State v. Goldston

• Decision Date: 05 December 2001
• Docket Number: No. 35,271-KA.,35,271-KA.
• Citation: State v. Goldston, 804 So.2d 141 (La. App. 2001)
• Parties: STATE of Louisiana, Appellee, v. Frederick GOLDSTON, Appellant.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Louisiana

804 So.2d 141

STATE of Louisiana, Appellee, v. Frederick GOLDSTON, Appellant.

No. 35,271-KA.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Second Circuit.

December 5, 2001.

Rehearing Denied January 17, 2002.

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Louis G. Scott, Charles L. Kincade, Monroe, Counsel for Appellant.

Richard P. Ieyoub, Attorney General, Jerry L. Jones, District Attorney, George D. Ross, Assistant District Attorney, Counsel for Appellee.

Before WILLIAMS, STEWART and DREW, JJ.

WILLIAMS, Judge.

The defendant, Frederick Goldston, appeals his conviction of second degree murder, a violation of LSA R.S. 14:30.1, and his sentence to life imprisonment without benefit of probation, parole or suspension of sentence. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm the defendant's conviction and sentence.

FACTS

On April 7, 1998, the victim, David Gossett, left work at the Piccadilly Cafeteria in Ouachita Parish for his lunch break. His gunshot-riddled body was discovered later that evening on a farm road, and his red truck was found behind the Parkview Apartments. A couple of months later, the defendant gave a recorded statement. In June 1998, the defendant was charged with the second degree murder of David Gossett. After a jury trial, the defendant was convicted as charged and was sentenced to life imprisonment without the benefit of probation, parole or suspension of sentence.

Investigation and facts developed at trial:

At the time of the crime, the victim, David, worked at Piccadilly Cafeteria for his father, Louis Gossett, who was the manager. According to Louis, David's usual work day began about 11:00 a.m. and ended about 9:00 p.m. David took his lunch break from 3:30 until 5:00 p.m. Eric Bursey worked with David at Piccadilly. Eric related that he and David usually played pool at the Get-a-way Video Poker Room ("Get-a-way") at 3:30 p.m. during David's lunch break. According to Eric, David usually stopped at the gas station on the way and bought a snack to eat while they played pool. On the day he was murdered, David worked his usual shift at Piccadilly and left for his lunch break at 3:30 p.m. David asked Eric if he would go with him to play pool during lunch. Eric declined, however, because his wife needed his help at home. Eric walked out of the Piccadilly with David at 3:35 p.m. and saw David walk alone toward his truck.

Voyce Richards worked at the Get-a-way on Sterlington Road. Voyce and David were close friends, and she was very familiar with his truck. Voyce related that David would arrive at the Get-a-way every day by 4:15 p.m. and play pool. On April 7, 1998, a few minutes before 4:00 p.m., Voyce looked through the glass door and saw David drive his truck directly in front of the door, and then immediately drive away. David had a black male passenger with him who was about David's height. It was not unusual for David to have friends with him, and Voyce thought David might be giving someone he worked with a ride home.

At about 4:10 p.m., Laura Landers Adams, one of David's co-workers at Piccadilly, was driving on Curry and Sherrouse Streets when she saw David in his truck with a black male passenger. Laura didn't recognize the passenger, who had dark skin, was about David's height, and was wearing a white shirt. David waved at Laura, and she wondered what David was doing in "Booker T," a high crime area. Later, at about 4:45 p.m., Laura again saw David's truck, but could not see who was driving. The truck was on Thomas at Georgia Street, near her house. The person driving the truck was driving recklessly and ran a stop sign. Laura thought that David was too far from Piccadilly at that time to return from his lunch break on time.

Angie Smith, who was also one of David's co-workers, was driving on Powell Street between 3:30 and 4:30 p.m. when she saw David drive his truck out of a nearby recreational center. Angie noticed that David's passenger was a black male. Also, another co-worker, Cynthia Cooper, saw David's truck at 4:45 p.m. on Georgia Street, and observed that he would be late getting back to work. She could not see how many people were in the truck, or who was driving.

