State v. Humphrey
| Decision Date | 02 July 1981 |
| Docket Number | No. 80-KA-2414,80-KA-2414 |
| Citation | 412 So.2d 507 |
| Parties | STATE of Louisiana v. James Louis HUMPHREY. |
| Court | Louisiana Supreme Court |
William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Barbara Rutledge, Asst. Atty. Gen., L. K. Knapp, Jr., Dist. Atty., Robert R. Bryant, Jr., Abbott J. Reeves, Asst. Dist. Attys., for plaintiff-appellee.
Richard P. Ieyoub, of Baggett, McCall, Singleton, Ranier & Ieyoub, Thomas L. Lorenzi, Lake Charles, for defendant-appellant.
*
Defendant was convicted on circumstantial evidence of two counts of manslaughter (La.R.S. 14:31(2)(a)) and appeals his conviction and his sentences of 15 years at hard labor consecutively on each count. We affirm the conviction but vacate the sentence and remand to allow the trial judge to recite the factual basis for sentence in accord with CCrP 894.1. State v. Fields, 394 So.2d 597 (La.1981). Defendant makes 9 arguments on 15 assignments of error.
Viewed in the light most favorable to the prosecution and from the viewpoint of a rational trier of fact applying the reasonable doubt standard, 1 the evidence shows that the defendant lived in Lake Charles in a common law relationship with Mona Brouchet, the mother of his two children, who were the homicide victims. One child, Janice, was 22 months old, and the other, Latasha, was 9 months old, at the time of their deaths.
The mother fed the children and left them at the family home with the defendant father about 6:00 p. m. on Friday, April 28, 1978. A seven-year-old neighbor, Joseph Breaux, saw the 22-month-old child alive shortly after the mother left to visit relatives of the defendant where she remained until about 11:00 p. m. Defendant's sister, Della Lane, did not enter the house but came to the front door about 9:00 p. m. and saw the defendant, apparently sleeping on the bed with the children and lying partially on Latasha. The defendant left the home for several minutes sometime after 10:00 p. m. and told a male friend (Howard) in a park about two blocks away that Mona had done "something bad, bad, bad" to the children and that defendant was "afraid" that he might be going to jail for it. The defendant and his friend returned to defendant's home shortly before Mona returned around 11:00 p. m. These three adults played cards without anyone mentioning the welfare of the children. Mona, however, did check on the children, who appeared to be just sleeping, to see if they were wet or had fever. Defendant's friend departed after midnight and defendant and Mona then went to sleep.
Defendant and Mona awakened about 8:00 a. m. Defendant told Mona that he would go to the store for her and that she should stay at home and "clean up" the children. Mona then discovered the lifelessness of the children and, at defendant's instruction, summoned assistance.
Other evidence showed that defendant had previous convictions for such things as drunkenness and aggravated battery and that in Mona's presence during the early morning hours of April 25 the defendant slapped Janice about her head, waked up Latasha and began beating Latasha about her face. Mona attempted to stop defendant and then went to a neighbor's home to report this conduct to the police. Mona and another neighbor, Irene Brooks, thereafter saw bruises about Latasha's face and eyes.
Defendant's version of the events of April 28-29 was that he came home about 8:00 p. m. on April 28 to find the children in bed and Mona watching television. According to defendant, Mona left the house shortly after he arrived and he then took a nap on the bed with the children until about 11:00 p. m. Defendant said when he awoke and noticed that the children were lying still and not breathing, he then got scared and went to the nearby park where he met Howard, whose testimony is summarized above.
The deputy coroner, accepted as an expert pathologist, testified that he had performed an autopsy on each of the victims to determine the cause and the time of the deaths. Because of the conditions of their bodies, the contents of their stomachs, and his observation and tests, the deputy coroner's professional opinion was that each child had died about the same time from the injuries received and that death could have occurred as early as 3:00 p. m. on April 28 or as late as 3:00 a. m. on April 29 and within one to two hours after the children received their respective injuries. Latasha died of bruises and swelling to the head and brain. Janice died of a broken neck. The injuries to both were inflicted by the use of force upon their bodies. The deputy coroner's examination revealed other bruises to each body, and a crushing injury and resulting fractures of Latasha's ribs. The deputy coroner also testified that his examination revealed that Latasha's femur had been fractured at an earlier time, longer than one month before her death.
