State v. Edwards

• Decision Date: 07 September 1982
• Docket Number: No. 81-KA-3084,81-KA-3084
• Citation: 420 So.2d 663
• Parties: STATE of Louisiana v. Nancy L. EDWARDS.
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

Page 663

420 So.2d 663

STATE of Louisiana v. Nancy L. EDWARDS.

No. 81-KA-3084.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

Sept. 7, 1982.

Rehearings Denied Nov. 5, 1982.

William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Barbara Rutledge, Asst. Atty. Gen., Henry N. Brown, Jr., Dist. Atty., James M. Johnson, Randy D. Elkins, Asst. Dist. Attys., for plaintiff-appellee.

B. Woodrow Nesbitt, Jr., Settle & Nesbitt, Shreveport, for defendant-appellant.

WILLIAM NORRIS, III, Judge Ad Hoc. ^*

Defendant, Nancy L. Edwards was indicted for second degree murder in violation of La.R.S. 14:30.1 in connection with the death of her husband, Don Edwards. After trial by jury, defendant was found guilty of manslaughter by a verdict of 11 to 1 and sentenced to serve 10 years imprisonment at hard labor. It is from this conviction and the resulting sentence that defendant appeals.

FACTS

On November 11, 1980, at approximately 6:00 a.m., defendant while carrying a loaded .38 caliber pistol, forcibly entered the rear entrance of the residence of Mrs. Audlee Outz, located in Minden, Louisiana, where she found her husband completely nude and Mrs. Outz clad only in black panties in the bedroom. Thereafter, she fired her pistol five times striking Mr. Edwards four times inflicting wounds which resulted in his death after which she called the police. When the officers arrived they found Mr. Edwards' body on the bedroom floor close to the doorway leading into the kitchen, Mrs. Outz intoxicated in her state of undress and Mrs. Edwards.

Prior to the shooting, defendant and her husband had a violent confrontation at their family home in Dubberly shortly after midnight. According to Mrs. Edwards' testimony, her intoxicated husband had physically abused her and threatened to beat their eight year old daughter to death. Mrs. Edwards testified that after her husband threatened the child, he "jumped up and started toward her." Mrs. Edwards then grabbed a crowbar, struck him on the head as hard as she could, and fled with her child to a neighbor's home where she called the police to inform them of the incident. Thereafter, Mr. Edwards went to the hospital for treatment and several hours later to the Webster Parish Courthouse where Mr. and Mrs. Edwards confronted each other in the parking lot. It was there that Mrs. Edwards retrieved her car, returned home to unlock the door so Mr. Edwards would not break it down, and left. Mr. Edwards later returned home with a deputy sheriff, got his truck and left.

Mrs. Edwards was afraid to return home so she went to the home of her paramour, Melvin Reeves, where she engaged in sexual relations with him before she left to go to work at approximately 5:30 a.m. On her way to work she attempted to determine her husband's whereabouts. Failing to see his truck at a truck stop he frequented, she drove by Mrs. Outz's residence, a place he had gone on a prior occasion, where she saw his truck parked. She then pulled into the driveway, picked up the gun which she always carried with her, and proceeded to knock on the front door. Receiving no answer and finding the door locked, she walked around the side of the house and passed a bedroom window where she heard her husband and Mrs. Outz "making love." She then proceeded to the rear door, knocked, found it locked, pushed a hole in the screen to open its latch, and leaned against the main door forcing it open.

After entering the house, she went through the back bedroom and the kitchen into the bedroom where she found her husband and Mrs. Outz. Mrs. Edwards turned on the bedroom light with the hand in which she held the gun.

According to the testimony of Mrs. Edwards, Mrs. Outz came toward her, turned to the right and went into the hallway toward the bathroom. Mrs. Edwards saw her husband sitting on the side of one of the two beds in the room and told him, without pointing the gun at him, that she knew he would be there. At that point, Mr. Edwards sprang from the bed saying "you G--d--- son-of-a-bitch, I told you I'd kill you if you come (sic) here again," coming toward her with his hands up in a threatening manner. She then started to run, hit a door or doorframe, and was unable to retreat. When she saw her husband almost upon her, she shot to keep Mr. Edwards from killing her.

After the shooting, Mrs. Edwards laid her gun on the bed and called the police from the bedroom phone to report the shooting.

