr., District Attorney, Donna Andrieu, Assistant District Attorney, John J. Slater, New Orleans, LA, for Appellee/State of Louisiana.

Sherry Watters, Louisiana Appellate Project, New Orleans, LA, for Defendant/Appellant.

(Court composed of Judge DENNIS R. BAGNERIS, SR., Judge MAX N. TOBIAS, JR., Judge JOY COSSICH LOBRANO).

JOY COSSICH LOBRANO, Judge.

[4 Cir. 1]The defendant, New Orleans Police Department (“NOPD”) Officer Henry Hollins, was charged with aggravated rape and second-degree kidnapping, violations of La. R.S. 14:42 and La. R.S. 14:44.1, respectively. Following a trial, the jury found defendant guilty of attempted aggravated rape and second-degree kidnapping. The trial court sentenced defendant to forty-five years for the attempted aggravated rape and forty years for the second-degree kidnapping conviction. Defendant timely appealed.

At 10:30 p.m., on June 30, 2009, the defendant and his partner, NOPD Officer Thomas Clark, were on routine patrol in the 1200 block of Thalia Street, when they came upon the victim standing next to a white van. As the victim reached into the van's window to retrieve her purse, the police officers shone a light in her face and told her to step away from the van. The officers then approached the victim, ordered her to place her hands on the front of their police car, and asked her name. The victim complied, but gave the officers her daughter's name instead of her own. At the time, several people were in the area, including the victim's uncle who informed the officers that the victim had given them a false name. The victim then told the officers her real name. A computer search of her [4 Cir. 2]name revealed no outstanding warrants. The officers also searched the van and its perimeter, but found no drugs. Although the officers detected no odor of alcohol on the victim, Clark believed she was high on drugs. He did a pat down search on the victim and arrested her for public intoxication and misrepresentation of her name. Clark and the defendant then drove the victim to the Sixth District station to obtain the forms needed to process the victim and to allow Clark to use the restroom. However, they neither completed a written police report of the incident nor did they radio dispatch that they were transferring the victim to the station.

The officers arrived at the station between 12:30 a.m. and 1:00 a.m., and when Clark exited the patrol car to retrieve the processing forms, the defendant informed him that he was going to return and release the victim in the area of the arrest and then go home. Consequently, Clark did not file an arrest affidavit or complete any processing forms on the victim. Instead, he left the station and went home, even though his shift did not end until 3:00 a.m.

Meanwhile, the defendant drove the victim through the sally port, exited onto the street and around the station one more time, stopping at the stop sign on Felicity Street. Another NOPD officer, who was standing near the stop sign, approached the defendant's patrol car, asking “What's up, man?”, and looked at the victim in the backseat the car. After the officers exchanged words, the defendant drove the car onto Felicity Street. As they rode, the defendant asked the victim what she could do for him if he let her go free. While she responded that she did not understand what he was asking, she understood the defendant was trying to set her up on a solicitation charge. The defendant continued to drive around the city, from one end to the other, all the while asking her what she could do for him.

[4 Cir. 3]Eventually, the defendant drove the victim to a dark, abandoned building area near the Wal–Mart on Tchoupitoulas Street. When the vehicle came to a stop, the defendant told the victim: “[I] ain't never had no Mississippi pussy before. You will be my first.” The defendant got out of the car and checked the perimeter to be sure the area was empty. When the defendant returned to the car, he was naked except for the condom he was wearing. He ordered the victim out of the car and removed her pants because she was still handcuffed. He raped her and redressed himself not in his uniform but in pajamas he had retrieved from the trunk. He uncuffed the victim, allowed her to redress, and put her in the back of the car once again. He then told her, “We're going to make this an every Sunday thing, as long as you keep your mouth quiet.” The victim, fearing for her life, agreed so that she could get away from him. The defendant drove her back to South Saratoga Street to Gladys's Bar and released her. He instructed her, “If anybody asks why we kept you so long, just tell your uncle and them we ran your fingerprints and your name in the NCIC and we couldn't find anything on you, and so we turned you lose.”

