State v. Lowenfield
| Citation | 495 So.2d 1245 |
| Decision Date | 02 December 1985 |
| Docket Number | No. 85-KA-0255,85-KA-0255 |
| Parties | STATE of Louisiana v. Leslie LOWENFIELD. |
| Court | Supreme Court of Louisiana |
William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Barbara Rutledge, Asst. Atty. Gen., John Mamoulides, Dist. Atty., Arthur Lentini, Gregory Gremillion, Asst. Dist. Attys., for plaintiff-appellee.
John H. Craft, Indigent Defender Board, New Orleans, for defendant-appellant.
The defendant, Leslie Lowenfield, was indicted by a Jefferson Parish Grand Jury on five counts of first degree murder in violation of LSA-R.S. 14:30. After deliberation, the jury returned guilty verdicts on three counts of first degree murder and on two counts of manslaughter. LSA-R.S. 14:31. Following the presentation of evidence during the sentencing portion of the trial, the jury unanimously recommended that the defendant be sentenced to death on each of the three counts. On May 29, 1984, the defendant was sentenced to death on each of the three counts of first degree murder.
Defendant assigns twenty-one errors as the basis for his appeal before this court. Seven of these assigned errors were neither argued nor briefed. 1 In this opinion we will treat twelve assignments of error (assignments 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 17, 19) and review the sentence. The defendant's remaining assignments involve legal issues governed by established principles of law and will be treated in an unpublished appendix to this opinion which will comprise part of the official record in this case.
The defendant is a native of Guyana, South America. He came to New Orleans in June of 1981, seeking employment. In July of 1981, he met Sheila Thomas, a Deputy Sheriff for Jefferson Parish. In August of 1981, Sheila Thomas and her daughter, Shantell Osborne, moved into the defendant's apartment at One Thousand Scottsdale Drive. The relationship between Thomas and the defendant proved to be a stormy one. On three occasions the victim left the defendant and returned to her mother's home. Each separation became increasingly bitter and acrimonious.
The final time a break up of their relationship occurred was in June or July of 1982, at which time Ms. Thomas returned to her mother's home on Robinson Street. Subsequent to this separation, the defendant harassed the victim and frequently complained to others about Thomas' conduct and that of her family. The defendant was particularly upset with her mother, Myrtle Griffin, and blamed her for influencing her daughter against him. The harassment and repeated threats finally forced Thomas to file several complaints against defendant with the Sheriff's department. The defendant was arrested on June 6, 1982 on charges of making obscene phone calls, attempted aggravated arson and resisting arrest. These claims were dismissed later when Thomas withdrew the complaint.
In the days approaching the murders, the defendant repeatedly told other people that he was going to "get" Thomas and her family. For instance, on August 26, 1982, the defendant told Veronica Stallworth, a close friend of Thomas', that he was going to, "blow Sheila's _______ brains out." (R. 1967). He told Stallworth that he was upset that Sheila had left him because, "In his country women do not leave the men." (R. 1968). Another witness, Gwendolyn Clanton, testified that on August 29th, one day before the murder, the defendant came to her apartment and told her he was going to "kill Sheila." (R. 1983). She also testified that he threatened to kill Carl Osborne and Myrtle Griffin. He felt that Ms. Griffin had interfered in his relationship with Thomas. His wish to kill Carl, the father of Sheila's daughter, was motivated by jealousy, because he had seen Thomas' car at Osborne's home. (R. 1985).
At about 5:30 p.m. on the evening of August 30, 1982, Owen Griffin, Sheila Thomas' stepfather, was sitting in a vacant lot near his home in Marrero, Louisiana, playing cards with a few of his neighbors. Suddenly shots rang out from the Griffin residence. Owen Griffin ran to the house and rushed inside whereupon more shots rang out. The neighbors called the police who arrived within a few minutes. Neither the neighbors nor the police saw anyone come in or out of the house.
When the police arrived, they entered the building and found the bodies of Owen Griffin, his wife, Myrtle Griffin, his stepdaughter, Sheila Thomas, Ms. Thomas' four year old daughter, Shantell Osborne, and Carl Osborne, the father of the child. The victims were sprawled about the living area of the house with multiple gunshot wounds. All of the victims had been shot in the head.
