State v. Martin
| Decision Date | 02 March 1981 |
| Docket Number | No. 67519,67519 |
| Citation | 400 So.2d 1063 |
| Parties | STATE of Louisiana v. Charles E. MARTIN aka Christopher Antonio Martin. |
| Court | Louisiana Supreme Court |
On Rehearing William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Barbara Rutledge, Asst. Atty. Gen., Paul Carmouche, Dist. Atty., Rober W. Gillespie, Jr., B. Woodrow Nesbitt, Dale G. Cox, Asst. Dist. Attys., for plaintiff-appellee.
Frank E. Brown, Jr., Piper & Brown, Shreveport, for defendant-appellant.
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The bill of information in this matter charged the defendant on May 16, 1979, with attempted first degree murder, as set forth in LSA-R.S. 14:27 and 14:30. On November 9, 1979, a jury of twelve found the defendant guilty by a vote of ten to two. On January 21, 1980, the defendant was sentenced as a second felony offender under LSA-R.S. 15:529.1 to serve seventy-five years at hard labor. The defendant appeals the conviction and sentence.
The offense was committed on April 17, 1979, in Caddo Parish, Louisiana. On that date an unidentified black male approached the victim, Donald Browne, a Louisiana State Police trooper who was off-duty and out-of-uniform. The unidentified person offered to sell to Browne various household items, furniture and guns. The trooper testified at trial that he thought the stranger might be involved in a stolen property ring, and he decided to play along with the stranger in order to make an arrest.
The suspect was accompanied by two other black males who remained seated in a brown Mercury. The man who had approached Browne got into Browne's pick-up truck with him, and they went to a bank to withdraw money to "buy" the goods. The men in the brown Mercury followed. Browne withdrew $150.00 and then drove with the passenger to an apartment complex indicated as the planned site of the sale. Browne gave the money to the man in his truck. After a moment the man ran and jumped into the brown Mercury. The vehicle sped off. Trooper Browne, suspecting that he was the object of a swindle scheme, pursued the men in the brown Mercury. The pursuit lasted several miles at high speed and with reckless driving. At one point, the man who approached Trooper Browne jumped from the Mercury as it slowed and fled on foot. Browne continued to pursue the Mercury and the remaining occupants. The vehicle abruptly stopped on a street in an all-Black residential area. Browne pulled up behind the stopped car. Browne testified at trial that he left his truck and identified himself as a State Police officer and that he yelled to the two occupants of the car that they were under arrest. Browne reached into the open door of the car, again identifying himself and attempting physically to arrest the suspects. There was a quick scuffle, and the driver fired a shot which hit Trooper Browne. The victim was unable to identify his assailant or the other passenger. Eyewitnesses to the shooting also were unable to identify either of them. The two assailants fled from the scene leaving Trooper Browne on the street paralyzed from the chest down by the bullet lodged in his spine.
Within a short time a very large contingent of police arrived at the scene of the shooting. A large crowd of area residents gathered to protest the police action. At this same time the police were pursuing a lead that directed them to the nearby residence of Ms. Ballastine Porter. Ms. Porter denied permission to police investigators to enter her house to search for the suspects and told the investigators the house was empty. Despite her refusal to consent, the police entered her residence after hearing loud noises which they believed sounded like someone running and crashing about. The entry into Ms. Porter's residence took place after about a thirty minute fruitless effort to secure a warrant. During that time the crowd continued to grow and become unruly. Two bystanders were arrested after a confrontation with the police. Upon entering Ms. Porter's residence, the police noticed large holes in the ceiling and entered the attic and found the defendant hiding there. The defendant was arrested, advised of his rights and transported to headquarters. After the arrest the Porter residence was searched without a warrant. As a result of the search a pistol was found. It was later determined that Trooper Browne was shot with this pistol.
Defendant make inculpatory statements in which he admitted that he had in fact shot Trooper Browne and that he was the driver of the brown Mercury. The defendant later sought to suppress these statements. At the trial defendant admitted the shooting but attempted to label it as self defense or as accidental.
The defendant assigns numerous errors.
By this assignment defendant asserts that the record is replete with patent errors. He asks the court to review the record to discover them. A review of the record discloses no errors which have not been made the subject of specific assignments of error by the defendant.
Assignment of error number one is without merit.
In these two assignments of error the defendant asserts that the trial court erred in failing to comply with the sentencing guidelines of LSA-C.Cr.P. art. 894.1 and imposing an excessive sentence. In view of the fact that we find other errors which require that this case be remanded for a new trial we pretermit discussion of these two assignments.
In these assignments the defendant urges that there was error in three instances of impermissible conduct in the course of the State's closing argument. In view of our remand we pretermit consideration of these assignments.
By this assignment the defendant asserts that there was error in the State's exercise of peremptory challenges in a racially discriminatory manner so as to systematically exclude Blacks from the petit jury and thus deny him a fair trial by a representative cross-section of the community. An examination of the record does not indicate any merit to this assignment.
By this assignment the defendant asserts that there was error in the trial court's failure to grant a mistrial. Defendant's motion for mistrial was based on what defendant asserts was an inflammatory and prejudicial remark made during the State's opening statement. This assignment has no merit.
By this assignment defendant asserts that the trial court erred when it allowed the prosecution to present a video tape of his arrest to the jury in open court. Defendant asserts that the contents of this tape were not relevant and that the playing of the tape was prejudicial.
The exhibit consisted of approximately forty-five minutes of video tape of the scene of defendant's arrest as filmed by a local television news station. In addition to showing police officers taking the defendant into custody and the vehicles used during the crime, the film purports to contain a substantial amount of the reaction, comments and actions of a crowd of Blacks that gathered to protest, and at times interfere with the arrest of the defendant. The defense stipulated that the film accurately depicted the scene where the vehicles were found and where the defendant was arrested. In this assignment of error defendant asserts that the rest of the tape was irrelevant and prejudicial since it showed the crowd's occasionally violent confrontation with the arresting officers. The trial judge ruled that the evidence was admissible, determining it to be relevant and no more damaging than the oral testimony of a witness and still photographs. The tape was thus admitted into evidence and shown to the jury in open court.
Counsel for defendant objected vigorously to the admission of the video tape on the ground that it is not relevant and that everything the State wished to show was either already admitted or could be easily shown by other evidence. Out of the presence of the jury and prior to presentation of any evidence the trial court heard arguments on the admissibility of the tape. Tr. Vol. 3, pp. 124-135. Counsel were given full opportunity to voice their arguments as to the admissibility of the tape. At no time did the defense ever assert that the video tape was prejudicial. The court's ruling, elaborated on at some length, referred only to the relevancy of the material shown by the tape. We are of the opinion that a serious question would be presented by this assignment if objection had been made that the matter to be shown was prejudicial. What was shown to the jury was relevant but the defense was correct that the relevant parts were either admitted by the defendant or could be established by other evidence. However, inasmuch as defendant only objected to the relevancy of the material and did not bring before the court the possible prejudical nature of the matter depicted in the tape, the trial court was not called upon to rule on the possibility that, although relevant, the prejudicial effect of the matter shown might outweigh its relevancy. Even if evidence is relevant, in a given case counter balancing factors may exist which should lead a court to exclude the evidence. These factors include the danger that the evidence may unduly arouse the jury's emotions of prejudice, hostility, or sympathy or create a collateral issue which would distract the jury. State v. Franklin, 353 So.2d 1315 (La. 1978).
By this assignment defendant asserts that the trial court erred in admitting hearsay evidence. The admission of the testimony in question occurred during the direct examination of the victim, Donald Browne.
The testimony the defendant objected to was as follows:
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