State v. Leger
| Decision Date | 10 July 2006 |
| Docket Number | No. 2005-KA-0011.,2005-KA-0011. |
| Citation | 936 So.2d 108 |
| Parties | STATE of Louisiana v. Donald Lee LEGER, Jr. |
| Court | Louisiana Supreme Court |
Capital Appeals Project, Jelpi P. Picou, Jr., Marcia A. Widder, Letty S. Digiulio, for appellant.
Charles C. Foti, Jr., Attorney General, J. Phil Haney, District Attorney, Walter J. Senette, Jr., James R. McClelland, Assistant District Attorneys, for appellee.
On February 5, 2002, a St. Mary Parish grand jury indicted the defendant, Donald Lee Leger, Jr., for the December 11, 2001 first degree murder of Troy Salone, in violation of La. R.S. 14:30. Other, non-capital charges, were included as separate counts in the indictment.1 On January 6, 2004, the state moved to sever the non-capital offenses charged in the indictment and proceeded to trial only on the one count of first degree murder. Trial commenced with jury selection beginning on January 12, 2004. On January 20, 2004, the jury returned a unanimous verdict of guilty as charged.
After a penalty phase hearing, the same jury unanimously recommended a sentence of death after finding the following aggravating circumstances: (1) that the defendant was engaged in the perpetration or attempted perpetration of an aggravated kidnapping or second degree kidnapping; (2) that the defendant was engaged in the perpetration or attempted perpetration of an aggravated burglary; and (3) that the defendant created a risk of death or great bodily harm to more than one person. La.C.Cr.P. art. 905.4(A)(1) and (4). On February 6, 2004, the trial court imposed the sentence of death in accordance with the jury's verdict.
The defendant now brings the direct appeal of his conviction and sentence to this court pursuant to La. Const. art. 5, § 5(D)2 raising 32 assignments of error. For the reasons that follow, we find that none of the arguments put forth constitute reversible error, and affirm the defendant's conviction and sentence.
Defendant, Donald Lee Leger, Jr., had an affair with Kimberly Zimmerman during a three or four-month period in which she was separated from her husband. The affair ended in late November, 2001, after defendant became jealous and possessive. Thereafter, defendant began threatening and harassing Zimmerman, and twice the police were summoned.
On the morning of December 10, 2001, defendant approached Zimmerman at the Wal-Mart store, where she was shopping with her infant daughter. There, Zimmerman confided to defendant that she thought she might be pregnant with his child. The two made plans to meet back at Wal-Mart later that evening to purchase a home pregnancy test.
After buying the pregnancy test, Zimmerman accompanied defendant back to his residence, where she took the test. While waiting on the results, defendant tried to persuade Zimmerman to reconcile with him and raise their baby together. However, Zimmerman insisted that she was going back to her husband and that she could not have another baby, as she already had four young children. The defendant retrieved the test result from the bathroom and brought it to Zimmerman. The test indicated that Zimmerman was not pregnant, causing the disappointed defendant to comment "I hope you're happy now."3
The defendant tried to persuade Zimmerman to have sex with him. When she refused, stating that she planned to reconcile with her husband, the defendant repeatedly asked her "is that your final answer?"4 When Zimmerman affirmed that her refusal of his advances was her final answer, the defendant reached in the top drawer of his dresser for a 9 mm handgun, which he had recently purchased from a co-worker, stating "I didn't want it to come to this." The defendant pointed the gun at Zimmerman and taunted "I bet you'll make love to me now, won't you?"5
The defendant told Zimmerman 6 The defendant then bound one of Zimmerman's hands with a tie wrap. When Zimmerman started to struggle, he threw her on the bed and put a knee on her back in order to bind her wrists together with the tie wrap. When he was finished binding her, the defendant sat Zimmerman up on the bed, grabbed a bag of bullets in a Crown Royal bag and told her, "I can't go back to prison."7 He then grabbed a pair of gloves.
The defendant dragged Zimmerman through the house, pausing in the kitchen to grab a knife to cut off a piece of duct tape to place over Zimmerman's mouth because she was screaming and crying. With the knife and gun in hand, the defendant brought Zimmerman outside and placed her in the passenger seat of her vehicle, a blue Ford mini-van. The defendant secured the seat belt across Zimmerman.