On motion of the State, the trial court allowed the District Attorney to amend before trial, the Grand Jury indictment from 2d degree murder to manslaughter. Even if defendant had objected to the amendment, the court's allowing the amendment was not error as defendant contends. CCrP 487, State v. Sheppard, 350 So.2d 615, 627, fn. 1 (La.1977). See also CCrP 841.
Defendant objected to the admissibility of the mother's testimony in chief of the defendant's battery upon the children on April 25, 1978. The State gave defendant notice of its intent to use this evidence to prove that the April 28, 1978, battery was intentional. This court's decision on defendant's writ application, State v. Humphrey, 381 So.2d 813 (La.1980) 2, does not preclude further review on appeal of the merits of defendant's argument of inadmissibility under State v. Hatcher, 372 So.2d 1024 (La.1979).
The deputy coroner's testimony does not show that any injuries earlier than about 2:00 p. m. on April 28, 1978, contributed to the respective cause of death of the children. The deputy coroner's testimony does show, however, that the respective injuries that caused death were inflicted by the use of force upon the children by another person.
In the notice to defendant to use evidence of the battery of April 25, 1978, on the children, as required by Prieur (277 So.2d 126 (La.1973) ) and its progeny, the State said its purpose in offering that evidence was to show that defendant's alleged battery of April 28, 1978, on the children was intentional. Defendant argues that a CCr 31(2)(a) manslaughter does not contain the element of intent, that "proof of the act of battery is proof of both the crime and the general criminal intent required", 3 that intent was not a contested issue at the trial, and that evidence of the alleged April 25, 1978, batteries was too prejudicial to have been admitted under any justification.
Intent, if an element of the crime charged, is always a contested issue at a trial because the plea of not guilty requires the State to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant committed every element of the crime. Art. 1, § 16, La.Constn., LRS 15:271.
Criminal intent relates not to the conduct, usually an act which must be committed voluntarily under Art. 8, but to the consequences of that conduct under Art. 9. See and compare CCr Arts. 8-11, and Comments thereunder.
The words act and intent have acquired generally accepted meanings in tort as well as in criminal law.
"The meaning of 'intent' is that the person who acts either (1) consciously desires the physical result of his act ('actively desires' is the language of La.Cr.C. Art. 10(1) ) ... or (2) knows that the result is substantially certain to follow from his conduct, whatever his desire may be as to that result. ('Reasonably certain to result' is the language of La.Cr.C. Art. 10(2).) Thus, intent has reference to the consequences of an act rather than to the act itself. Restatement (Second) of Torts ... LaFave and Scott, Criminal Law ... see also, Prosser ...
Bazley v. Tortorich, 397 So.2d 475, 481 (La.1981) Emphasis supplied. Bracketed material supplied.
Intent, as an element of crimes relating to the consequences of an act, may be general or specific. CCr 10. In absence of qualifying provisions, the term intentional in the criminal code has reference to only general criminal intent.
A homicide that is committed under circumstances which indicate that the offender actively desired his conduct to result in the consequences of either death or great bodily harm is either a Murder I (Art. 30), a Murder II (Art. 30.1), or an Art. 31(1) Manslaughter, all of which crimes contain the element of specific intent because of the qualifying provisions of these articles relating to intent. Art. 11, Art. 10(2).
A 31(2) manslaughter expressly does not require the element of specific intent to kill or inflict great bodily harm.
"(a) When the offender is engaged in the perpetration or attempted perpetration of any felony not enumerated in Articles 30 or 30.1, or of any...
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State Of La. v. Boyer
...and nothing has been currently argued that would indicate that the ruling was erroneous. The Louisiana Supreme Court in State v. Humphrey, 412 So.2d 507, 523, (La.1981), held: When this court considers questions of admissibility of evidence in advance of trial by granting a pretrial applica......
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96-261 La.App. 3 Cir. 12/30/96, State v. Smith
...court is not precluded from reconsidering an issue on appeal on which it has previously ruled in a pretrial matter. State v. Humphrey, 412 So.2d 507 (La.1981). However, Humphrey also stands for the proposition that great deference should be accorded to prior pretrial rulings on issues of ad......
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State v. Boyer
...and nothing has been currently argued that would indicate that the ruling was erroneous. The Louisiana Supreme Court in State v. Humphrey, 412 So.2d 507, 523, (La.1981), held: When this court considers questions of admissibility of evidence in advance of trial by granting a pretrial applica......
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State v. Langston, 43,923-KA.
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