State v. Jacobs

• Decision Date: 29 June 2001
• Docket Number: No. 99-KA-1659.,99-KA-1659.
• Citation: 789 So.2d 1280
• Parties: STATE of Louisiana v. Lawrence J. JACOBS, Jr.
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

789 So.2d 1280

STATE of Louisiana v. Lawrence J. JACOBS, Jr.

No. 99-KA-1659.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

June 29, 2001.

G. Benjamin Cohen, Clive Adrian Stafford-Smith, New Orleans, Counsel for Applicant.

Richard P. Ieyoub, Attorney General, Paul D Connick, Jr., District Attorney, Terry M. Boudreaux, Gretna, Donald A. Rowan, Jr., Caren M Morgan, New Orleans, Counsel for Respondent.

Gabriella Celeste, Counsel for Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana (Amicus Curiae).

Ilona Picou, Counsel for Southern Juvenile Defender Center (Amicus Curiae).

Mark Soler, Counsel for Youth Law Center (Amicus Curiae).

KIMBALL, Judge.¹

This is a direct appeal from a conviction of first degree murder and a sentence of death. La. Const. art. V, § 5(D). The defendant's appeal is based on a total of twenty-seven assignments of error. Because the trial judge committed reversible error by denying the defense challenges for cause against potential jurors Dunham and Dyer, we now reverse the defendant's conviction and sentence of death and remand for a new trial.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On the morning of October 31, 1996, forty-five-year-old Nelson Beaugh and his seventy-year-old mother, Della Beaugh, were fatally shot in Nelson's home in Marrero, Louisiana. Nelson's mother-in-law discovered their bodies when she arrived to clean the house that same morning. Both victims had been shot in the head.

An investigation led to the issuance of an arrest warrant for the defendant, Lawrence J. Jacobs, Jr., who was sixteen years old at the time and a suspect in two burglaries that had been reported earlier that same week in a neighborhood adjoining Nelson Beaugh's. When the police contacted the defendant's father, Lawrence Jacobs, Sr., Mr. Jacobs notified the case agent, Lieutenant Snow, that his son had run away from home two months earlier, but that he would assist in locating him. Thereafter, Mr. Jacobs discovered that the defendant had fled to Jackson, Mississippi, where they had relatives. Mr. Jacobs picked his son up in Jackson, drove him back to Louisiana, and surrendered him to Lt. Snow.

On December 5, 1996, a Jefferson Parish grand jury indicted the defendant for the first degree murders of Della and Nelson Beaugh. Trial began on April 17, 1998, and the jury returned a verdict of guilty as charged.² At the conclusion of the penalty phase, the jury returned a sentence of death, finding four aggravating circumstances: (1) that the offender was engaged in the perpetration or attempted perpetration of an aggravated burglary; (2) that the offender knowingly created a risk of death or great bodily harm to more than one person; (3) that the offense was committed in an especially heinous, atrocious or cruel manner; and (4) that the victim was sixty-five years of age or older. La.Code Crim. Proc. art. 905.4(A)(1), (4), (7), (10). The defendant appeals his conviction and death sentence on the basis of twenty-seven assignments of error. For the following reasons, we find that the defendant has presented a valid argument in his third assignment of error, with respect to the trial court's denial of the defense challenges for cause as to potential jurors Dyer and Dunham, requiring a reversal of his conviction and sentence.³

LAW AND DISCUSSION

In his third assignment of error, the defendant contends that it was error for the trial court to deny the defense challenges for cause as to three prospective jurors, Mssrs. Dyer, Dunham, and Gerhardt. We agree that the trial judge erred as to jurors Dyer and Dunham.⁴

In State v. Robertson, 92-2660, pp. 2-3 (La.1/14/94), 630 So.2d 1278, 1280-81, we discussed the evolution of Louisiana's well-settled jurisprudential rule that prejudice is presumed when a defendant's challenge for cause is erroneously denied and the defendant exhausts all of his peremptory challenges. In that case, we noted that the Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure (Acts 1966, No. 310) became effective January 1, 1967, and that Article 800 of the Code was intended, as the Official Revision Comment notes, to change the law by legislatively overruling this court's earlier decision in State v. Breedlove, 199 La. 965, 7 So.2d 221 (1942). Robertson, 630 So.2d at 1280. In Breedlove, this court had held that there were three requirements for a denial of a defendant's challenge for cause to constitute reversible error: (1) an erroneous ruling by the trial judge refusing to sustain the defendant's challenge; (2) exhaustion of all of the defendant's peremptory challenges; and (3) the defendant was forced to accept an obnoxious juror, either the one that should have been excused for cause, or, if the juror was peremptorily challenged, a subsequent juror that defendant would have peremptorily challenged but for the fact that he had already exhausted his peremptory challenges. Breedlove, 7 So.2d at 226-227. In enacting Article 800, the legislature overruled Breedlove with regard to the third, "obnoxious juror" requirement. See Robertson, 630 So.2d at 1280. Thereafter, a defendant need only show two things to constitute reversible error: (1) that the trial judge erred in refusing to sustain a challenge for cause by the defendant; and (2) that the defendant exhausted all of his peremptory challenges. Id. at 1281.

