State v. Edwards

• Decision Date: 02 July 1999
• Docket Number: No. 97-KA-1797.,97-KA-1797.
• Citation: 750 So.2d 893
• Parties: STATE of Louisiana v. Cedric D. EDWARDS.
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

750 So.2d 893

STATE of Louisiana v. Cedric D. EDWARDS.

No. 97-KA-1797.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

July 2, 1999.

Gerald J. Block, Lafayettte, Counsel for Applicant.

Hon. Richard P. Ieyoub, Atty. Gen., Hon. Paul Carmouche, Dist. Atty., Catherine M. Estopinal, Donald E. Hathaway, Jr., Shreveport, Counsel for Respondent.

KNOLL, Justice.¹

Cedric Edwards was indicted for the first degree murder of Victoria Catanese Kennedy in violation of La.R.S. 14:30. After a trial by jury, defendant was found guilty as charged. The defendant moved for a new trial and for judgment of acquittal, which were denied. A sentence hearing was conducted before the same jury. Jurors voted unanimously to impose the death penalty, having found the following statutory aggravating circumstances: that the killing occurred during the commission or attempted commission of an armed robbery and/or aggravated burglary; and that the offender knowingly created a risk of death or great bodily harm to more than one person. La.C.Cr.P.art. 905.4(A)(1), (4). In accordance with the determination of the jury, the trial judge sentenced defendant to death.

On appeal, defendant raises thirteen assignments of error for reversal of his conviction and sentence. Finding no reversible error, we affirm the defendant's conviction and sentence.

FACTS

In Shreveport, Louisiana, on October 27, 1995, Victoria Catanese Kennedy, her husband Gerald Kennedy, and his 14-year old daughter Belinda had gone to a revival and had then stopped to close up their family business, Victoria's Catanese Grocery. After driving their help home, Kennedy, Victoria, and Belinda returned to their own home, a second-floor apartment at the Villa Del Lago Apartments. Upon their arrival home shortly before midnight, Victoria and Belinda were in the kitchen preparing something to eat while Kennedy cleaned out the trash can on the breezeway just outside the kitchen.

While on the breezeway, Kennedy saw a man moving suspiciously among the cars in the parking lot. The man saw Kennedy watching and moved off behind one of the buildings in the complex. Now alerted, Kennedy heard a noise from the stairwell. He looked down over the bannister and saw another man hunched over. Now discovered, the man stood up, made eye contact, began climbing the stairs, raised a gun, and fired a shot at Kennedy.

The bullet struck Kennedy in the upper right arm, fracturing the bone and spinning the limb grotesquely up, over, and behind his neck. Racing for the kitchen, Kennedy shouted for Victoria and Belinda to run or hide. He tried but failed to lock the kitchen door behind him, and ran into the master bedroom to retrieve a firearm. Victoria and Belinda ran from the kitchen and through the living room, where they tripped and fell. Belinda crawled underneath a small antique-type couch supported on queen anne wooden legs. From there she saw the assailant's face and witnessed the violent events.

The defendant entered the home, started to go after Kennedy, but then changed directions and moved toward Victoria. At close range, the intruder shot Victoria twice in the head. The first bullet, which shattered her jaw and exited on the other side of her head by her left ear, failed to take Victoria's life. As she lay face down on the floor, the attacker pressed the barrel of his gun to the back of her head and fired a second time, discharging the fatal bullet.

By this time Kennedy was emerging from the bedroom, armed with a TEC-9mm semi-automatic weapon. Because the gunshot wound had rendered Kennedy's dominant right arm useless, Kennedy held the weapon awkwardly in his left hand. It is unclear exactly how Kennedy landed on the floor. It is evident that the defendant disarmed him and either shot him with the TEC-9 or grabbed Kennedy and threw him onto the floor. From that position, defendant pressed his knee into Kennedy's back and pistol-whipped him about the head, demanding: "Where is the money?" At some point, the TEC-9 magazine clip fell out. Sometime during the beating, Kennedy directed Victoria: "Give him the money." Defendant replied: "Don't call on her because she already dead." R. at 1692. Belinda, who had been witnessing the events, then closed her eyes.

During the beating, Kennedy received multiple skull fractures and drifted into semi-consciousness. He heard a second man's voice say: "We've been here too long. Let's go." R. at 1665. Shortly after, defendant delivered some final blows and left, taking the TEC-9 with him.²

When Belinda opened her eyes, she saw her father lying on the floor and went to his assistance. Kennedy told her to call 911. He said to tell the police that he recognized the perpetrator and identified him as "Skeeter Man" and "Gunslinger." Then he asked his daughter to help him sit up because he did not want to die on the floor. Belinda called the police and also gave them a description of the man she saw shoot Victoria and beat her father.

