State v. Loyd

• Decision Date: 29 November 1982
• Docket Number: No. 82-K-0747,82-K-0747
• Citation: 425 So.2d 710
• Parties: STATE of Louisiana v. Alvin Scott LOYD.
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

Page 710

425 So.2d 710

STATE of Louisiana v. Alvin Scott LOYD.

No. 82-K-0747.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

Nov. 29, 1982.

Rehearing Denied Feb. 11, 1983.

Gordon Hackman, Randy Lewis, Boutte, for relator.

William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Barbara Rutledge, Asst. Atty. Gen., Harry F. Morel, Jr., Dist. Atty., John Crum, Abbott J. Reeves, Jr., Asst. Dist. Attys., for respondent.

DENNIS, Justice.

The defendant, Alvin Scott Loyd, who has been indicted for first-degree murder and aggravated rape, unsuccessfully moved the trial court for suppression of evidence, discovery and Brady orders. We granted the defendant's application for review of these pre-trial rulings. 414 So.2d 780 (La.1982).

On the evening of April 26, 1981, Tina Giovanetti and her three year old daughter were walking home after attending a fair in Terrebonne Parish. They accepted defendant's offer of a ride in his pick-up truck. When he reached the Giovanetti home, the defendant asked if he could come in. The woman refused his request and stepped out of the truck. Before she could remove her daughter, however, the defendant drove off with the little girl inside the cab. The defendant traveled to the Mississippi River, crossed into St. John the Baptist Parish on the Lutcher ferry, and continued down a desolate dirt road near a pipeline. At a remote spot, he raped the child, drowned her in a ditch, carried her body into an adjacent swamp, and covered it with leaves.

Ms. Giovanetti reported the kidnapping of her daughter to the police and described the offender and his truck. Armed with this and other information, the St. John the Baptist Parish police contacted the defendant at his home early the next morning and requested that he accompany them to the sheriff's office. He willingly got dressed and drove his truck to the stationhouse. Interrogation and other events ultimately culminated in the defendant leading the sheriff to the victim's body and giving a written confession.

The defendant initially assigns as error the trial judge's failure to suppress the defendant's statements, certain items of physical evidence and the identification of the defendant by other witnesses.

ASSIGNMENT OF ERROR NUMBER ONE

The first statement that the defendant moved to suppress was one he made to two St. James Parish deputies who stopped him just after midnight on April 27, 1981, and conducted a field sobriety test because he had been driving to the left of the center line. The defendant passed the test, informed the deputies that he was tired and was trying to catch the 12:15 Lutcher ferry. He added that his little girl was in the truck with him and that they were returning home from the fair. Unaware of the reported kidnapping in Terrebonne Parish, the deputies allowed the defendant to continue.

The deputies did not give the defendant his Miranda warnings upon stopping him. However, in State v. Badon, 401 So.2d 1178 (La.1981), we held that these warnings are not required before the administration of a field sobriety test. Furthermore, there is no suggestion that defendant's remarks were solicited by the deputies; rather the evidence indicates that defendant's statement that he had his young daughter with him was a spontaneous statement and is independently admissible. State v. Robinson, 384 So.2d 332 (La.1980); State v. George, 371 So.2d 762 (La.1979); State v. Thornton, 351 So.2d 480 (La.1977).

The second statement at issue was evoked by the identification of him as the kidnapper by Mrs. Giovanetti, the victim's mother, in St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff's Office around 4:30 a.m. after the defendant voluntarily came there for questioning. The defendant seeks the suppression of the testimony concerning the woman's identification and his exculpatory response to her accusation.

Mrs. Giovanetti accompanied the Houma police officers to the St. John the Baptist Sheriff's Office to see if the defendant resembled her child's abductor, but the evidence is devoid of any hint that her identification of him as the kidnapper was suggested by the officers. She entered the Sheriff's Office through the back door and spotted the defendant sitting in the officer's lounge through an open door. No one drew any attention to the defendant or the room where he was sitting. The encounter was brief and accidental; her identification was definite and immediate. In these circumstances, because there is no indication of police suggestions, and because the witness made a positive identification upon spotting the suspect, the out-of-court identification was reliable and properly admissible. Manson v. Brathwaite, 432 U.S. 98, 97 S.Ct. 2243, 53 L.Ed.2d 140 (1977).

