State v. Deboue
| Decision Date | 19 June 1989 |
| Docket Number | No. 86-KA-0635,86-KA-0635 |
| Citation | 552 So.2d 355 |
| Parties | STATE of Louisiana v. Thomas Mitchell DEBOUE. |
| Court | Louisiana Supreme Court |
William J. Guste, Jr., Atty Gen., Harry F. Connick, Dist. Atty., Jack Peebles, Asst. Dist. Atty., for appellee.
Michael Gallagher, for appellant.
Defendant Thomas Mitchell Deboue was indicted by an Orleans Parish Grand Jury on May 24, 1984, and charged with two counts of first degree murder for the killing of Nigquika Miller, age six, and Jamal Moore, age eleven. Defendant's brother, Edward James Deboue, was indicted on the same charges and tried along with defendant. After the guilt phase of the bifurcated trial, the jury found defendant and his brother guilty as charged on both counts of first degree murder. At the conclusion of the penalty phase of the proceeding, the jury unanimously recommended on each count that defendant be sentenced to death. 1 Defendant's brother, Edward Deboue, was sentenced to life imprisonment on both counts. 2 The matter now before us is Thomas Deboue's direct appeal from his conviction and death sentence. 3
On appeal defendant urges a total of eight assignments of error (seven designated assignments plus a "supplemental" assignment argued in brief). After considering the issues raised by these assignments of error, and upon an independent review of the record, we affirm the defendant Thomas Mitchell Deboue's conviction for both counts of first degree murder, and uphold the sentence of death.
The following facts were established through testimony presented in the guilt phase of the trial.
In the early morning hours of March 30, 1984, between midnight and 12:30 am, Alvin Hite and his wife Loretta were awakened in their apartment on St. Thomas Street in New Orleans by noise from an adjacent apartment in which Bettina Miller, the mother of Nigquika Miller, resided. Hite walked outside to his porch to investigate the noise, and observed that the window screen of Miller's apartment had been torn off and that the window was partially open. After obtaining a gun from his residence, Hite knocked on Miller's apartment door. After some delay, he heard a voice, which he believed to be a man attempting to sound like a woman, respond, "Who is it?"
Hite returned to his apartment and told his wife to call the police. He then observed two black males exit Miller's apartment and run down the fire escape. Hite called for them to stop, and fired a shot when they did not do so. One of the men fell on the stairs and continued to run down the fire escape, limping as he ran.
The officers who responded to Hite's call for assistance testified as follows. When they arrived at the apartment, at about 12:30 am, they found that the front door was locked, but they observed evidence of forced entry through a window. They entered the apartment and found Nigquika Miller, age six, in a bedroom. Her throat had been slashed and she had no pulse. The officers then found Jamal Moore, age eleven, in the apartment's bathroom. The boy was in the bathtub, and scalding water from the tub was running over his face. His throat was slashed, although the officers noted that he was still breathing. Emergency medical assistance arrived but the child stopped breathing as he was being transported down the steps of the apartment building. Shortly thereafter, he was pronounced dead.
Defendant's sister, Lorraine Miller, testified as follows. Shortly after 1:00 am on the night of the murders, she was at her mother's home when Thomas and Edward Deboue arrived there. Defendant told her at that time that he had killed the two children. The next day, Lorraine drove Thomas and Edward Deboue to Biloxi, Mississippi, where they boarded a bus bound for New York City. Prior to the drive to Biloxi, defendant told her that on the night of the murders, he and Edward went to Bettina Miller's apartment to steal money, having lost their money in a dice game earlier in the evening. One of the children awakened after they entered the apartment, and defendant told his sister that he then killed the children because "he did not want to do forty years." Defendant also stated that he killed the children because "he owed the girl," an apparent reference to Nigquika's mother, Bettina Miller. 4 Lorraine asked her brother Edward why he did not stop defendant from killing the children, and Edward responded that "he just panicked and couldn't take no more." Edward also told Lorraine that the little boy (Jamal) fought back and that he (Edward) held the boy.
Other incriminating evidence included the fact that a cane belonging to defendant was found at the bottom of the steps leading from the crime scene. Next to the cane was a razor blade. Other razor blades and a knife were found in the apartment, and were stained with blood that matched the bloodtypes of the victims. A fingerprint belonging to Edward Deboue was found on the door of the apartment bathroom.
As previously mentioned, the defendant and his brother left Biloxi for New York City on a bus the day after the murders. New York authorities were notified by New Orleans police that the Deboue brothers were suspects in the murder. When New York City police officers approached defendant upon his arrival at the bus station in that city and asked him his name, defendant responded, "Stan Williams." The brothers were arrested, informed of their constitutional rights and taken into custody. Afterward, one of the arresting officers remarked to another officer, while defendant was in a nearby holding cell, "How could anyone kill his own kids?" Defendant responded, "They weren't my kids." 5
Defendant directs five assignments of error to the guilt phase of the trial, each of which is considered below.
