State v. Taylor

• Decision Date: 28 February 1996
• Citation: 669 So.2d 364
• Parties: 93-2201 La
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

Page 364

669 So.2d 364

93-2201 La. 2/28/96

STATE of Louisiana v. Feltus TAYLOR.

No. 93-KA-2201.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

Feb. 28, 1996.

Rehearing Denied March 29, 1996.

On Direct Criminal Appeal from 19th Judicial District Court, East Baton Rouge Parish.

James Edgar Boren, Baton Rouge, David William Price, John Holdridge, New Orleans, for Applicant.

Richard Phillip Ieyoub, Attorney General, Douglas P. Moreau, District Attorney, John Warren Sinquefield, Lori Theresa Lewis Nunn, Gwendolyn Kay Brown, Baton Rouge, for Defendant.

[93-2201 La. 1] VICTORY, Justice. ¹

Feltus Taylor was indicted by the grand jury for the first degree murder of Donna Ponsano, in violation of La.R.S. 14:30. After trial, the jury found the defendant guilty as charged, and unanimously recommended a death sentence. The trial court sentenced the defendant to death in accordance with the jury's recommendation. This is a direct appeal from that conviction and sentence. La. Const. art. V, § 5(D)(2); La.Code Crim.P. art. 912.1(A). The defendant raises 339 assignments of error ² for reversal of his conviction and sentence. ³ We find no reversible error, and affirm the conviction and sentence.

FACTS

On the morning of March 27, 1991, the victim, Donna Ponsano, was working as a cook at Cajun's Fabulous Fried Chicken restaurant on Florida Boulevard in Baton Rouge. At approximately 7:00 a.m., Keith Clark, the restaurant's manager, arrived to assist Ponsano in opening for business. After tending to morning chores in the rear of the restaurant, Clark returned to the front and noticed the defendant at the front door knocking. The defendant was a former [93-2201 La. 2] employee of the restaurant whom Clark had hired approximately six months earlier. Although he had been fired by Clark about two weeks previously for poor performance, he and Clark were still friendly.

Clark opened the door for the defendant and allowed him to enter the restaurant. At this time, the defendant, who was experiencing financial problems, asked Clark to rehire him. Clark refused, but assisted the defendant in searching for another job by giving him money to buy a newspaper and sitting with him in a restaurant booth to review classified job advertisements. Clark found that a local Popeye's restaurant was seeking a cook, and called to recommend the defendant for the job. He made a 9:00 a.m. appointment with the Popeye's manager responsible for hiring, and intended to accompany the defendant to discuss his qualifications.

While waiting for the time of the appointment, Clark continued with his morning routine, and the defendant helped by sweeping the dining area of the restaurant. As Clark was placing money into the cash registers, the defendant decided that robbery was the solution to his financial problems. He exited the restaurant to retrieve a .22 caliber handgun and handcuffs from his car which was parked in front.

Upon reentering the restaurant, the defendant grabbed Ponsano, held the gun to her head and demanded that Clark open the restaurant's floor safe which was located in a storeroom towards the rear of the building. Initially Clark refused, but complied after the defendant threatened to shoot Ponsano in the head. As the three of them went to the back of the restaurant, Clark tried to escape through a rear entry door. However, his attempts were unsuccessful because the door was [93-2201 La. 3] locked. The defendant then handcuffed Clark and Ponsano together. Clark opened the safe, and gave the defendant its contents, approximately $800.00.

Clark tried to convince the defendant not to continue with the robbery, but he refused saying that his financial problems were too serious and that his car payment of $134.00 was due. Clark responded by offering to loan or give the defendant a personal check to pay the note. The defendant refused the offer, and instructed Clark not to inform the police about the robbery. After Clark told the defendant that he would not lie to the police, the defendant again asked Clark to rehire him. Ponsano expressed her opposition to rehiring the defendant, and Clark agreed. The defendant then shot Ponsano, hitting her five times in the head and upper forearm. After emptying the gun, he exited the room, reloaded and returned to shoot Clark in the head. He then emptied the cash register of approximately $580.00, exited through the front door, got into his car and drove away.

