State v. Hills

• Decision Date: 28 June 1971
• Docket Number: No. 50909,50909
• Citation: 250 So.2d 394,259 La. 436
• Parties: STATE of Louisiana v. Frank HILLS.
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

Page 394

250 So.2d 394

259 La. 436

STATE of Louisiana v. Frank HILLS.

No. 50909.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

June 28, 1971.

Charles O. Simmons, Jr., O. Romaine Russell, Baton Rouge, for defendant-appellant.

Jack P. F. Gremillion, Atty. Gen., Harry H. Howard, Asst. Atty. Gen., Sargent Pitcher, Jr., Dist. Atty., Ralph L. Roy, Asst. Dist. Atty., for plaintiff-appellee.

SUMMERS, Justice.

Appellant Frank Hills was indicted for aggravated rape. He was tried, found guilty without capital punishment and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Thirteen bills of exceptions were reserved, all of which are relied upon in this appeal except Bills 10, 11, and 12, these three having been abandoned.

About 3 o'clock on the morning of December 3, 1966 the prosecutrix Janice Wallace and her ten children were asleep in their home at 917 Myrtle Street in the city of Baton Rouge. The prosecutrix's husband was away at work in Lafayette. Shortly thereafter she was awakened by a movement on her bed. She turned to face a colored male who grabbed her arm and held a metal object she believed to be a knife to her throat. He threatened her and warned her against any outcry, all the while holding the object to her throat and holding her left arm while her right arm was pinned beneath her. The assailant then raped her. When the act was consummated, the assailant left by the front door.

Immediately after his departure, the police were summoned. Investigation disclosed that the assailant entered the house through a rear unlocked window to which access was gained by a ladder.

By questioning the prosecutrix it was ascertained that a lighted gas, radiant heater was near her bed at the time of the assault. By the light of the exposed flame she saw the rapist clearly, retaining until trial a vivid impression of his facial features.

Sixteen days later, during the early morning hours of December 19, a Negro man broke into a residence at 917 Napoleon Street, three blocks from the Myrtle Street address of the Wallace residence. He got into bed with a seven-year-old girl who awakened to find that the man had removed her clothing. He offered her money and threatened her if she cried out.

Later that morning when the child related the incident to her mother, the mother discovered muddy foot tracks on the child's bed sheet, on the floor and at a window through which the intruder passed to enter the house. A wallet containing identification cards, papers and a driver's license, with his picture, all belonging to appellant Frank Hills, was found near the heater in the room where the child slept. An address book belonging to Frank Hills was also found near the child's bed. These objects were delivered to the police.

Entrance into this house was gained by the intruder through the rear, and he departed from the front of the house.

Some time prior to these incidents, a Negro man entered the Biondo residence in the early morning hours about six or eight blocks away. A teenage girl who was asleep at the time was disturbed by someone pulling the covers and fondling her. She awoke to find a Negro man in her bed. He threatened that if she uttered an outcry he would kill her, and he then propositioned her offering money for her consent to sexual intercourse. Notwithstanding the threats and inducements the girl declared she would scream and the man fled.

Investigation disclosed a window screen had been slit on the side of the house, and the front door, which had been locked, was ajar. The girl's purse, like that of her mother and sister, had been rifled. Suit-cases which had been packed for a trip to New Orleans the next day had also been tampered with. A coat and money were missing.

Two weeks before Christmas 1966 the Biondo residence was again burglarized and a pea coat belonging to a young boy of the Biondo family was stolen. The pea coat was later found in Frank Hills' residence.

I.

At the trial the prosecuting officer declared in his opening statement that he would present evidence of similar offenses other than the offense charged to prove system, mode of operation, guilty knowledge and intent, to which defense counsel objected. Like objection was made during the trial to the introduction of evidence of the other incidents which we have narrated--the incident of the seven-year-old child and the young Biondo girl--and the introduction of the objects found or stolen on those occasions. To preserve this issue for review, defense counsel reserved and perfected Bills 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 which he argues on this appeal.

Intent is not an element of the crime of aggravated rape the defense contends and, therefore, error occurred when the trial judge permitted the introduction of evidence of other similar acts to prove intent. La.Crim.Code art. 42. This contention is without merit.

