96-0084 La.App. 4 Cir. 5/21/97, State v. Langlois

• Decision Date: 21 May 1997
• Citation: 695 So.2d 540
• Parties: 96-0084 La.App. 4 Cir
• Court: Court of Appeal of Louisiana — District of US

Page 540

695 So.2d 540

96-0084 La.App. 4 Cir. 5/21/97

STATE of Louisiana v. Donald Emmett LANGLOIS.

No. 96-KA-0084.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Fourth Circuit.

May 21, 1997.

Harry F. Connick, District Attorney of Orleans Parish, Susan Erlanger Talbot, Assistant District Attorney of Orleans Parish, New Orleans, for Appellee.

Sheila C. Myers and Herbert V. Larson, New Orleans, for Appellant.

Before BYRNES, JONES and LANDRIEU, JJ.

[96-0084 La.App. 4 Cir. 1] LANDRIEU, Judge.

The State charged Donald Emmett Langlois with attempted second degree murder, and a jury convicted him of attempted manslaughter. The Trial Judge sentenced him as a quadruple offender under La.Rev.Stat. 15:529.1 to life imprisonment at hard labor without the benefit of parole, probation, or suspension of sentence and without good time. He appealed, and this Court affirmed his conviction but vacated his sentence as a quadruple offender, remanding the case for resentencing after finding that the State's documentary evidence of prior convictions and identity were not properly certified or authenticated. ¹ State v. Langlois, 620 So.2d 1193 (La.App. 4th Cir.1993), writ denied 625 So.2d 1042 (La.1993).

After the Trial Court denied the defense's motion to quash the multiple bill, the Trial Judge resentenced Langlois to life imprisonment as a fourth felony offender under La.Rev.Stat. 15:529.1. This appeal, Langlois's second, followed.

The facts which were recited in the earlier appeal are:

[96-0084 La.App. 4 Cir. 2] On August 17, 1986, the victim agreed to give [Langlois], whom she knew from her father's deli, a ride to Broadway and Claiborne Avenues. After stopping to make a phone call, [Langlois] asked the victim to drive him to meet friends at a motel on Airline Highway. Initially the victim waited in the car, but when [Langlois] returned to the car and told her that her friend was on the telephone, she went into the motel room where she discovered that there was no phone and no people other than [Langlois]. She turned to confront [Langlois] and he struck her in the face with a hard object. [Langlois] knocked the victim to the ground, he put his hands on her throat, strangling her and causing her to pass out. She regained consciousness, and after a period of time they left the motel in the victim's car. Finally, [Langlois] became violent again and the victim jumped from the window of the car and waved down a passing vehicle. She was taken to the hospital.

The State's forensic pathology expert testified that the hemorrhages in the victim's eyes were the same kind that are seen in a strangulation victim.

The initial report taken by Officer Milsaps at the hospital did not document the attempted strangulation. However, Officer Milsaps stated that the victim had bloodshot eyes and bruises on her neck, face, and shoulders. Homicide Officer Marco Demma testified that when he interviewed the victim her eyes were filled with blood and her face, neck, arms, and back were bruised. She also had scratches on her. In February 1988, when Demma went to Florida where [Langlois] had been arrested in connection with this incident, [Langlois] made a statement that he had attacked the victim.

The occupants of the passing car testified that the victim was standing on the street screaming that somebody was trying to kill her.

State v. Langlois, 620 So.2d at 1194-95.

We have reviewed the record for errors patent and have found none.

Langlois makes three assignments of error: (1) his second multiple offender hearing violated the double jeopardy clauses of the United States and Louisiana Constitutions; (2) his second multiple offender hearing should be dismissed as untimely; and (3) the State did not meet its burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was a fourth felony offender.

In his first assignment of error, Langlois maintains that the Trial Court erred in denying his objection to being subjected to a second multiple offender hearing [96-0084 La.App. 4 Cir. 3] on the ground that the second hearing violated the double jeopardy clauses of the United States and Louisiana Constitutions. Langlois relies on Bullington v. Missouri, 451 U.S. 430, 101 S.Ct. 1852, 68 L.Ed.2d 270 (1981), a case involving a capital sentencing proceeding, and Bullard v. Estelle, 665 F.2d 1347 (5th Cir.1982), judgment vacated, Estelle v. Bullard, 459 U.S. 1139, 103 S.Ct. 776, 74 L.Ed.2d 987 (1983), a case in which the United States Fifth Circuit determined that double jeopardy attached in some Texas habitual offender proceedings.