Upon her release, the victim called her uncle and told him what had happened. The victim's uncle told her to come home and not to shower and that we would handle the matter at daybreak. The victim arrived at her uncle's residence sometime after 3:00 a.m., shaking and crying hysterically. The following morning, the victim, her uncle and the uncle's girlfriend drove to the area near Wal–Mart so that the victim could identify the location where the rape occurred. As the trio approached the location, the victim's uncle could see tire tracks which he believed may have belonged to the vehicle the defendant used to transport the victim to the area the night before. The uncle collected three used [4 Cir. 4]condoms at the site—the victim identified one of the condoms as the one the defendant used to rape her. The uncle reported the attack to the police, and the officer told the victim to go to the Second District station. Sgt. Lawrence Jones and Sgt. Lisa Mims transported the victim to University Hospital where she underwent a sexual assault examination, after which the police confiscated the clothing she was wearing at the time of the attack. While at the Second District station, the victim's uncle identified pictures of the crime scene. The victim identified the defendant as her attacker based on the name on his uniform shirt.

At trial, Lt. Lorenzo testified that on July 1, 2009, at the request of the NOPD Public Integrity Bureau (PIB) on July 1, 2009, he was appointed to investigate the case because of the allegations of police misconduct. Accompanied by Det. Corey Lymous, Lt. Lorenzo met with Sgt. Jones and the victim at Tchoupitoulas and Felicity Streets and went to the location of the rape. Lt. Lorenzo explained that the scene of the crime was in a courtyard behind an abandoned warehouse in the vicinity of the 1800 block of Tchoupitoulas Street. The scene of the crime was hidden from the street and so isolated that it could only be accessed by a dark, deserted, dirt road between the unoccupied warehouse and the Mississippi River flood wall.

That same day, Lt. Lorenzo took recorded statements from the defendant and Clark at the PIB office. Lt. Lorenzo later obtained the rape test results and deposited them in Central Evidence and Property (CEP) for further testing. Lt. Lorenzo and Det. Lymous also obtained a statement from the victim's uncle. Based on the investigation, Lt. Lorenzo developed the defendant as the suspected rapist. He presented the victim with a photographic lineup from which she identified the defendant as her attacker.

[4 Cir. 5]Sgt. Kevin Stamps, Sr., testified that he, too, was a PIB investigator involved in the investigation. Based on the statement he obtained from the victim, Sgt. Stamps obtained search warrants for the defendant's marked police unit 611 and his residence. The residence search produced various items of clothing, swat boots, NOPD uniforms, currency, social security and insurance cards, a rights of arrestee card, a handcuff key and writing pens. Sgt. Stamps learned that the defendant shared the residence with his girlfriend. Hair and fiber samples were taken from the defendant's patrol car. Sgt. Stamps catalogued the contents of the trunk of the patrol car: a backpack, toiletries, socks, sex toys, dildos, condoms, male enhancement supplements, vitamin, personal lubricant, adult themed videos, sweatpants, t-shirts, underwear, aspirin, antacid, a Glock .40 caliber Smith & Wesson with laser sight, water, gum, a sports drink, taser and handcuff holsters, a flashlight, two pairs of handcuffs, pepper spray, a duty belt, and live ammunition.

Sgt. Darryl Watson of the PIB testified that he received a call from Lt. Errol Foy in the early morning of July 1, 2009, advising him of the rape complaint lodged against the defendant. Sgt. Watson immediately began investigating the complaint, focusing on the defendant's employment records, trip sheet records and his location on the night of the crime. When Sgt. Watson and Lt. Foy went to the defendant's residence to talk with him, the defendant informed them that he had retained counsel and declined to speak any further. Eventually, Sgt. Watson and Lt. Foy were notified that Sgt. Stamps had obtained search warrants, so they secured the area awaiting his arrival with the warrants. The defendant's girlfriend directed the officers to his belongings in the residence. Crime lab techs arrived and seized the defendant's clothing, which matched the description given by the victim. The lab techs also processed the defendant's patrol car. In the trunk, the officers [4 Cir. 6]located some pajama pants that matched the description given by the victim of the pants she said the defendant put on after the rape. The search of the red backpack in the trunk produced various items of clothing, three dildos, and toiletries.

Technician Geselle Roussel, a supervisor of 911 operators and dispatchers, verified the 911 call played to the jury was in fact the 911 call made by the victim the morning of...