State v. Jacobs
Decision Date | 06 April 1987 |
Docket Number | No. 85-KH-2042,85-KH-2042 |
Citation | 504 So.2d 817 |
Parties | STATE of Louisiana v. Augustus JACOBS. |
Court | Louisiana Supreme Court |
Augustus Jacobs, in pro per., Michael Gallagher, S.J., Kim Moore, Loyola Law School Clinic, for applicant.
William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Bryan Bush, Dist. Atty., for respondent.
*
We granted certiorari to review relator's application for post-conviction relief. 1 494 So.2d 315. Upon reviewing the record of the trial which resulted in relator's conviction of simple burglary, we conclude that the prosecution failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt relator's "intent to commit a felony or any theft therein" when he entered a building without authority. La.R.S. 14:62.
Relator and his brother were apprehended by the police inside a residential building leased by Mrs. Evelyn Vicks. Two officers, responding to a report of a burglary in process, saw someone with a flashlight inside the dark building. When the police entered the building with a dog, they found relator under the kitchen table. Relator's brother was found in the bedroom under the only bed in the house. Food was found on the kitchen table. A chisel, a screwdriver and a flashlight were also found on the floor of the bedroom near the bed. According to the police, someone had apparently slept in the bed.
Mrs. Vicks had rented the house two months earlier. Although she had moved many of her belongings, including a radio, stereo equipment, appliances and furniture, into the house, she had not yet begun to occupy the house. Most of her things were still in boxes.
Mrs. Vicks testified that she kept all of the doors locked and that the electricity and gas had not been turned on by the utility company. She further testified that she had never prepared or kept food in the house and had never eaten nor slept there. She denied that the flashlight was hers. She conceded, however, that her husband, a roofer, kept many tools in a toolbox in the kitchen and that the screwdriver and chisel might belong to him. She also verified that a friend had used some tools to reassemble the bed after it had been moved into the house. She found nothing missing from the house and nothing in disarray except the bed and a basket of clothes which had been moved. 2
Relator's brother testified that he had just returned to Baton Rouge after working in another area for a year and had been told that the police were looking for him. He was familiar with the house leased by Mrs. Vicks because one of his friends had previously rented it. When he noticed that someone had moved into the house but wasn't living there, he decided to stay there temporarily and entered through the rear door, which he claimed was not locked. He testified that he had stayed in the house for three days prior to being arrested and had been supplied with food by his brother. He admitted he had brought the flashlight into the house, but denied ownership of the tools found on the bedroom floor.
After relator and his brother were tried jointly on charges of burglary of an inhabited dwelling, the jury returned a responsive verdict of guilty of simple burglary. In denying relator's motion for a new trial, the trial court expressly ruled that the evidence of intent was sufficient.
The court of appeal affirmed. 435 So.2d 1014. As to the issue of sufficiency of the evidence of intent, the court reasoned as follows:
"The totality of the circumstances presented, in this case, as well as defendants (sic) lack of employment, past records, possession of tools customarily used for break-in, the impeached credibility of the defendant who testified, when considered in totality, clearly provides a reasonable basis for the jury's findings of intent on the part of defendants to commit a theft or felony.
....
... [O]ne of the defendants in the instant case was found with tools that could certainly be considered burglary tools beside him under the bed. The trial jury apparently found the testimony of Mrs. Vicks and the police officers credible, and that of Percy Jacobs not credible. It was established that defendant gained entrance through a locked door. The defendants were discovered hiding in the dwelling, items belonging to Mrs. Vicks had been tampered with, and defendant's own testimony established that he had been involved in or that the police were looking for him 'for another burglary.' The totality of these circumstances is clearly sufficient to support the jury's finding that these defendants made an unauthorized entry into another's dwelling with the specific intent to commit a theft."
We disagree that the evidence of intent was sufficient to support the conviction of simple burglary and accordingly reverse.
The defendant in a criminal case is entitled to have the jurors instructed that the evidence must satisfy them that the defendant's guilt has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt and that they must give the defendant the benefit of every reasonable doubt arising from the evidence or the lack of evidence. La.C.Cr.P. art. 804 A. When the case involves circumstantial evidence, the defendant is additionally entitled, under the provisions of La.R.S. 15:438, to have the jurors instructed that they must be satisfied that the overall evidence "excludes every reasonable hypothesis of innocence". Thus, the defendant in a circumstantial evidence case has a statutory right to an instruction in the trial court that the jurors must conclude that no reasonable hypothesis of innocence exists, as well as a constitutional (and statutory) right to be convicted only upon proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970).
An appellate court in Louisiana, reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence to support a conviction, is controlled by the standard enunciated by the Supreme Court of the United States in Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (1979). Under that standard, the appellate court must determine that the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the prosecution, was sufficient to convince a rational trier of fact that all of the elements of the crime had been proved beyond a reasonable doubt. 3
When the conviction is based on both direct and circumstantial evidence, the reviewing court must resolve any conflict in the direct evidence by viewing that evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution. When the direct evidence is thus viewed, the facts established by the direct evidence and the facts reasonably inferred from the circumstantial evidence must be sufficient for a rational juror to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant was guilty of every essential element of the crime. 4 State v. Sutton, 436 So.2d 471 (La.1983).
To support a conviction of simple burglary under La.R.S. 14:62, proof of the defendant's presence in a building by means of an unauthorized entry is not alone sufficient. 5 State v. Jones, 426 So.2d 1323 (La.1983). The prosecution must also prove beyond a reasonable doubt the intruder's intent to commit a theft or felony therein.
In State v. Marcello, 385 So.2d 244 (La.1980), the defendant was seen in the hallway of a public utility's office building. The security guard who spotted the defendant had been attracted by the sound of running water in the restroom. The defendant ran back into the restroom and climbed out of a window, but was quickly apprehended by police. The defendant explained that he had slept on the roof and had entered the building to wash up in the restroom. The security guard, who had cleaned the restroom earlier, found fresh dirt and debris in the restroom, indicating that someone had just washed up there. The defendant did not have any burglary tools or stolen property in his possession. This court, noting that the defendant's flight under the circumstances did not necessarily indicate that he had intended to commit a theft or felony in the building he had entered without authority, held that the evidence was insufficient to support the conviction of simple burglary.
In the present case, the circumstances relied on by the court of appeal as proving intent simply do not exclude every reasonable doubt as to the intent element of simple burglary. Whether the entry was through a locked or an open door is of no significance to the intent issue. The finding of tools customarily used for break-ins also bears primarily on the conceded issue of unauthorized entry. The fact that the intruders were hiding when apprehended inside the house merely indicates a consciousness of guilt of criminal trespass and does not necessarily indicate an intent to steal. The fact that relator's brother had been...
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