Defendant was charged under La.R.S. 14:30 with two counts of first degree murder. The essential elements of first degree murder are the killing of a human being when the offender has specific intent to kill or inflict great bodily harm and commits the murder under one of the circumstances specified under La.R.S. 14:30(A)(1)-(5). The indictment charged that the defendant killed each victim "while attempting to kill more than one person," in violation of La.R.S. 14:30(A)(3). That portion of La.R.S. 14:30 provides that a homicide is first degree murder if perpetrated "[w]hen the offender has the specific intent to kill or inflict great bodily harm upon more than one person."
Defendant generally argues that the evidence was insufficient to support the verdict, and in particular that the state did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant intended to inflict great bodily harm upon more than one person at the time the first murder was committed.
The constitutional standard for testing sufficiency of the evidence requires that a conviction be based on proof sufficient for any rational trier of fact, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, to find the essential elements of the crime charged beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979); State v. Johnson, 541 So.2d 818, 825 (La.1989); State v. Rosiere, 488 So.2d 965, 968 (La.1986).
The evidence presented by the state at trial, as chronicled above, provided a sufficient basis for a rational trier of fact to find beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was the person who killed both children. In addition to other incriminating evidence, defendant's own sister testified that defendant confessed to her that he had committed the murders. Further, the slashing of the children's throats belies any suggestion that the defendant acted without the required specific intent to kill or inflict great bodily harm. See State v. Brown, 514 So.2d 99, 104 (La.1987).
The evidence was also sufficient to support a finding that the defendant committed each murder while acting with "specific intent to kill or inflict great bodily harm upon more than one person" under La.R.S. 14:30(A)(3). This statutory definition of first degree murder is satisfied where "the murderer specifically intended to kill more than one person and actually caused the death of one person and the risk of death or great bodily harm to at least one other person, all by a single act or by a series of acts in a single consecutive course of conduct." State v. Williams, 480 So.2d 721, 726 (La.1985).
Defendant argues that the evidence does not establish that both children were home at the time that the first victim was murdered. 6 He contends that if only one of the children was in the apartment at the time of the first attack (or, if both were there, but defendant, at the time of the first attack, was not aware of the presence of the other), then he could not have acted with specific intent to kill or inflict great bodily harm upon more than one person at the time he committed the first murder. For an additional argument he suggests that the evidence does not establish that the first victim was still alive at the time that the second victim was attacked. If the first victim had already perished by the time of the second attack, he argues, then he could not have committed the second murder with intent to kill or inflict great bodily harm upon more than one person.
We find these "point in time" intent arguments to be unpersuasive under the facts of this particular case. First of all, there was sufficient evidence to support a jury finding that both children were present when defendant broke into the apartment. The description of the crime given to Lorraine Miller by defendant and his brother indicated that both children were in the apartment. Neither said that one of the children arrived after the burglary was in process, or after the first murder was committed. The burglary occurred late at night, and defendant's statement that one of the children woke up after...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Barela v. State
...and no plain error or lack of prejudice is frequently applied to judicially authenticate affirming the conviction. See State v. Deboue, 552 So.2d 355 (La.1989). Cf. United States v. Goff, 847 F.2d 149 (5th Cir.), cert. denied 488 U.S. 932, 109 S.Ct. 324, 102 L.Ed.2d 341 (1988). See also the......
-
Engberg v. Meyer
...957, 264 Cal.Rptr. 367, 782 P.2d 608 (1989), cert. denied 498 U.S. 887, 111 S.Ct. 222, 112 L.Ed.2d 190 (1990). See also State v. Deboue, 552 So.2d 355 (La.1989), cert. denied 498 U.S. 881, 111 S.Ct. 215, 112 L.Ed.2d 174, reh'g denied 498 U.S. 993, 111 S.Ct. 541, 112 L.Ed.2d 550 (1990). The ......
-
State Of La. v. Dressner
...not recognize the doctrine of diminished capacity absent a dual plea of not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity. State v. Deboue, 552 So.2d 355, 366 (La. 1989), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 881, 111 S.Ct. 215, 112 L.Ed.2d 174 (1990); State v. Nelson, 459 So.2d 510, 513 (La. 1984), cert. d......
-
State v. Odenbaugh, 10-KA-0268
...kill another); State v. Sanders, 93-0001 (La. 11/30/94), 648 So.2d 1272 (husband kills estranged wife and new boyfriend); State v. Deboue, 552 So.2d 355 (La. 1989) (murder of two children in an apartment defendants intended to burglarize). Because this Court has overwhelmingly upheld death ......