State v. Sharp, 35,714-KA.

• Decision Date: 27 February 2002
• Docket Number: No. 35,714-KA.,35,714-KA.
• Parties: STATE of Louisiana, Appellee, v. Larry Stinson SHARP, Appellant.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Louisiana — District of US

810 So.2d 1179

STATE of Louisiana, Appellee, v. Larry Stinson SHARP, Appellant.

No. 35,714-KA.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Second Circuit.

February 27, 2002.

Rehearing Denied March 28, 2002.

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Louisiana Appellate Project, by J. Wilson Rambo, Monroe, for Appellant.

Larry Stinson Sharp, In Proper Person.

Richard Ieyoub, Attorney General, Paul J. Carmouche, District Attorney, Tommy J. Johnson, Traci Ann Moore, Assistant District Attorneys, for Appellee.

Before NORRIS, KOSTELKA and DREW, JJ.

KOSTELKA, J.

After an eleven-one jury convicted Larry Stinson Sharp ("Sharp") as charged with second degree murder, La. R.S. 14:30.1, he received a mandatory life sentence at hard labor without benefit of parole, probation or suspension of sentence.¹ He appeals his conviction and sentence.² We affirm.

FACTS

On March 12, 2000, Marcio Stanford ("Marcio") and Joni³ Bumgarner Sanders ("Joni") visited the Vivian, Louisiana home of Ada Stanford ("Ada"), Marcio's mother, where they assisted her with chores. Joni and Sharp were involved in a romantic relationship until January of 2000 when she began dating Marcio. In the late afternoon of March 12th, as Ada and Marcio were working on a fence, and Joni was doing laundry, Sharp drove up. After a very brief conversation, Sharp asked Marcio if Joni was there and if he could talk to her. After Marcio responded affirmatively, Sharp drove to the back of the house to a location where Marcio and Ada could not see him. Thereafter, Marcio and Ada heard two gunshots and began running toward the back of the house. At that point, Sharp began backing out of the driveway as Ada yelled at him to stop. When Sharp stopped the truck, Ada saw him point a shotgun out of the window. Sharp then fired at Marcio and Ada, hitting Marcio's truck. Marcio retrieved a gun from his truck and returned fire toward Sharp as Sharp backed out of the driveway onto the main roadway. Ada and Marcio hurried to find Joni who had been fatally shot. She was lying face down in water running from hot water pipes which had been hit by Sharp's gunfire. Marcio pulled her from the water flow and covered her with a sheet.

Later the same evening, the Caddo Parish Sheriff's office received a report of a gunshot fired in the vicinity of a nearby bar. When deputies arrived, they found Sharp lying near a pay phone with a selfinflicted gunshot wound to the chest. Sharp was arrested and transported to LSU Medical Center for treatment.

DISCUSSION

Sharp first contends that the evidence was insufficient to convict him of second degree murder.⁴

A claim of insufficient evidence is better addressed by a motion for postverdict judgment of acquittal filed in the trial court. See, La.C.Cr.P. art. 821. However, this court has held that it may also be raised by assignment of error on appeal. State v. McKinney, 31,611 (La. App.2d Cir.02/24/99), 728 So.2d 1009.⁵

Under Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979), the proper standard of appellate review for a sufficiency-of-evidence claim is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime proven beyond a reasonable doubt. State v. Bosley, 29,253 (La.App.2d Cir.04/02/97), 691 So.2d 347, writ denied, 97-1203 (La.10/17/97), 701 So.2d 1333.

The Jackson standard is applicable in cases involving both direct and circumstantial evidence. An appellate court reviewing the sufficiency of evidence in such cases must resolve any conflict in the direct evidence by viewing that evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution. When the direct evidence is thus viewed, the facts established by the direct evidence and inferred from the circumstances established by that evidence must be sufficient for a rational trier of fact to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was guilty of every essential element of the crime. State v. Sutton, 436 So.2d 471 (La.1983).

This court's authority to review questions of fact in a criminal case is limited to the sufficiency-of-the-evidence evaluation under Jackson and does not extend to credibility determinations made by the trier of fact. State v. Williams, 448 So.2d 753 (La.App. 2d Cir.1984). A reviewing court accords great deference to a jury's decision to accept or reject the testimony of a witness in whole or in part. Bosley, supra. In the absence of internal contradiction or irreconcilable conflict with physical evidence, one witness's testimony, if believed by the trier of fact, is sufficient support for a requisite factual conclusion. State v. Bellamy, 599 So.2d 326 (La.App. 2d Cir.1992), writ denied, 605 So.2d 1089 (La.1992).

