Hammontree v. Phelps, Civ. A. No. 781494.

• Decision Date: 29 December 1978
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 781494.
• Citation: 462 F. Supp. 366
• Parties: Felix Stroud HAMMONTREE v. C. Paul PHELPS, Director, Louisiana Department of Corrections.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Louisiana

462 F. Supp. 366

Felix Stroud HAMMONTREE v. C. Paul PHELPS, Director, Louisiana Department of Corrections.

Civ. A. No. 781494.

United States District Court, W. D. Louisiana, Lake Charles Division.

December 29, 1978.

Joe J. Tritico, D. Michael Mooney, Lake Charles, La., for plaintiff.

Frank T. Salter, Jr., Dist. Atty. and Adam L. Ortego, Jr., Asst. Dist. Atty., Fourteenth Judicial Dist. Court, Calcasieu Parish, Lake Charles, La., for defendant.

VERON, District Judge:

RULING

After a jury trial in the Fourteenth Judicial District Court, Parish of Calcasieu, Louisiana, the petitioner, Felix Stroud Hammontree, was convicted of negligent homicide in violation of Louisiana Revised Statutes 14:32. He was sentenced to five years hard labor in the custody of the Louisiana Department of Corrections and is presently in the respondent's custody serving that sentence. On appeal, the Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed his conviction. State v. Hammontree, No. 61853, 363 So.2d 1364 (La.1978), and subsequently denied his rehearing application. State v. Hammontree, No. 61853 (La. Nov. 9, 1978), ___ So.2d ___. He has now filed in this court a petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254.

In his present petition, petitioner contends that his conviction was obtained in violation of his federal constitutional rights. Specifically, petitioner argues that he was denied his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process of law because Louisiana's negligent homicide statute creates an unconstitutional criminal presumption that when a defendant violates a statute or ordinance he is presumed to be criminally negligent, thus allowing the State to secure a conviction without proving beyond a reasonable doubt every element of the crime in violation of In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970). Petitioner has exhausted his available state remedies with respect to the question as required by 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b). See generally 17 C. Wright, A. Miller & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure, § 4264 (1978). The case has been submitted on briefs and the State court record. This meritorious habeas petition is a veritable needle in a haystack. * * * "he who must search a haystack for a needle is likely to end up with the attitude that the needle is not worth the search." Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, 537, 73 S.Ct. 397, 425, 97 L.Ed. 469 (1953) (Jackson, J., concurring). This court is persuaded that petitioner's conviction must be set aside because of the State's employment of an unconstitutional statutory criminal presumption.

Louisiana Revised Statutes 14:32 provides:

Negligent homicide is the killing of a human being by criminal negligence.

The violation of a statute or ordinance shall be considered only as presumptive evidence of such negligence.

Whoever commits the crime of negligent homicide shall be imprisoned, with or without hard labor, for not more than five years.

(Emphasis supplied.) Criminal negligence is statutorily defined in Louisiana as follows:

Criminal negligence exists when, although neither specific nor general criminal intent is present, there is such disregard of the interest of others that the offender's conduct amounts to a gross deviation below the standard of care expected to be maintained by a reasonably careful man under like circumstances.

La.R.S. 14:12 (emphasis added).

A true criminal presumption, as here, functions in a dual capacity. It operates as an inference of fact and as a rule of evidence that shifts the burden of producing evidence. See generally Comment, Presumptions in the Criminal Law of Louisiana, 52 Tul.L.Rev. 793 (1978). Criminal presumptions have been described as "a very potent means of conviction." Chamberlain, Presumptions as First Aid to the District Attorney, 14 A.B.A.J. 287, 288 (1928).

The requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt in criminal cases was afforded constitutional status by the United States Supreme Court in the case of In re Winship, supra, 397 U.S. at 364, 90 S.Ct. at 1073, which held that the "Due Process Clause protects the accused against conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged." The Court reasoned that such a rule was necessitated both to protect the interest of the accused in avoiding incarceration and stigma, and also to command community respect and confidence in the moral force of the criminal law. The Winship holding reflects the "fundamental value determination of our society that it is far worse to convict an innocent man than to let a guilty man go free." Id. at 372, 90 S.Ct. at 1077 (Harlan, J., concurring).

Louisiana jurisprudence announces that the crime of negligent homicide consists of three essential elements: 1) homicide 2) criminal negligence on the part of the defendant 3) the fact that such criminal negligence was the cause of the homicide. State v. Nix, 211 La. 865, 31 So.2d 1, 4 (1947). Winship makes clear that the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt every fact necessary to constitute the crime charged.

The United States Supreme Court has delineated the limited circumstances in which a presumption in a criminal case can pass constitutional muster. It has specifically rejected the comparative convenience of producing evidence as sufficient to validate a presumption. Tot v. United States, 319 U.S. 463, 467, 63 S.Ct. 1241, 87 L.Ed. 1519 (1943). At a minimum, there must be a "rational connection between the fact proved and the ultimate fact presumed." Id. at 467, 63 S.Ct. at 1245. A criminal presumption is irrational, and thus unconstitutional, "unless it can at least be said with substantial assurance that the presumed fact is more likely than not to flow from the proved fact on which it is made to depend." Leary v. United States, 395 U.S. 6, 36, 89 S.Ct. 1532, 1548, 28 L.Ed.2d 57 (1969). However, the high Court in Leary left unresolved whether the rational connection test or the reasonable doubt standard is the appropriate measure.¹

But whether the proper test is the "more likely than not" standard or that of "reasonable doubt," it is not satisfied by the presumption of criminal negligence in the present case. It surely cannot be said with substantial assurance, and it certainly cannot be said beyond a reasonable doubt, that criminal negligence accompanies violation of a statute or ordinance in more cases than not. Illustrative examples are readily apparent. For example, driving 60 miles per hour on an intrastate highway or running a stop sign are both violations of state statutes, which while warranting a presumption of ordinary negligence, do not justify a presumption of criminal negligence. The effect of this statutory presumption is to allow the jury to presume that a defendant in a negligent homicide trial is guilty of criminal negligence when the State only has to prove ordinary negligence, i. e. violation of a statute or ordinance. The jury charge employed in this case, reproduced in pertinent part below,² suffers this infirmity.

In making today's ruling, we respectfully disagree with the Louisiana Supreme Court's observation that:

Reasonably careful men are expected to obey safety laws, and it is within the province of the legislature to permit the inference that one who violates a safety law and thereby injuries another is guilty of criminal negligence; and if it is proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the criminal negligence was the cause of death, the perpetrator may be guilty of criminal homicide.

State v. Hammontree, 363 So.2d p. 1372 (La.1978). The Louisiana legislature in enacting, La.R.S. 14:32 has exceeded constitutional limits since criminal negligence (the presumed fact) does not logically flow from ordinary negligence (the proven fact). The fact that causation must still be proved beyond a reasonable doubt is not curative, since causation is an element of the offense separate and apart from criminal negligence. Justice Calogero in dissent acknowledged the inherent constitutional defect:

If reasonably careful men are expected to obey safety laws, every violation of a safety law should not be required to be equated with gross deviation below the reasonable man standard absent the production of evidence rebutting the dictated conclusion . . .

I believe that the defendant's right to have the state prove beyond a reasonable doubt every fact necessary to constitute negligent homicide, the crime charged, has been violated in this case.

State v. Hammontree, 363 So.2d p. 1374 (La.1978). (Calogero, J., dissenting). The Louisiana Supreme Court itself admonished in State v. Searle, 339 So.2d 1194, 1203 (La.1976), that "in view of the newly emphasized requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every essential element...