In State v. Dorthey, 623 So.2d 1276, 1278-79 (La.1993), the Louisiana Supreme Court held:

Under Louisiana's Habitual Offender law a bill of information alleging that a defendant is a recidivist does not charge a new crime but merely advises the trial court of circumstances, and seeks enhanced punishment following a defendant's most recent conviction. 'The enhancement of the penalty for habitual offenders convicted of a new felony only addresses itself to the sentencing powers of the trial judge after conviction and has no functional relationship to the innocence or guilt of the instant crime.' Thus, a ruling at a multiple offender hearing is not 'a definitive judgment' but merely 'a 'finding' ancillary to the imposition of sentence.'

Furthermore, because the hearing is not a trial, legal principles such as res judicata, double jeopardy, the right to a jury trial and the like do not apply. Louisiana's Habitual Offender statute is simply an enhancement of punishment provision. It does not punish status and does not on its face impose cruel and unusual punishment. [Citations omitted; emphasis added.]

Thus, after the federal cases cited by Langlois, the Louisiana Supreme Court has held that double jeopardy principles do not apply to the habitual offender statute because that statute is an enhancement provision rather than a separate felony. State v. Carter, 630 So.2d 926, 934 (La.App. 4th Cir.1993). Hence, Langlois's multiple bill hearing did not violate double jeopardy principles.

Langlois next argues that the State failed to proceed with the second multiple offender hearing in a timely manner. In State v. Langlois, supra., handed down on May 27, 1993, this Court stated that another multiple offender hearing was not precluded. The State never filed another multiple bill, however, and Langlois [96-0084 La.App. 4 Cir. 4] argues that fifteen to seventeen months passed before the State proceeded with another hearing. ²

The habitual offender statute, La.Rev.Stat. 15:529.1(D), provides that "if, at any time, either after conviction or sentence, it shall appear that a person convicted of a felony has previously been convicted of [another] felony," then the defendant may be charged as a multiple offender. Although the statute does not contain a prescriptive period, the Louisiana Supreme Court held that a habitual offender bill must be filed "within a reasonable time" after the prosecution becomes aware of the defendant's prior felony record. State v. Broussard, 416 So.2d 109, 110-11 (La.1982). The District Attorney filed the habitual offender bill thirteen months after sentencing the defendant and three months before the defendant was eligible for parole in Broussard, and offered no justification for the delay. The Court found the delay to be "unreasonable" and declared that "upon conviction a defendant is entitled to know the full consequences of the verdict within a reasonable time. Since the enhancement of the penalty provision is incidental to the latest conviction, the proceeding to sentence under that provision should not be unduly delayed." Id. at 111.

The application of the Broussard doctrine is a fact-specific inquiry depending on the particular circumstances of each case. This Court has held that three and four month delays were not unreasonable under the circumstances of each case. See State v. Patterson, 459 So.2d 714 (La.App. 4th Cir.1984); State v. Thompson, 539 So.2d 1008 (La.App. 4th Cir.), writ denied 544 So.2d 399 (La.1989). Furthermore, courts have found delays due to jurisdictional questions not [96-0084 La.App. 4 Cir. 5] unreasonable. See, State v. Ross, 542 So.2d 631 (La.App. 5th Cir.1989); State v. Miskell, 538 So.2d 1055 (La.App. 4th Cir.), writ denied 542 So.2d 6 (La.1989).

In the instant case, when the defense objected that the proceeding was untimely at the motion to quash the multiple bill hearing on December 1, 1994, the Trial Court declared that the delay was justified by the unique and distinctive procedural history of the case. The Trial Court then related the following facts: this case was first set to be heard with a first degree murder case against Langlois set in Section A; then the Trial Judge in Section A recused herself because the victim in the attempted manslaughter case was a friend of her daughter. The cases were severed, and the first degree murder case was returned to Section A. The Trial Judge in Section F expected the resentencing on the attempted manslaughter conviction to be transferred to Section A to be considered in conjunction with the outcome of the first degree murder case. ³ The Trial Court acknowledged that when the prosecutor asked about setting a date for a multiple bill hearing, he had responded that the case belonged in Section A. Thus, the Trial Court found that the expectation that the case would go to Section A of Criminal District Court for resentencing was justification for the delay. ⁴

In State v. Carter, supra at p. 543, this Court found a fifteen month delay justifiable where an investigation was undertaken to determine the validity of defendant's claim of breach of a plea bargain. One factor in determining that the [96-0084 La.App. 4 Cir. 6] delay was justifiable was that Carter knew his sentence could be enhanced by up to twenty years. The delay of fifteen months was regrettable but not prejudicial, this Court stated.

Similarly, Langlois was charged with murder and...