State v. Miller
| Decision Date | 22 April 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 53,356-KA,53,356-KA |
| Citation | 295 So.3d 443 |
| Parties | STATE of Louisiana Appellee v. Joseph W. MILLER Appellant |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Louisiana — District of US |
ALAN J. GOLDEN, Counsel for Appellant
JULIE C. JONES, District Attorney, George Winston, III, Assistant District Attorney, Counsel for Appellee
Before MOORE, COX, and STEPHENS, JJ.
After a two-day bench trial, the court found the defendant, Joseph Wade Miller, guilty as charged of vehicular homicide. Miller was adjudicated a second-felony habitual offender and sentenced to serve 20 years at hard labor, the first five years of which to be served without benefit of probation or parole, and to pay a fine of $2,000. Miller now appeals this conviction for vehicular homicide and the court's pretrial denial of his motion to suppress.
For the following reasons, we affirm the conviction and adjudication, but amend the sentence to conform to La. R.S. 15:529.1 (G).
Between 5:30 and 6:30 a.m. on Tuesday, February 9, 2016, Chris Williamson, a resident of Coushatta, Louisiana, was driving north on La. Highway 1 headed to work when he saw an oncoming southbound vehicle drift into the northbound lane and force the vehicle in front of him off the road. The oncoming southbound vehicle, a green Ford F-150 pickup truck, continued traveling in the northbound lane and ran Williamson off the road onto the shoulder to avoid a collision. Williamson testified that the pickup truck continued traveling south in the northbound lane.
Williamson decided to obtain the license number of the truck to report the incident to police. He turned around and was heading south to catch the truck when the same truck passed him, now heading north. Williamson turned around again, but lost sight of the truck. Minutes later, he saw the green F-150 truck, which he recognized by the large tool box mounted in the back, parked in a driveway. Believing that the driver had made it home, he continued driving to work without reporting the incident.
About 10 minutes later, a coworker called him and told him that there was a bad accident on La. 1 involving a green pickup truck. Williamson turned around and drove back toward the accident site. When he arrived, the site was roadblocked by a law enforcement officer. Believing that the truck in the accident was the same green pickup truck he encountered earlier, he reported that the driver of the truck had run him off the road earlier, and he gave a written statement to that effect.
It was not quite daylight when Jimmy Smith, a resident of Homer, Louisiana, who works in the Coushatta area, was driving north on La. 1 about 100-150 yards behind a car in front of him. He saw the lights of an oncoming vehicle veer across the centerline toward the car in front of him. The car in front of him appeared to bounce around, and its taillights went into the other lane. Smoke and debris evidenced that a collision had occurred. Smith told his passenger to call 911 while he stopped his vehicle and approached the scene.
Smith said that he checked on the driver of a small, grey Pontiac and immediately realized that he was dead. The other vehicle, a dark-colored Ford F-150 pickup with a big worksite tool box in the back, was lodged against the Pontiac. There was a man pinned inside, gurgling and gasping for air. Smith said he later gave his statement to a state trooper.
Red River Parish Sheriff's Deputy Lee Peterson was on patrol that morning when he received a call that a black Ford F-150 was being driven recklessly on La. 1 north. While en route to the area, he received a call about a two-vehicle, head-on collision involving the Ford pickup on La. 1 just north of La. 177. He arrived at the scene and found the two crashed vehicles blocking both lanes of the highway. He could see that the driver in the sedan was deceased. The truck's doors and windows were still intact; the sole occupant inside was moaning as EMS personnel worked to extricate him from the truck. Dep. Patterson began setting up a landing zone for a Life Air Helicopter while EMS was doing their job.
Louisiana State Police Trooper ("LSP") Karan Sharma was riding with his training officer, Trooper Matthew Meeks, at the beginning of his shift that morning. Sharma said they heard on the radio a BOLO ("Be on the lookout") advisory for a pickup truck in Red River Parish swerving all over the roadway. Minutes after the BOLO, another trooper was dispatched to an accident in the same area involving the same pickup truck.
The collision occurred on La. 1 (a segment of US Highway 84) one mile north of La. 177 in Red River Parish. The driver of the Pontiac, Carl Mancil, was killed immediately. The driver of the Ford F-150, Joseph Wade Miller, defendant herein, was seriously injured.