Mrs. Giovanetti was escorted away by Detectives Vito and Duplantis from Houma, who immediately returned to introduce themselves to defendant and give him the Miranda warnings. They testified that defendant acknowledged his understanding of these rights, did not invoke his right to silence, but instead stated that he did not know what the "crazy lady" was talking about. We need not resolve the question of whether defendant was in "custody" at the time of his statement, because the remark was made after defendant had received, apparently comprehended, and decided not to invoke his Miranda rights. In any event, this particular statement by the defendant was not incriminating in any way. Beyond the Miranda question, the evidence clearly reflects, contrary to defendant's contention, that his unsolicited spontaneous response to the accusation was freely and voluntarily made and thus is admissible.

The most serious questions raised by defendant's motion to suppress concern statements made by the defendant to the authorities after he invoked his right to silence. Before discussing these issues, we will set forth in detail the factual context within which they arise.

Deputy Fuselier of the St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff's Department testified that he arrived at the office early in the morning of April 27, 1981. The policemen from Houma were with defendant when Fuselier entered the room. Fuselier gave defendant his Miranda rights and at approximately 5:00 a.m. defendant informed Fuselier that he did not wish to speak to him. Fuselier said that he called defendant's mother to the office so that she could talk with him. According to Fuselier, the mother spoke with defendant alone for approximately 30 to 40 minutes, perhaps as long as an hour. An officer testified that Mrs. Loyd left her son sitting in the lounge and related to the police that defendant said he would take the police officers to the place where he had dropped off the child near Lutcher. Mrs. Loyd disagrees that defendant made such an offer; she testified that defendant only told her that he had dropped the child off near the Lutcher ferry landing.

Immediately, Oubre, Duplantis (from Houma), defendant and his mother went to Lutcher to locate the child. Before they left at approximately 6:15-6:30 a.m., Fuselier read the Miranda rights to defendant and his mother. Defendant refused to sign the form. Oubre testified that enroute to Lutcher, which is in St. James Parish, he advised St. James officials of the situation and requested assistance in searching for the child. When the group arrived in St. James Parish, they were met by the two St. James deputies who had stopped defendant earlier in the morning. These two men identified defendant as the man they had stopped and who told them that he had his little girl in the truck. Oubre stated that the meeting was a coincidence, that he had not requested these specific men to meet them. Defendant directed the group to the location where he asserted that he had left the girl and the search began by knocking on doors to inquire whether anyone had seen her. A State Police helicopter was also used in the search, but to no avail.

Oubre returned the group to the St. John sheriff's office at around 7:30 a.m. At this time, Fuselier placed defendant under arrest on a fugitive warrant from Terrebonne Parish which Vito had obtained while defendant was on the trip to Lutcher. Vito had explained that he did not effect the arrest because he was out of his jurisdiction. When Fuselier arrested defendant, Oubre gave defendant his Miranda rights. Fuselier repeated the rights and defendant stated that he did not understand. When questioned about what he did not understand, defendant did not respond.

Defendant remained alone in custody until shortly before 11 a.m. that morning when his mother sought permission to talk to defendant from Lloyd Johnson, Sheriff of St. John Parish. The sheriff allowed the visit, asking only that Mrs. Loyd try to elicit from defendant the whereabouts of the missing child. Mrs. Loyd talked with defendant a while. When she left the room where defendant was sitting, Sheriff Johnson asked whether defendant had said anything about the location of the girl and Mrs. Loyd replied that he had not. Mr. Crump, a friend of Mrs. Loyd, requested permission to speak with defendant and the sheriff granted the permission, hoping that defendant might tell him something he had not told his mother. When Crump came out, Mrs. Loyd went back into the room. The sheriff requested that she ask her son if he would talk to him and Deputy Rome. According to Sheriff Johnson and Deputy Rome, Mrs. Loyd returned and said that defendant had consented to speak to them. Mrs. Loyd testified that her son manifested no willingness to speak to the officers, and that she had not indicated any such willingness to Sheriff Johnson.

Sheriff Johnson and Deputy Rome entered the room and Johnson gave defendant the Miranda rights. Defendant said that he did not understand the rights. The sheriff told defendant that he would read each right slowly. After reading the first one--the right to remain silent and that anything said could be used in court--the sheriff again asked defendant if he understood. Defendant said he did not. The sheriff asked defen...