State v. Williams

• Decision Date: 07 April 1980
• Docket Number: No. 65563,65563
• Citation: 383 So.2d 369
• Parties: STATE of Louisiana v. Robert Wayne WILLIAMS.
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

Page 369

383 So.2d 369

STATE of Louisiana v. Robert Wayne WILLIAMS.

No. 65563.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

April 7, 1980.

Rehearing Denied May 19, 1980.

William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Barbara Rutledge, Asst. Atty. Gen., Ossie B. Brown, Dist. Atty., John W. Sinquefield, Asst. Dist. Atty., for plaintiff-appellee.

Marion Weimer, Wyatt & Weimer, Stephen E. Covell, Covell & Covell, Baton Rouge, for defendant-appellant.

BLANCHE, Justice.^*

The defendant, Robert Wayne Williams, was charged with first degree murder in violation of La.R.S. 14:30. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. On appeal, the defendant urges seven assignments of error.

During the trial, the state adduced the following facts: On January 5, 1979, the defendant and Ralph Holmes entered the A & P Supermarket located at 3525 Perkins Road in Baton Rouge. Both men placed ski masks over their faces and Williams pulled out a 12-gauge sawed-off shotgun. They then approached the security guard, Willie Kelly, age 67, who was bagging groceries. Ralph Holmes tried to remove Kelly's pistol from his holster. As Kelly made a move with his hand toward his pistol, Williams yelled "Don't try it", and immediately shot Kelly in the face at point blank range. Williams and Holmes then proceeded to complete the robbery. During this process, Holmes pistol-whipped one of the customers, and Williams accidentally shot two people in their feet. The police received a telephone call from an informant implicating Holmes, Williams and Williams' wife. Following their arrest, both Williams and his wife gave confessions which implicated themselves in the crime.

Assignment of Error Number 1

By this assignment, the defendant contends that the trial court erred in denying the defendant's challenge for cause of the prospective juror Gladys Almand. The defendant argues that Mrs. Almand was a hardship case and should have been excluded from the jury. The voir dire examination revealed that Mrs. Almand was divorced with two children, ages 14 and 17, living at home. Both children attended school and Mrs. Almand indicated that she had had small problems with the younger child at school. The defendant argues that the testimony of Mrs. Almand indicated that she was preoccupied with her children's welfare and, as a result, could not devote her full attention to the trial. La.C.Cr.P. art. 783 provides in part as follows:

"B. If jury service, whether criminal or civil, would result in undue hardship or extreme inconvenience, the district court may excuse a person from such service either prior to or after his selection for the general venire, jury pool, or jury wheel. The court may take such action on its own initiative or on recommendation of an official or employee designated by the court."

In ruling on such challenges, the trial court is granted broad discretion, and its ruling will not be disturbed on appeal absent a showing of an abuse of that discretion. See State v. Drew, 360 So.2d 500 (La.1978); State v. Monroe, 366 So.2d 1345 (La.1978). In the instant case, a review of the record of the voir dire examination does not show an abuse of that discretion. Although Mrs. Almand did have two teenaged children, nothing in her testimony indicated the type of circumstances which would render sitting on a sequestered jury a particular hardship.

For these reasons, the assignment is without merit.

Assignments of Error Numbers 4 and 5

By these assignments, the defendant argues that the trial court erred in failing to suppress his confession, and in allowing the introduction of the taped confession and signed waiver of rights form at trial.

The defendant asserts that his confession was not freely and voluntarily given. He does not claim that any overt or physical coercion or intimidation was involved; rather, he maintains that the confession was obtained in a psychologically coercive atmosphere. The defendant claims that the police officers intentionally left the door open to his wife's interrogation room so that he could hear their questioning of her while he waited in the next room. Thus, he maintains that he was psychologically coerced into confessing because he could hear his wife crying.

La.R.S. 15:451 provides as follows:

"Before what purposes (purports) to be a confession can be introduced in evidence, it must be affirmatively shown that it was free and voluntary, and not made under the influence of fear, duress, intimidation, menaces, threats, inducements or promises."

The question of voluntariness of a confession, including a determination of the defendant's psychological state of mind, will be answered from the facts and circumstances of each case. Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 45 L.Ed.2d 416 (1975). Thus, the admissibility of a confession is, in the first instance, a question for the trial judge. His conclusions on the credibility and weight of the testimony will not be overturned on appeal unless they are not supported by the evidence. State v. Gaines, 354 So.2d 548 (La.1978).