Second degree murder is the killing of a human being with the specific intent to kill or inflict great bodily harm. La. R.S. 14:30.1.

Manslaughter is a homicide which would be first or second degree murder, but the offense is committed in sudden passion or heat of blood immediately caused by provocation sufficient to deprive an average person of his self-control and cool reflection. La. R.S. 14:31. The existence of sudden passion and heat of blood are not elements of the crime of manslaughter, but, rather, are factors in the nature of a defense which may reduce the grade of homicide. State v. Mackens, 35,350 (La.App.2d Cir.12/28/01), 803 So.2d 454. A defendant who shows by a preponderance of the evidence that these mitigatory factors are present is entitled to a manslaughter verdict. State v. Jackson, 34,076 (La.App.2d Cir.12/06/00), 774 So.2d 1046. However, the defendant is not obligated to establish the factors affirmatively; instead the jury may infer them from the overall evidence presented. Id. The reviewing court's function is to determine whether a rational trier of fact, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the state, could have found that the mitigatory factors were not established by a preponderance of the evidence. Id.

On appeal, Sharp does not contest the fact that he shot Joni. He contends, however, that his mental condition caused him to act in a state of rage or sudden passion which deprived him of his self-control and cool reflection so as to support only a manslaughter convictions.⁶

At trial, the jury heard evidence from the deputies who investigated the case. On the evening of March 12, 2000, Sergeant Gary Frake ("Frake") received a call regarding a man with a gunshot wound. He and Caddo Sheriff's Office investigator, John May ("May"), went to the scene where they discovered a white male lying on the ground. Deputy James McLamb, II ("McLamb") had previously arrived at the scene and informed May and Frake that the individual was Sharp and that he had a chest wound. Earlier, at 6:00 p.m., May had been called to the scene of Joni's shooting where he had learned of Sharp's involvement. Accordingly, May advised Sharp of his Miranda rights and asked him if he had shot Joni and himself. Sharp responded affirmatively to both questions and further explained that he had shot Joni because she ran off with his best friend. Sharp also indicated that he had attempted to shoot himself with the same gun that he had used to shoot Joni. Frake indicated that he found the gun approximately 200 feet from Sharp's location. It was a 12-gauge pump shotgun, He also retrieved several notes from Sharp's pockets. The deputies located the truck Sharp drove in the vicinity of the bar where Sharp was found. It had several bullet holes in the bed of the truck and a hose connected to the tailpipe.

While Sharp remained in the hospital for treatment, May obtained two statements from him on March 14th and 16th. May taped only the March 16th statement after advising Sharp of his rights. The jury heard the recorded statement in which Sharp stated the following: That on the Friday night before the shooting, Joni called him and wanted him to meet her at the Malibu Beach Club in Shreveport because she needed to see him. From his caller identification device, Sharp realized that Joni was calling him from Marcio's house. He had known that she was seeing someone and thiS confirmed that it was Marcio—his friend. Although he did not meet Joni on that night, he got up on Saturday morning and went to Nacogodoches, Texas, to visit Sarah Gresham ("Gresham"), a girlfriend. He helped Gresham do yard work and then went to a club to have a few beers. He returned to Gresham's at approximately 12:30 a.m. and tried to sleep. During the night, Sharp decided to kill himself because he loved Joni. He got up the next morning and told Gresham that he was going to get breakfast. Instead, Sharp went to Marshall, Texas to the home of a friend named Jeff Palmer ("Palmer") who Sharp knew was not at home. He entered Palmer's back door and stole a shotgun. Thereafter, Sharp went to a deer lease camp where he planned on killing himself. On the way there, he decided he needed to talk to Marcio and Joni. Sharp then called his friend, Tim Cloninger ("Cloninger"), and asked if he could borrow his truck. As Sharp waited for Cloninger at the deer camp, he wrote notes to his ex-wife and daughter. Sharp explained that he wanted somebody else's truck because he was driving without a license and feared that authorities would recognize his truck and take him to jail. Because Sharp did not know where Marcio lived, he drove to Smithland and Jefferson, Texas, where he obtained a can of gasoline. He parked down the road from Joni's mother's house and made sure no one was home. He then doused the house with gasoline and set it afire. Sharp hid the gas can and went back to the truck. He drove back to Smithland and asked several people where Marcio lived. He eventually found Ada's home and saw Marcio and Ada in the yard. Sharp also saw Joni going to the back of the house. He entered the yard and asked Marcio why he had not returned his telephone...