When the investigators arrived, Victoria Kennedy was found dead at the crime scene. Gerald Kennedy was taken to the Louisiana State University Medical Center for treatment. There, Kennedy was diagnosed as suffering from a depressed skull fracture to the back of his head, a separate fracture in the frontal skull area, and a gunshot wound to his right arm. Within a few hours of the murder, investigators interviewed Kennedy at the hospital. Before the interview, Kennedy had received no medication that might have dulled his senses because the doctors were concerned about his condition.

At the hospital interview Kennedy told investigators that he had heard two male voices in his apartment, but that he had seen only defendant inside. Kennedy knew defendant and had seen him just a week before the murder; the defendant had entered their grocery store, bought a beer, and smirked at Kennedy. Kennedy did not know defendant's given name, but knew him by his street names: "Skeeter" and "Gunslinger." Kennedy also knew that defendant had a brother named Kevin Earl who belonged to the Bottoms Boyz gang. When investigators showed Kennedy a photo array, Kennedy identified the defendant. Kennedy positively identified defendant again at trial.

Investigators went to interview Belinda at her relative's home about six hours after Belinda had called the police to report the crime. Belinda was awakened and, after about five minutes, investigators asked her to identify the perpetrator from a photo array—the same one shown Kennedy. At the time, she selected defendant and another man. At trial, Belinda positively identified defendant.

Detectives had searched their Bottoms Boyz gang files in the hours after the shooting and found Kevin Earl Edwards on the list. Kevin Earl's arrest record named a brother: Cedric Edwards. Following up on the lead, investigators learned that the defendant had been living with his girl friend Teri Williams in a home she shared with her mother, Gwendolyn Morris, and her two children fathered by the defendant.

A few days after the murder, investigators visited the Morris/Williams home where a consent to search form was executed by Ms. Morris as head of household. Ms. Williams then led investigators to the room she shared with defendant and assisted investigators in their search, laying out a selection of defendant's clothing in accordance with the descriptions they gave. A detective noticed that a tennis shoe on the floor near the bed had a smudge that resembled dried blood. Ms. Williams identified the shoe as defendant's and the detective secured the pair of shoes as evidence. DNA testing revealed the smudges to be dried blood matching that of Gerald Kennedy.

The theory of the prosecution was that the defendant had specific intent to kill and had killed during the commission or attempted commission of an aggravated burglary, armed robbery or while he had specific intent to kill or inflict great bodily harm upon more than one person. La.R.S. 14:30(A)(1), (3). The State argued that aggravated burglary was satisfied because the defendant had made an unauthorized entry while armed, that the intent to commit a felony was demonstrated by defendant's firing at Kennedy even before entry, and that defendant had committed a battery upon defendant when he shot him in the arm and when he pistol-whipped him inside the apartment.³ The State urged that the elements of armed robbery or attempted armed robbery had also been satisfied because the defendant demanded money while beating Kennedy with the gun.⁴ Finally, the State urged that defendant's intent to kill more than one person was evident: defendant had first attempted to kill Kennedy on the breezeway, and then again inside the apartment when he beat Kennedy to the point of semi-consciousness. Additionally, there was evidence that defendant may have shot Kennedy with the TEC-9. An undamaged bullet that had been fired from the TEC-9 was recovered from the living room floor by crime scene technicians. Blood on the bullet jacket matched Kennedy's. The State theorized that the TEC-9 bullet, by some fluke, had entered the fatty tissue at the back of Kennedy's neck below the cranium, passed between the skull and skin, and exited in a relatively undamaged condition, landing on the living room floor.

The State's case included presentation of defendant's smudged tennis shoe that had been retrieved from defendant's and Ms. Williams' bedroom. DNA testing revealed that the chance that the blood came from an African-American other than Gerald Kennedy was 1:1,300,000.

During his trial testimony, Gerald Kennedy acknowledged that before 1992 he had earned a living by dealing drugs. He had two convictions for marijuana possession in the 1980s, and in 1992 was sentenced for possessing over twenty-eight grams of cocaine. He also testified that he had formerly associated with a neighborhood gang called the Bottoms Boyz. Kennedy said that he had never been a member, but had maintained cordial relations until he...