The exact time of the collision appears to be shortly before the dispatch at 6:46 a.m. As state troopers began arriving at the accident scene about 40 minutes later, the unconscious driver of the pickup had been extricated from his vehicle and EMS personnel were preparing him for a helicopter airlift to University Health Medical Center ("University Health") in Shreveport.
The driver of the pickup, identified as Joseph Wade Miller from his vehicle license plate and driver's license, was airlifted at 7:48 a.m. State troopers continued investigating the accident scene and talking to witnesses. Meanwhile, Troopers Sharma and Meek were dispatched to the University Health emergency room where Miller was being treated for the purpose of obtaining a blood draw pursuant to Louisiana's implied consent statute, La. R. S. 32:681.1
Subsequently, the chemical test results revealed the presence of methamphetamine and cannabinoids in Miller's blood. Miller was subsequently arrested pursuant to a warrant for vehicular homicide.
Miller was charged by bills of information with operating his vehicle on a public highway left of the center line, a violation of La. R.S. 32:71B, and with vehicular homicide, a violation of La. R.S. 14:32.1. The latter bill alleged that Miller, on February 9, 2016, did kill Carl Mancil, caused proximately or directly by an offender engaged in the operation of a motor vehicle while under the influence of controlled dangerous substances listed in Schedules I, II, III, IV or V as set forth in La. R.S. 40:964.
Miller filed a motion to suppress the chemical test results arguing that the blood sample used to conduct the test was obtained without a search warrant in violation of his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches, and also obtained in violation of the procedures mandated by the Louisiana implied consent statute. After a hearing, the trial court denied the motion and the case went to a bench trial.
At trial, Miller contended that the evidence was insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the blood introduced into evidence was his blood because the toxicology results of the Louisiana State Crime Laboratory showed a different result from the blood taken and tested by University Health. He argued that the state's witnesses, such as the state troopers and the nurse who drew his blood, had memory lapses and could not positively identify Miller in court. Finally, he contended that the evidence was insufficient to exclude the reasonable "probability"2 of innocence that the accident was not due to the presence of methamphetamine and marijuana in his system, but rather due to fatigue.
Miller assigned two errors on appeal, challenging the trial court's denial of his motion to suppress the evidence obtained from the blood draw, and challenging the court's conclusion that the evidence at trial was sufficient to convict him of vehicular homicide.
As a matter of judicial economy, when an assignment of error is raised on appeal that alleges that the evidence at trial was insufficient to convict along with one or more other assignments of error, the reviewing court always evaluates the sufficiency of the evidence question first, irrespective of the specific order of assignments of error raised and argued by the appellant. State v. Hearold , 603 So. 2d 731 (La. 1992). Therefore, we will consider Miller's second assignment first.
By his second assignment of error, Miller alleges that the trial court erred when it found the defendant guilty of vehicular homicide because (1) the verdict was contrary to the law and evidence and (2) the evidence failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant was under the influence of a controlled dangerous substance that was a contributing factor to the killing.
First, Miller contends that the state failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the blood admitted into evidence was actually his blood. Although the state introduced blood that was purportedly drawn from Miller, there were significant discrepancies and lapses in the identification process by the people involved in taking the blood sample.
Jeremy Neal, a Red River EMS employee, responded to the accident. He and a paramedic extricated Miller from his truck, and then cut open his clothes while the unconscious Miller was on a stretcher. His partner removed Miller's wallet and placed Miller's driver's license on his bare chest, where it remained when he was loaded onto the helicopter.
Miller was unconscious when he arrived at the emergency room at University Health. The blood was drawn by Nurse Phillip Mullins at Trooper Sharma's request. At trial, Nurse Mullins could not recall whether Miller had a driver's license on him, and stated that "we don't usually have a driver's license on these people." When asked how he determined the identity of the patient Joseph Miller, he replied, If a trauma patient does not have a hospital bracelet with his name on it, he said, the patient would be identified by a Greek letter with the number 51, e.g. Eta 51 or Beta 51.
Trooper Sharma testified that when he ordered the blood to be drawn, he relied on Nurse...
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