Jenkins v. Baldwin

• Decision Date: 29 August 2001
• Docket Number: No. 2000-CA-0802.,2000-CA-0802.
• Citation: 801 So.2d 485
• Parties: Joseph JENKINS v. Edward BALDWIN, State of Louisiana, Lyle Trabeaux et al.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Louisiana — District of US

801 So.2d 485

Joseph JENKINS v. Edward BALDWIN, State of Louisiana, Lyle Trabeaux et al.

No. 2000-CA-0802.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Fourth Circuit.

August 29, 2001.

Rehearing Denied October 3, 2001.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Mathew B. Collins, Jr., Dianne J. Marshall, New Orleans, LA, and Catrice A.

Johnson, Charles E. Cotton, New Orleans, LA, Counsel for Plaintiff/Appellee.

Annabelle H. Walker, Deputy City Attorney, Franz L. Zibilich, Chief Deputy City Attorney, Mavis S. Early, City Attorney, New Orleans, LA, Counsel for Defendant/Appellant.

Court composed of Chief Judge WILLIAM H. BYRNES, III, Judges STEVEN R. PLOTKIN, and MAX N. TOBIAS, Jr.

BYRNES, Chief Judge.

The City of New Orleans ("City") appeals a judgment in favor of the plaintiff, Joseph Oliver Jenkins, and against the City for damages for malicious prosecution, as well as intentional infliction of emotional distress, based on the claim that Jenkins was improperly convicted of murder and was improperly incarcerated for thirty (30) years. We reverse.

Facts

On Mardi Gals Day, March 5, 1957, around 4:00 p.m., a man named August During¹ was shot and killed on Canal Street near North Roman Street. After the shooting, Jenkins left. A few blocks away, Officer James Stevens and Officer Harold Woods apprehended and arrested Jenkins. The police submitted written statements from twelve witnesses and a police report to the District Attorney. According to the statements and police report, the victim, During, was in a group of eight people dressed as convicts who walked down Canal Street. At Canal and North Roman, Jenkins and During bumped into each other and then Jenkins backed into Canal Street. Both Jenkins and the victim had been drinking. Jenkins pulled a gun and shot several times, twice in the air and then at During, who died with two gunshot wounds in his chest. Two witnesses, Peggy and Albert Dupiere, stated that they saw the shooting from their car, that they were present when Jenkins was apprehended, and that at the time, Jenkins said that he shot the man but the man shot at him first. The police did not find a second weapon at the scene, and none of the other witnesses saw During with a gun.

At the police station, Jenkins told the officers that the victim had a gun, was in an automobile, and shot at him first. The victim's car was not found near the scene, but was located about fourteen blocks away.

Jenkins related that the police beat him in a room at the police station when he wouldn't sign a blank piece of paper. However, Jenkins did not present an allegation of police brutality in his petitions.

Jenkins stated that he carried a gun because he got into a fight with somebody at a dance the week before. Jenkins had a gun because "I was told that the party who threatened my life was looking for me with a butcher knife." Jenkins remarked that his gun was a .32 automatic that was not fully automatic. It had a "lemon squeeze" in the back. He said, "it will keep firing as long as you squeeze them both." In other words, the shooter does not have to pull the trigger each time he shoots, but the shooter must squeeze both parts of the trigger at once for the gun to go off.

Jenkins stated that he fired a couple of shots into the air to scare the victim, and then he tripped, firing two or three shots at the victim. Jenkins asserted that he was with several companions, but the witnesses told the police that Jenkins was by himself when the shooting occurred. The police report showed that the police tried to locate Jenkins' companions, but the police were unsuccessful. The police interviewed individuals at Jenkins' residence. His common law wife said that she knew that Jenkins had a gun before she began living with him about a year before.

Jenkins' statements are conflicting. When interviewed on television by Bill Elder in 1986, Jenkins stated that he did not recall the events of the shooting incident from the time he left the bar two or three blocks away (before the incident) until he was in the police car (after he was apprehended). At his civil trial in 1999, Jenkins asserted that the group dressed like convicts locked hands and would not let him through. The other witnesses in the criminal trial stated that most of the group dressed as convicts were about a block away from During and his companion, Lyle Trabeaux, when the shooting occurred. Trabeaux had lagged behind with During but was still walking ahead of During away from Canal on North Roman.