At approximately 4:30 p.m., as it was getting dark, Carrie Pierce saw a person she knew as "Little Freddie" at the Parkview Apartments. Little Freddie and his companion, Jerry, were driving around in a red truck. Pierce testified that she and her children were visiting her girlfriend, Denise, at the Parkview Apartments when Little Freddie and Jerry ran inside Denise's apartment and asked for a tee-shirt. One of the men told Denise to tell Pierce and the kids to leave the room, but Pierce tiptoed back and listened to everything that was said. Pierce overheard the men tell Denise that they killed "this white boy". Little Freddie was covered in blood, and Pierce saw that Little Freddie had a mark, cut or wound on his shoulder as he changed shirts. Pierce saw Jerry with a white bag, which he threw into a nearby field as he walked on a trail from Robinson Place to Parkview Apartments. She then saw Jerry pick up a shotgun from the ground as he went back through the trail. Little Freddie and Jerry left the apartments in the truck.

When David did not return from lunch at 5:00 p.m., his father became worried and left Piccadilly to look for his son. He searched for David from 6:00 until approximately 8:30 p.m. Meanwhile, late that afternoon, Kenneth Anderson had been working on his farm in the area called Bosco in Ouachita Parish. While traveling in and out of Mansfield Road, a horseshoeshaped public road on Highway 165 that runs through his farm, he discovered a severely traumatized body on the side of the road. Anderson called 911 from his cell phone. Anderson stated that he and his farm workers are the only people who use the road. The only buildings located on the road are his home, farm headquarters, shop, sheds, grain bin, seed-sacking business and an abandoned school. Anderson's farm workers were all working on another farm up the road when Anderson discovered the body.

Monroe Hilton, a deputy sheriff for Ouachita Parish, was a member of the crime scene team that investigated David's murder. According to Hilton, Anderson's call was logged in at approximately 6:00 p.m. The crime scene was undisturbed when they arrived. The victim, who was later identified as David, appeared to have been shot. Photographs of his body were taken by the investigating officers. Evidence of trauma was found a distance away from his body, including two bloody human teeth and a trail and pool of blood. A Delta Mini Mart receipt was found in David's pants pocket reflecting his Exxon credit card purchase on April 7, 1998 at 3:41 p.m. for miscellaneous merchandise totaling $3.66. A plastic shotgun wad was found in a ditch about 14 feet from David's body. Fresh tire tracks were found in the circular gravel driveway of the old school building, located approximately two-tenths of a mile from where David's body was found. Plaster casts were made of the tire prints, but the tires were not matched to any particular vehicle. The school driveway was located on Mansfield Road approximately four-tenths of a mile from one of the intersections of Mansfield Road and Highway 165. There were no tire indentations found on Mansfield Road because it was made of a rigid pea gravel and blacktop mixture. Near David's body, the grass on the side of the road was flattened down as if someone's vehicle ran off the road for a short distance.

At approximately 6:30 p.m. on the evening of the murder, Pierce saw David's truck return to the Parkview Apartments, and saw Little Freddie "doing donuts on the grass, going crazy driving the truck". Later on the night of the murder, Lieutenant Jay Via arrived at the cafeteria to tell Louis of David's death. About 9:30 p.m., David's unlocked truck was found on a back road leading to the Parkview Apartments, just off Highway 165 South. Photographs were made of the truck, and officers found some small gouge marks in the paint on the side of the truck. Also, the officers observed some dark brown material on the side of the truck that looked like blood, but tested negative for blood in later tests. Neither a weapon nor ammunition was found in David's truck. The officers secured the truck until the wrecker arrived sometime after midnight. Thirty-nine latent finger and palm prints were lifted from the truck, none of which matched the finger and palm prints of the defendant.

Dr. Timothy Hayne, an expert in forensic pathology, performed an autopsy on the victim. There were three significant shotgun wounds. The immediately lethal wound was located on the right side of the forehead, which produced massive injuries to the skull and brain. Of the two other wounds, the one to the left temple, which also produced pellet wounds to the upper chestwas potentially lethal. The third wound was a potentially lethal contact gunshot wound to the chin, which produced massive injury to the chin. Dr. Hayne concluded that the contact gunshot wound to the chin was inflicted first. This gunshot would have caused significant blood spatters (blow back) to the victim's right side, onto the shooter and on anyone within approximately 10 feet of the victim. It also would have caused a shower of small blood droplets slightly behind the victim. The blood droplets on the victim's pants leg indicated that the victim was standing when he received the contact gunshot wound to his chin. The other two gunshots were fired from a distance much greater than five or six feet away. Dr. Hayne could not exclude the possibility that the wounds were inflicted by two or three different shotguns.

In-court identification:

At trial, Pierce identified the defendant as the person she knew as "Little Freddie" by pointing in his direction, and identified a picture of David's truck as the truck she saw the defendant in on the night of the murder. On...