Earlier, while the defendant was herding Clark and Ponsano to the back of the restaurant, another employee of Cajun's, Viola Kaglear, arrived between 8:00 and 8:30 a.m. to begin her workday. She recognized the defendant's car in the front of the building. When no one responded to her knocking on the front door, Kaglear looked into the front windows and saw the defendant and Clark going into the storeroom. She waited a few minutes, proceeded to the rear of the building, and looked through a two-way peep hole in the back door where she saw the defendant exit and return to the storeroom. Shortly thereafter, she heard gunshots and ran to a neighboring Frostop restaurant where she alerted Josephine Hookfin, a Frostop employee, and William H. Johns, a food salesman, of the shooting. Hookfin immediately called 911. During the 911 telephone call, the defendant exited the restaurant, and got into his car. As the defendant drove away, Johns [93-2201 La. 4] was able to read the automobile's license plate number, and relayed it to Hookfin and Kaglear, who gave it to the 911 operator.

When the police and emergency medical personnel arrived at the scene they found Ponsano and Clark lying in the storeroom handcuffed together, each with multiple gunshot wounds to the head. Ponsano died two days later, after treatment and surgery in a nearby hospital. Clark survived, but suffers with paralysis and minor brain damage.

At approximately 10:00 p.m. on the day of the shooting, police arrested the defendant near his apartment for attempted first degree murder and armed robbery. Thereafter, he confessed and led the police to the stolen money, which was hidden in a field not far from his apartment. The defendant informed the police that he had thrown the murder weapon into the Mississippi River.

After Ponsano died two days later, the defendant was charged with first degree murder and armed robbery. At trial, the defendant conceded guilt, and the jury found him guilty. After a four-day penalty phase hearing, the jury recommended a death sentence, finding four aggravating circumstances: (1) that the defendant was engaged in the perpetration or attempted perpetration of an armed robbery; (2) that the defendant knowingly created a risk of death or great bodily harm to more than one person; (3) that the defendant had been previously convicted of an unrelated armed robbery; and (4) that the offense was committed in an especially heinous, atrocious and cruel manner.

DISCUSSION

SCOPE OF REVIEW

As in most capital cases, the defendant asserts numerous assignments of error which were not objected to during the trial. In State v. Smith, 554 So.2d [93-2201 La. 5] 676 (La.1989), this Court enunciated a new and expanded rule regarding consideration of alleged errors that are not contemporaneously objected to in capital cases. La.Code Crim.P. art. 841(A). A narrow majority of the Court held that in death penalty cases it would notice all possible errors occurring during both the guilt and sentencing phases, even if they were not properly raised. Smith, 554 So.2d at 678.

Smith changed the Court's long-standing policy regarding the scope of review in death cases. Prior to Smith, only those unobjected to errors occurring during the sentencing phase of the trial were reviewed by the Court. This practice was based upon the Court's statutory obligation to review every death sentence for excessiveness by examining the record for passion, prejudice or arbitrary factors which may have contributed to the death penalty recommendation. La.Code Crim.P. art. 905.9; La.Sup.Ct.R. 28, § 1; State v. Lindsey, 404 So.2d 466, 482-83 (La.1981), on original hearing, citing State v. Berry, 391 So.2d 406 (La.1980), on original hearing; and State v. Sonnier, 379 So.2d 1336 (La.1980), on rehearing.

One of the Court's primary reasons for expanding the scope of review in capital cases was "efficiency." Specifically, the Court was concerned that failure to review unobjected to errors occurring during the guilt phase would add "to the burgeoning delays of postconviction proceedings in state and federal courts." Smith, 554 So.2d at 678. While this concern may have been well-placed when Smith was decided, it has been minimized by subsequent events.

Since its decision in Smith, the Court has adopted La.Sup.Ct.R. XXXI, which established the Louisiana Indigent Defender Board ("LIDB") and which requires, in capital cases, the appointment of at least two attorneys to represent [93-2201 La. 6] indigent defendants--one trial lead counsel and one trial associate counsel--both of whom must be "certified" in accordance with the rules and standards of the LIDB. According to Chapter 7 of the LIDB's Standards on Indigent Defense, trial lead counsel must meet the following minimum standards to be certified:

(A) Be an experienced and active trial practitioner with at least five years of litigation experience;

(B) Have prior experience as lead counsel in no fewer than nine jury trials tried to completion; of these nine jury trials, at least five must have involved felonies or two must have involved the charge of murder; and

(C) Have prior experience as lead counsel or associate counsel in at least one case in which the death penalty was sought and was tried through the penalty phase or have prior experience as lead counsel or associate counsel in at least two cases in which the death penalty was sought and where, although resolved prior to trial or at the guilt phase, a thorough investigation was performed for a potential penalty phase....