Although the defendant claims that his confession was induced by his emotional disturbance over his wife's interrogation, the evidence does not support such a conclusion. The evidence reveals that the defendant and his wife were arrested at 10:30 a. m., at which time he was read his Miranda rights. Subsequently, the defendant gave a taped confession between 4:30 and 7:30. The defendant testified that he was upset during his interrogation, but there is no other indication that his emotional distress was so severe that he was unable to voluntarily give a statement. The police officers testified that the door to the interrogation room of defendant's wife was closed, and that it was unlikely that the defendant heard much of what went on. Further, it should be noted that the defendant's confession was essentially exculpatory in nature since he claimed that the shotgun went off accidentally.

For these reasons, we conclude that the trial court's ruling as to the voluntariness of the confession was supported by the evidence. The assignments are without merit.

Assignment of Error Number 3

In this assignment, defendant contends that the trial judge erred in allowing the introduction of evidence of the armed robbery. The defendant argues that, as he was charged with first degree murder, the evidence of the armed robbery served no probative purpose and was extremely prejudicial since first degree murder requires proof of specific intent to kill or cause great bodily harm, and proof of the armed robbery does not contribute to the proof of specific intent.

We find that the evidence was admissible as part of the res gestae. La.R.S. 15:448 provides:

"To constitute res gestae the circumstances and declarations must be necessary incidents of the criminal act, or immediate concomitants of it, or form in conjunction with it one continuous transaction."

Thus, evidence that forms part of the res gestae is always admissible. Here, there is no doubt that the armed robbery was an immediate concomitant of the murder and formed, in conjunction with it, one continuous transaction. See State v. Matthews, 354 So.2d 552 (La.1978); State v. Williams, 375 So.2d 364 (La.1979); State v. Donahue, 355 So.2d 247 (La.1978).

For these reasons, we find the assignment is without merit.

Assignment of Error Number 8

By this assignment, the defendant contends that the trial court erred in imposing the death sentence. He argues that the imposition of the death penalty violates both the eighth amendment to the United States Constitution and art. 1, § 20 of the Louisiana Constitution.

The United States Supreme Court has indicated that the death sentence, when imposed on a subject convicted of murder, is not necessarily unconstitutional. See Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976); Proffitt v. Florida, 428 U.S. 242, 96 S.Ct. 2960, 49 L.Ed.2d 913 (1976); Jurek v. Texas, 428 U.S. 262, 96 S.Ct. 2950, 49 L.Ed.2d 929 (1976). Similarly, this Court has recognized in State v. Myles (La.1979) (No. 63,567) (rehearing granted), that art. 1, § 20 does not prohibit the imposition of the death penalty in appropriate cases.

For these reasons, we conclude that the defendant's argument that the death penalty is, per se, unconstitutional is without merit.

Assignment of Error Number 7

The defendant claims that the court erred in denying his motion in arrest of judgment. The defendant maintains that La.C.Cr.P. art. 905 is unconstitutional in that it does not give the jury an acceptable constitutional standard with which to make the determination that the death penalty should be imposed.

Our capital sentence law, following the decision in Roberts v. La., 428 U.S. 325, 96 S.Ct. 3001, 49 L.Ed.2d 974 (1976), was modeled upon the Georgia statute which was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Gregg v. Georgia, supra. In State v. Martin, 376 So.2d 300 (La.1979), we found that our present sentencing scheme does provide adequate safeguards against the arbitrary imposition of the death penalty.

For these reasons, we find the defendant's assignment without merit.

Assignment of Error Number 6

By this assignment, the defendant argues that the trial court erred in denying his motion for a new trial. The defendant maintains that a new trial should have been granted because the state failed to prove an essential element of the crime, i. e. specific intent to kill or to inflict great bodily harm.

The Louisiana Constitution limits this Court's review of criminal convictions on appeal to questions of law. La.Const. art. 5, § 5(C). Thus, only when there is no evidence of an essential element of the crime charged can this Court's appellate jurisdiction be invoked to reverse a conviction on an evidentiary review. State v. Valentine, 364 So.2d 595 (La.1978); State v. Tucker, 354 So.2d 521 (La.1978); State v. Main Motors, Inc., 383 So.2d 327 (La.1979).

La.R.S. 14:10 defines specific intent as follows:

"(1) Specific...