Officer Woods stated that a few blocks from the scene of the shooting, after he received the complaint from a couple in a car, he jumped out of the patrol car. He fired two warning shots and yelled at Jenkins to halt. Jenkins continued to run with Officer Woods in pursuit. Officer Stevens followed against traffic in the patrol car. Officer Stevens testified that when he got out of the police car, Jenkins was pointing his gun at him. The officer stated: "I told him to drop the gun. He didn't drop it, so I pulled out—I drew my weapon and I fired a shot into a fence behind him. And [Jenkins] dropped the weapon. . . ." The police officers arrested Jenkins, put him into the patrol car, and returned to the scene of the shooting.

After a jury trial in June 1957, Jenkins was convicted of murder and on November 20, 1957, Jenkins was sentenced to death. His sentence was commuted to life imprisonment on June 26, 1976, and to eighty (80) years in January 1987.

Sometime in the 1980's, Eugene Morse, then a fireman in the New Orleans Fire Department, read a newspaper article by Bill Elder about the Jenkins case. The article discussed the attempt to overturn Jenkins' conviction because there were no blacks on the jury. Morse called Bill Elder, who interviewed him and others on television in September 1986. Bill Elder stated that an all white jury convicted Jenkins. The television interviews stressed that in Morse's opinion, Jenkins shot During in self-defense.

Jenkins was released on parole in 1987. He was granted a new trial on April 26, 1991, on the basis that he did not receive a fair trial. On August 30, 1991, the defense filed a motion to quash the indictment based on the claim that: "The composition of the grand jury which returned the indictment is unconstitutional by present standards in that blacks and women were systematically excluded from service on the grand jury."² Thereafter, the criminal trial court granted the defendant's motion to quash the indictment on October 10, 1991.

Joseph Jenkins filed his civil suit in April 1992, against the Assistant District Attorney Edward Baldwin, Lyle Trabeaux, and the State of Louisiana, claiming that he had been wrongfully arrested, charged, convicted and incarcerated. Jenkins alleged that witnesses at his trial lied; that Officers Harold Woods and James Stevens hid and withheld evidence by refusing to take statements from witnesses favorable to the defense; and that his witnesses were sent home on the day of trial. Jenkins claimed that the officers and prosecutor hid from the jury evidence that he was acting in self-defense. Because of the witnesses' lies and hidden evidence, Jenkins asserted that he was wrongfully convicted of murder.

In his first amended petition, Jenkins added the City of New Orleans and Police Officer James Stevens as defendants. He claimed that the failure to properly investigate the charges and suppressing favorable evidence amounted to deliberate and intentional indifference to his rights. He accused Lyle Trabeaux of lying about how the incident took place in order to convict Jenkins.

In his second amending petition, Jenkins claimed damages on a continuing tort basis from the date of his arrest until the criminal proceeding became final in 1991.

Jenkins filed another second amending petition to substitute the Estate of Edward Baldwin as a defendant, to add the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office as the employer of Edward Baldwin, and to add an unnamed insurance company.

In his third amending petition, Jenkins asserted that the statute, limiting the liability of the State or any political subdivision, was unconstitutional. In his fifth amending petition, Jenkins added claims against the State for the acts of the District Attorney. He sought compensation for work he performed while incarcerated, and he claimed that La. R.S. 13:5108.2 B was unconstitutional. Another fifth amending petition filed in June 1994, added a claim of conspiracy to maliciously prosecute him and suppress evidence against Lyle Trabeaux, Edward Baldwin, James Stevens and other unknown individuals.

Jenkins filed a sixth amending petition in 1995, alleging the unconstitutionality of La. R.S. 13:5105, that denied the right to a jury trial against a political subdivision.

When Lyle Trabeaux filed an exception of prescription, Jenkins stated in his affidavit that he was not aware of the existence of the 1986 Bill Elder—WWL tape until after he filed the civil lawsuit in April 1992, and his attorneys obtained the tape. However, Trabeaux submitted an exhibit: the May 30, 1990 minute entry in Jenkins' Orleans criminal case number 156-101(D). The minute entry showed that Jenkins saw the video tape in criminal court with his attorney during the May 30, 1990 hearing on Jenkins' motion for new trial.

At the time of Jenkins' civil trial, most of the defendants had been dismissed. The City and Officer James Stevens remained defendants at the bench trial in February 1999. On May 7, 1999, the trial court rendered judgment against the City and awarded Jenkins twelve million ($12,000,000) dollars in general damages, as well as six hundred fifty-eight thousand, one hundred fifty-two ($658,152.00) dollars in lost wages, together with legal interest from the date of judicial demand. The City's appeal followed.

On appeal the City contends that the trial court erred in: (1) holding the City liable for the plaintiffs conviction and incarceration; (2) refusing to admit ...