State v. Bridgewater
| Decision Date | 15 January 2002 |
| Docket Number | No. 00-KA-1529.,00-KA-1529. |
| Citation | 823 So.2d 877 |
| Parties | STATE of Louisiana v. Roy BRIDGEWATER. |
| Court | Louisiana Supreme Court |
Carol A. Kolinchak, New Orleans, Counsel for Applicant.
Richard P. Ieyoub, Attorney General, Paul D. Connick, Jr., District Attorney, Terry M. Budreaux, Asst. District Attorney, Donald A. Rowan, Jr., Caren M. Morgan, New Orleans, Counsel for Respondent.
A Jefferson Parish grand jury indicted defendant, Roy Bridgewater, for first degree murder in violation of La. R.S. 14:30.2 After a trial by jury, defendant was found guilty as charged and sentenced to death based upon the jury's finding of four aggravating circumstances. Asserting twenty-one assignments of error, defendant directly appeals his conviction and sentence. La. Const. Art. V, § 5(D). Finding merit to the argument that the evidence is insufficient to support a first degree murder conviction, we reverse defendant's conviction and death sentence; however, we find the evidence sufficient to support a second degree murder conviction and remand for resentencing pursuant to La. R.S. 14:30.1(B).
On the morning of October 31, 1996, Marilyn Williams arrived at her son-in-law's residence in Marrero, Louisiana, as she regularly did each Thursday to clean the house. When she arrived, she found the garage door open and her son-in-law's maroon van missing. When she entered the house, she found signs of ransacking, including blinds pulled down in the den. When she entered the master bedroom, she found both her son-in-law, Nelson Beaugh (then forty-five years old), and his mother, Della Beaugh (then seventy years old), dead. Mr. Beaugh was lying on the bed; Ms. Beaugh was kneeling on the floor at her son's feet. Both victims had been shot in the head.3 At 10:22 a.m., Ms. Williams called 911 to report this double homicide.
Earlier, at 9:20 a.m. that same morning, another 911 call was made from that same Marrero neighborhood. Only a block away and only an hour earlier, a neighbor, Brenda Menard, was approached by two young, African American males claiming to be painting houses. After she chased the pair away, Ms. Menard spotted them walking in the direction of the Beaugh's residence. Because their story sounded suspicious and because their behavior was perceived as threatening, Ms. Menard called 911. Although the police promptly responded to her call and canvassed the neighborhood, they found no sign of the pair.
Suspecting the pair might be responsible for the double homicide, another neighbor (who was also a police officer) brought Ms. Menard to the crime scene shortly after the bodies were found. Based on Ms. Menard's detailed descriptions of the pair,4 a police sketch artist produced drawings of the then-unidentified suspects. These drawing were published and televised as wanted bulletins in connection with the double homicide.
Mr. Beaugh's cellular phone records reflected that his cell phone, which he kept in his van, was used at 11:31 a.m. that same day to call defendant's brother's girlfriend. Also, at 1:00 p.m. that day, Mr. Beaugh's maroon van was found abandoned with the engine running in the Iberville Housing Development in New Orleans. Police lifted two fingerprints from the exterior front passenger door of the van that matched Lawrence Jacobs' right index finger. Police also found nearby the charred remains of Mr. Beaugh's briefcase, which had been set on fire. The initial report to the New Orleans Police Department officer was that two African-American males were observed running from the van.5
On Saturday night, November 2, 1996, defendant called 911 from a pay phone and turned himself in to the police. The reason defendant turned himself in was twofold: first, he knew there were outstanding attachments on him; and, second, he knew about the wanted bulletins apparently implicating him in the double homicide. Defendant gave four separate statements to the police. The first was an exculpatory statement, which he gave at about 9:00 p.m. that night, denying any involvement and any knowledge of the double homicide. Nonetheless, police detained him on the other attachments while they conducted an investigation. As part of that investigation, police presented Ms. Menard with a photograph line-up. After she positively identified defendant as one of the suspicious pair she spotted in the neighborhood, defendant was arrested for the double homicide.