The only other witness to the shooting was Mrs. Outz, who had been drinking heavily for a prolonged period prior to the shooting with Mrs. Maggie Townsend. ¹ While admittedly she was "pretty high" at the time of the shooting, she recalls Mr. Edwards' calling to tell her he was coming over but she could not recall what time he called, when he arrived or which bed she was on at the time of the shooting. She testified that she did not see Mrs. Edwards until the first shot was fired. At one point, she indicated she was sitting on the bed but later testified that she was awakened by the first shot. She further stated that she heard no talk prior to the shooting and that Mrs. Edwards had fired five shots from the kitchen while Mr. Edwards was standing. She also testified that the deceased only fell forward with "his brains blowed out" after the five shots were fired and that he was never within two feet of Mrs. Edwards during the shooting. She further testified that Mrs. Edwards never entered the bedroom but used the phone in the front room to call the police. Nothing was moved in the bedroom before the arrival of the police.

Three law enforcement personnel who arrived at the scene minutes after the shooting ² testified that defendant met them at the door of the Outz residence and informed them she had shot her husband. She further related essentially the same sequence of events which she testified to at trial.

Raymond Cooper, firearms examiner at the Northwest Louisiana Crime Lab in Shreveport, testified the location of the person firing the shots that killed the deceased was within close proximity of the doorway from the kitchen into the bedroom, i.e., within the threshhold or just inside the bedroom within a two square foot area. He stated that the location of the shooter could have been just inside the bedroom to the left where the door swung back.

Dr. George McCormick, II, forensic pathologist with the Bossier coroner's office and deputy coroner for Webster Parish, performed the autopsy on the deceased. He testified that the deceased died as a result of the four bullet wounds inflicted, three of which were in the chest and one which ricocheted off his head. It was his opinion that two of the bullets were fired within a distance of two feet or more, one within a distance of two feet or less, and one at a distance of less than two feet possibly less than six inches. His testimony contradicted the testimony of Mrs. Outz regarding the proximity of Mrs. Edwards to the victim when she fired the shots. He felt that she was standing in the area of the doorway but could not rule out the possibility that the shots were fired from inside the bedroom doorway slightly to the left. He further found nothing inconsistent with a theory that the shots were fired as the victim was moving toward the defendant. Finally, he concluded from the results of the autopsy that the victim was a strong muscular man, who was an abuser of alcohol.

Mrs. Edwards has never denied shooting her husband. She contends and always has contended that she never had any intention of killing her husband until he came at her in a threatening manner which made her believe he was going to kill her. It is her contention that she was justified in killing him in self-defense.

ASSIGNMENTS OF ERROR NOS. 20, 8, 14 AND 36

These assignments of error deal with the trial court's refusal to allow evidence of prior specific threats and acts of violence by the victim toward the defendant and evidence of the victim's bad character and reputation for violence.

Evidence of the victim's dangerous character or threats against the accused supports a plea of self-defense because it is relevant to show that the victim was the aggressor and to show that defendant's apprehension of danger was reasonable. State v. Green, 335 So.2d 430 (La.1976); State v. Lee, 331 So.2d 455 (La.1976).

The foundation for the admissibility of such evidence is found in La.R.S. 15:482:

In the absence of evidence of hostile demonstration or of overt act on the part of the person slain or injured, evidence of his dangerous character or of his threats against accused is not admissible.

The term "overt act" as used in connection with prosecutions where the plea of self-defense is involved, means any act of the victim which manifests to the mind of a reasonable person a present intention on his part to kill or do great bodily harm. See State v. Brown, 172 La. 121, 133 So. 383 (1931).

Prior to 1952, La.R.S. 15:482 required "proof" of an overt act or hostile demonstration before evidence of the victim's threats or dangerous character was admissible. Thus, we held that the overt act or hostile demonstration must be established to the satisfaction of the trial court. State v. Terry, 221 La. 1109, 61 So.2d 888 (1952); State v. Tobias, 218 La. 226, 48 So.2d 905 (1950).

However, the legislature amended La.R.S. 15:482 in 1952 to require "evidence" rather than "proof" of an overt act. In State v. Lee, supra, we held this amendment meant that:

"... when appreciable evidence is in the record relevantly tending to establish the overt act, the trial court cannot exercise its discretion to infringe upon the fact-determination function of the jury by disbelieving this defense testimony and thus, deny the accused a defense permitted him by law."

(331 So.2d at 459.)

See also La.C.Cr.P. Art. 802(2).

In the instant case, this is precisely what the trial court repeatedly did. It exercised a "credibility evaluation" to refuse the defendant the right to have the jury determine the merits of her plea of...