After driving a short distance, the defendant removed the duct tape which he had just placed over Zimmerman's mouth, telling her she had "20 minutes to talk to me."8 The defendant told Zimmerman that he was going to kill her, or maybe he would just kill himself. He reiterated he would not go back to prison. Zimmerman pled for her life, and told defendant things she thought he wanted to hear, namely that she would stay with him and that she would not talk to police.
As Zimmerman noticed they were approaching water, she feared that her death was imminent. She managed to free her hands and jumped out of the moving van near a neighborhood where she saw a handful of homes with lights on. The defendant snatched at Zimmerman to prevent her escape but only succeeded in pulling off her sweater. The defendant followed Zimmerman out of the passenger side of the van until he realized the van was continuing to roll forward. He then re-entered the van to stop it.
Zimmermane ran from the van screaming, "God, somebody please help me"9 and "Help, he's going to kill me."10 Zimmerman found refuge in the home of Steven Andrade, roughly the third home down from where she jumped out of the van. After the defendant stopped the van, he jumped out chasing after Zimmerman. But he looked for her at the first residence they had stopped in front of, the trailer home of victims Evelyn and Troy Salone at 896 Verdunville Road in Franklin, Louisiana.
Just before midnight, Evelyn Salone was about to fall asleep when she heard a female screaming. Since she believed Troy was already asleep, Evelyn went to see what all the commotion was about. Outside of her home, she encountered defendant in her yard and saw the van still rolling in the road in front of her trailer. Defendant kept hollering "where is she, where is she?"11 Not knowing who the strange man was looking for, Evelyn asked him, 12
Troy Salone appeared at the door of the trailer, and asked what was going on. Defendant asked Troy "where is she?" Troy told him, "put the gun away, there's no need for a gun, put the gun away."13 At that point, defendant pulled a gun from his waistband and pointed it at Evelyn. Evelyn assured Troy "he's not going to shoot ... it'll be okay,"14 at which point, the defendant fired the gun into Evelyn's abdomen at point blank range, and she fell to the ground. Troy turned inside the trailer to call for help. Defendant followed Troy inside the trailer, and as Troy reached for the telephone, defendant shot him one time in the head, fatally wounding him.
Evelyn's 15-year-old son, Zeb LeBlanc,15 woke up when he heard his stepfather, Troy, scream something that sounded like "Man, move that gun."16 Zeb then heard a gunshot abut four or five seconds later. Zeb jumped out of bed and tried to load a nearby shotgun but was not able to do so because he hands were shaking. When Zeb no longer heard footsteps in the trailer, he peeked out his bedroom window. Zeb then saw Troy lying lifelessly next to the sofa, with blood coming from his head.
Zeb then heard his mother calling from outside the residence, "Troy, Troy, call 911, he shot me."17 Zeb went outside to attend to his mother and knelt down beside her, asking her what was going on. Zeb stood up as the defendant approached again and asked Zeb, "where is she?" Zeb told defendant to "just go away, leave us alone."18 At that, the defendant raised his gun and pointed it at Zeb and told him that he should just go back to wherever he had come from.19 As various neighbors were beginning to come out, defendant called out one last time, "Kimberly, I'll be waiting for you at home,"20 then got back in the van and sped away.
Evelyn told Zeb to call 911, which he did, and emergency medical personnel and police were dispatched to the area. When they arrived, Evelyn immediately gave them a description of the man who shot her and her husband. Evelyn survived her injuries, but required numerous surgeries for the damage sustained by her internal organs. Troy Salone was pronounced dead at the scene.21
Meanwhile, from the safety of Steven Andrade's neighboring home, Kimberly Zimmerman called 911 to report that her ex-boyfriend, Donald Leger, had kidnapped her at gunpoint. After hearing gunshots, she told the dispatcher that she feared he may have shot himself. Later, she told the dispatcher that she believed the defendant had been shooting at her.22
The police were already on the way to the Verdunville area when they encountered the blue van speeding away. Defendant led police on a high-speed chase for approximately 30 miles through cane fields and back roads. Officers from various jurisdictions, including the St. Mary Parish Sheriff's Office, the Franklin Police Department, and the Morgan City Police Department participated in the chase. At times, defendant turned out the headlights on the van, hoping to elude the authorities. Eventually, def...
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