Found at the scene of the crime was a .38 caliber pistol and a .22 caliber semi-automatic rifle with the name Sheila written on the stock in blue ink. Ballistics tests positively identified these as the murder weapons. At the trial Elena Cannon, a K-Mart store employee, testified that in the morning on the day of the killings, she had sold a .22 caliber semi-automatic rifle to one Leslie Lowenfield. She positively identified defendant as the buyer. Three things that helped her identification were the facts that he was her first customer of the day, that he requested the gun which held and fired the most ammunition, and his unusual accent. A handwriting expert identified defendant's signature on the federal gun registration form which Ms. Cannon had the defendant fill out.
A search of the defendant's apartment revealed a box and packaging for a .22 caliber Marlin semi-automatic rifle and a handwritten letter addressed to Sheila Thomas. 2 Also found on the sofa in defendant's apartment was a blue felt marker. This was seized because this type of pen was used to write the victim's name on the .22 caliber rifle. This type of pen was also used to write in a green notebook found on the scene of the crime. This notebook contained writings which raged against Thomas and her family for their treatment of the defendant. 3
Diane Fauchaux, a former taxi cab driver, testified that she picked the defendant up at his apartment complex shortly before noon on the day of the crime. She had driven the defendant to the Greyhound Bus station where he mailed several packages. After this, the cabbie took defendant to Marrero where, still carrying one of his packages, defendant asked to be dropped off at the corner of Fourth and Robinson Streets, or about a block from the scene of the crime. At trial, the driver identified the defendant, remembering his accent and the details of the trip which lasted nearly an hour.
Business records of Greyhound corroborate Fauchaux's testimony. They show that shipments to New York were pre-paid by one Leslie Lowenfield at 11:55 a.m. on August 30, 1982. These packages were addressed to Winnifred Prience. Defendant later acknowledged the name and New York address to be that of his sister.
Anita Jackson testified that she received a phone call from defendant the day after the murders. According to Jackson, defendant called her and told her that he was in Alabama, and that he had killed someone. Jackson further testified that defendant said he had killed Sheila, but had not meant to kill the baby. The defendant denied knowing Jackson at all, but her name and phone number were inexplicably in the address book that defendant identified as his.
On October 5, 1982, the defendant was arrested in New York City. When arrested, he identified himself as "James Best" and denied ever having been in Louisiana. While awaiting extradition, the defendant was held on Rikers Island. While defendant was there, the surviving members of the Thomas family began receiving macabre letters. Three were addressed to "Mikel Thomas" and bore a return address of "L. Lowenfield, 923 Udica Avenue, Brooklyn, New York." One other letter was addressed to "Connie Ankloyed", (Thomas' married sister, Connie Encalade) and bore a return address of "James Best, 923 Udica Avenue, Brooklyn, New York." The letters were postmarked from Flushing, New York, through which the mail from Rikers Island is routed. The handwriting was positively identified as the defendant's. The letters contain many inculpatory statements as well as details of the crime. 4
Also found at the murder scene was a green spiral notebook addressed "to Sheila". The notebook contained handwritten messages, threats and warnings to Sheila, her family and the police.
After the state rested the defendant presented an alibi defense. Defendant contended that he was on a bus for Jacksonville the day before the murder, and that he then went to New York. Two witnesses were presented that Lowenfield claimed he had seen, but neither remembered the defendant. He testified that he did not know Jackson, despite the fact that her name and telephone number were in his phone book in his handwriting. He said that he had not written the letters or the notebook despite the fact that they were also in his handwriting. He denied buying the gun, even though he signed the form and the application contained all his personal information.
In order to explain all of these things away, defendant persisted that someone had engaged in an elaborate charade in order to set him up.
By his first four assignments of error the defendant claims that the court should not have found the defendant competent to stand trial, nor should they have permitted the defendant to withdraw his plea of insanity. Defendant further contends that the court erred in permitting the defendant to instruct his counsel not to pursue the issue of his mental condition at either the guilt or penalty phases of the trial.
In his fourth assignment, defendant contends that the court erred in denying his counsel's motion to withdraw.
The defendant was the object of three different sanity commissions. The first was on March 17, 1983, the second February 16, 1984 and the third on May 7, 1984, shortly before...
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