Criminal conduct involves acts combined with criminal intent, acts and failure to act which produce criminal consequences not requiring criminal intent and criminal negligence which produces criminal consequences. La.Crim.Code art. 7. It does not follow from these definitions, however, that intent is not relevant to criminal conduct producing criminal consequences where there is no requirment of specific criminal intent.

All 'acts' which produce criminal consequences involve an exercise or refusal to exercise a bodily function. Action or failure to act are external manifestations of the will of the party, unless the action or failure to act is induced by forces beyond the will of the actor. The point is made in the reporter's comment to Article 8 of the Criminal Code as follows:

All positive conduct includes at some point a voluntary muscular movement (external manifestations of will) which we call an act. See Restatement of the law of Torts (1934) § 2. To illustrate briefly, the muscular movement of pulling the trigger of a gun would be an 'act.' The bullet's hitting some object would be 'consequences.' The act must be willed, so that if another person seized the hand of the accused and squeezed it and the trigger, or if the accused had a convulsion and lost control of his muscles, there would be no voluntary muscular movement on the part of the accused, and therefore no crime, even though someone was hit and died. However, as we know, if the act of pulling the trigger was willed by the accused and fatal consequences followed which were not willed, the accused might still be responsible, because consequences relate to intent, and one of the concepts of intent set out in the following articles might insure his responsibility.

The intent referred to in the foregoing quotation may be either specific or general. La.Crim.Code art. 10. The intent which is pertinent here is general criminal intent which exists 'when the circumstances indicate that the offender, in the ordinary course of human experience, must have adverted to the prescribed criminal consequences as reasonably certain to result from his act or failure to act.' It is distinguished from specific intent in that specific intent requires proof that the consequence was intended; whereas, in crimes where no specific intent is required it is only necessary to prove the 'act' was intended.

Intent, therefore, is a relevant consideration in any 'act' producing 'criminal consequences,' even though there was no specific intent that criminal consequences would follow. 'Relevant evidence is that tending to show the commission of the offense and the intent or tending to negative the commission of the offense and the intent * * *.' La.R.S. 15:441. Thus 'Facts necessary to be known to explain a relevant fact, or which support an inference raised by such fact' are admissible. La.R.S. 15:441.

Section 445 of Title 15 of the Revised Statutes declares that 'In order to show intent, evidence is admissible of similar acts, independent of the act charged as a crime in the indictment, for though intent is a question of fact, it may be inferred from the circumstances of the transaction.' This authority permits, as the trial judge ruled, the activity of this accused involving the seven-year-old girl and the Biondo teenager to be shown in order to dispel any inference that his actions with the victim Janice Wallace were not his voluntary acts--that is, similar acts were relevant to show the accused was no stranger to such actions and was, therefore, not forced into the main action, or insensible of its occurrence. In short, the similar occurrences help to establish that the 'act' complained of was willed or intended. Added to this is the legal presumption which our law supports that the defendant intended the natural and probable consequences of his act. La.R.S. 15:432. Evidence to support this presumption of intent is also relevant. See La.R.S. 15:441.

In each of the incidents, including that involving Janice Wallace which is the subject of this prosecution, the assailant was a Negro man, the early morning hours were the times he chose; entry was made from a rear window and the intruder exited through a front door. In each incident he threatened the victim and offered money. All three assaults were closely related in point of time and all occurred in the same neighborhood. All occurrences were in fact similar, and from the evidence available all involved the defendant Frank Hills.

This Court has repeatedly held that in sexual offenses, such as rape, evidence of similar recent acts of the defendant is admissible to show intent. State v. Bolden, 257 La. 60, 241 So.2d 490 (1970); State v. Crook, 253 La. 961, 221 So.2d 473 (1969); State v. Ferrand, 210 La. 394, 27 So.2d 174 (1946); State v. Cupit, 189 La. 509, 179 So. 837 (1938); State v. Mischiro, 165 La. 705, 115 So. 909 (1928); State v. Fuller, 164 La. 718, 114 So. 606 (1927); State v. McCollough, 149 La. 1061, 90 So. 404 (1922); State v. Wichers, 149 La. 643, 89 So. 883 (1921); State v. DeHart, 109 La. 570, 33 So. 605 (1903).

II.

Defense counsel contends the trial judge erred in...