The reasoning for eliminating the "obnoxious juror" rule is that Louisiana, unlike many other states, constitutionally provides that the accused has a right to challenge jurors peremptorily, with the number of challenges being fixed by law. La. Const. art. 1, § 17. Article 799 of the Code of Criminal Procedure provides that in trials of offenses punishable by death or necessarily by imprisonment at hard labor, each defendant shall have twelve peremptory challenges. Therefore, an erroneous ruling of a trial judge which deprives a defendant of one of his peremptory challenges constitutes a substantial violation of a constitutional and statutory right requiring reversal of his conviction and sentence. La.Code Crim. Proc. art. 921; Robertson, 630 So.2d at 1280-81. See also State v. Ross, 623 So.2d 643, 644 (La.1993); State v. Bourque, 622 So.2d 198, 225 (La.1993); State v. Lee, 559 So.2d 1310, 1317 (La.1990); State v. Comeaux, 514 So.2d 84, 93 (La.1987); State v. Brown, 496 So.2d 261, 263-64 (La. 1986).

The defendant in the present case exhausted all of his peremptory challenges. Thus, at issue is whether the defendant's challenges for cause as to jurors Dyer and Dunham, based on their apparent predisposition to automatically impose the death penalty, should have been sustained by the trial judge. A trial judge is vested with broad discretion in ruling on challenges for cause, and his ruling will be reversed only when a review of the entire voir dire reveals the judge abused his discretion. Robertson, 630 So.2d at 1281 (citing State v. Knighton, 436 So.2d 1141, 1148 (La.1983)). Under La.Code Crim. Proc. art. 797(2), a defendant may challenge a juror for cause on the ground that the juror is not impartial, "whatever the cause of his partiality." Additionally, La.Code Crim. Proc. art. 797(4) provides a defendant may challenge a juror for cause on the ground that "[t]he juror will not accept the law as given to him by the court." A refusal by a trial judge to excuse a prospective juror on the ground that he is not impartial is not an abuse of discretion where, after further inquiry or instruction, the potential juror has demonstrated a willingness and ability to decide the case impartially according to the law and the evidence. Robertson, 630 So.2d at 1281.

The proper standard for determining when a prospective juror should be excluded for cause because of his views on capital punishment is whether the juror's views prevent, or substantially impair the performance of his duties as a juror. Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510, 88 S.Ct. 1770, 20 L.Ed.2d 776 (1968) (holding that a prospective juror who would vote automatically for a life sentence is properly excluded). See also Wainwright v. Witt, 469 U.S. 412, 424, 105 S.Ct. 844, 852, 83 L.Ed.2d 841 (1985); State v. Sullivan, 596 So.2d 177 (La.1992), rev'd. on other grounds sub nom. Sullivan v. Louisiana, 508 U.S. 275, 113 S.Ct. 2078, 124 L.Ed.2d 182 (1993). In a "reverse-Witherspoon" context, the basis of the exclusion is that a prospective juror is unable to consider a life sentence under the facts of the particular case and would automatically vote for the death penalty. State v. Divers, 94-0756, p. 8 (La.9/5/96), 681 So.2d 320, 324 n. 5 (citing Morgan v. Illinois, 504 U.S. 719, 112 S.Ct. 2222, 119 L.Ed.2d 492 (1992)). Jurors who cannot consider both a life and death sentence are "not impartial," and cannot "accept the law as given ... by the court." La.Code Crim. Proc. art. 797(2), (4); State v. Maxie, 93-2158, p. 16 (La.4/10/95), 653 So.2d 526, 534-35. A trial court's failure to disqualify a prospective juror who is unable to consider both a life and death sentence as penalties constitutes reversible error. Divers, 681 So.2d at 324-27; Maxie, 653 So.2d at 537-38; Robertson, 630 So.2d at 1283-84.

To summarize, when a juror expresses a predisposition as to a particular sentence, a challenge for cause should be granted. Robertson, 630 So.2d at 1283-84; State v. Lee, 559 So.2d 1310, 1318 (La. 1990). Yet, if after subsequent questioning, or rehabilitation, the juror exhibits the ability to disregard that predisposition and make a decision based on the evidence presented at the penalty phase of the trial, the challenge is properly denied. Robertson, 630 So.2d at 1281; Lee, 559 So.2d at 1318.

The instant case presents us with a unique situation, in that prospective jurors Dyer and Dunham, who were both questioned in the second panel of the venire, were not subject to any manner of rehabilitation whatsoever after they expressed a predisposition to sentence the defendant to death, if found guilty. In fact, not only was the questioning of jurors Dyer and Dunham unusual because there...