The next day defendant gave three inculpatory statements.6 In those statements, he made the following admissions: (i) that he and Jacobs were the suspicious pair Ms. Menard encountered on the morning of the double homicide; (ii) that Jacobs forced Mr. Beaugh into the residence at gun point; (iii) that he accompanied Jacobs into the Beaugh's residence; (iv) that they were both armed—Jacobs with a .38 revolver, defendant with a broken BB gun; (v) that his role was "the lookout," yet he admitted opening a drawer; (vi) that he was in the Beaugh's garage when he heard three shots fired and saw Jacobs come running out; (vii) that they fled in Mr. Beaugh's van; (viii) that they abandoned the van in the Iberville Housing Development; and (ix) that some of the property (a Casio keyboard and Mr. Beaugh's watch) was located at his girlfriend's house. Based on the latter admission, police conducted a consent search of the girlfriend's house. Detective Dauth testified that the girlfriend's mother, Jeanette Grant, consented to the search and that they found the stolen property defendant described as well as some other property.7
On December 5, 1996, defendant and Jacobs, both African-Americans, were jointly indicted for the first degree murders of Nelson and Della Beaugh, both Caucasian-Americans. The trial court granted defendant's motion to sever.
Before going to trial, defendant went through a string of Jefferson Parish Indigent Defender Board ("IDB") attorneys. Initially, the IDB appointed Walter Amstutz as defendant's guilt-phase attorney and Linda Davis-Short as his penalty-phase attorney. In December 1997, Amstutz accepted a job with the Jefferson Parish District Attorney's office; as a result, his motion to withdraw as defendant's attorney was accepted.8 To replace Amstutz, the IDB appointed Mark Armato. In June 1998, Armato filed a Motion for a Sanity Commission alleging that defendant was not assisting in his defense. Citing a sanity commission hearing done about a year earlier in an unrelated armed robbery-aggravated burglary case in which defendant was represented by another attorney and found competent, the trial judge denied the motion.9
On June 15, 1998, defendant's first trial began; however, it ended in a mistrial on June 18, 1998, because Armato developed a conflict of interest.10 In the summer of 1998, the IDB replaced Armato with Ken Dohre. While at his first appearance in the case Dohre indicated that he could not be ready for the tentatively selected October 26, 1998, trial date, the trial court denied the defense's request for a continuance.11 On October 22, 1998, Dohre moved to withdraw based on "irreconcilable conflicts" with defendant regarding trial strategies. Following an ex parte, sealed hearing, the trial court denied the motion.
On October 26, 1998, defendant's second trial began. At the close of the state's case, the defense rested without putting on any evidence or witnesses. The trial judge personally questioned defendant regarding his desire to neither call any witnesses nor testify. That trial ended with a guilty verdict on October 30, 1998. On the two year anniversary of the crime, a penalty phase was conducted and concluded with the jury unanimously finding four aggravating circumstances and returning the sentence of death.12 On March 1, 1999, the trial court formally sentenced defendant to death. This direct appeal followed.
As noted at the outset, we hold that the evidence in the record is insufficient to support defendant's first degree murder conviction and death sentence, and thus we vacate that conviction and sentence. However, we find the evidence in the record is sufficient to support a second degree murder conviction.13 Our holding renders it unnecessary to address any of defendant's assignments of error relating to the penalty phase; consequently, we address in this opinion only his assignments of error relating to pretrial and trial phase issues which would, if meritorious, mandate we remand for a new trial. See State v. Hart, 96-0697 at p. 5 (La.3/7/97), 691 So.2d 651, 655 (citing State v. Bay, 529 So.2d 845(La.1988)).
In reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence to support a conviction, we follow the due process standard of review enunciated in Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). Under that standard, "the appellate court must determine that the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the prosecution, was sufficient to convince a rational trier of fact that all of the elements of the crime had been proved beyond a reasonable doubt." State v. Captville, 448 So.2d 676, 678 (La.1984). That standard "preserves the role of the jury as the factfinder in the case but it does not allow jurors `to speculate if the evidence is such that reasonable jurors must have a reasonable doubt.'" State v. Pierre, 93-0893 at p. 5 (La.2/3/94), 631 So.2d 427, 429. The jury is not allowed to engage in speculation based merely upon "guilt by association." 93-0893 at pp. 5-6, 631 So.2d at 429. In order for the trier of fact to convict and for the reviewing court to affirm a conviction, the totality of the evidence must exclude reasonable doubt.
Under Jackson, all evidence, both direct and circumstantial, must be sufficient to satisfy a rational juror that the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. See State v. Jacobs, 504 So.2d 817, 820 (La.1987). When circumstantial evidence...
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