State v. Mussall

Decision Date11 April 1988
Docket NumberNo. 87-K-2535,87-K-2535
Citation523 So.2d 1305
PartiesSTATE of Louisiana v. Edward MUSSALL.
CourtLouisiana Supreme Court

William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Harry F. Connick, Dist. Atty., Terry M. Boudreaux, Brian T. Treacy, Asst. Dist. Attys., for applicant.

Dwight Doskey, Orleans Indigent Defender Program, for respondent.

DENNIS, Justice.

We granted certiorari in this armed robbery case to consider the state's claim that the court of appeal did not apply the appropriate Jackson v. Virginia methodology in reversing the defendant's conviction but instead directly assessed the credibility of the witnesses and substituted its finding of a reasonable doubt for that of a rational trier of fact. State v. Mussall, 514 So.2d 505 (La.App. 4th Cir.1987). We affirm. Having considered all of the evidence from the perspective of a rational trier of fact who interprets that evidence as favorably to the prosecution as any rational fact finder can, we conclude that no rational trier of fact could have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

FACTS

Defendant, Edward Mussall, was convicted after a bench trial of armed robbery, La.R.S. 14:64, and sentenced to serve seven years at hard labor and to pay court costs of $74 or serve 30 days in jail. Defendant appealed to the court of appeal, which reversed his conviction and sentence as being constitutionally infirm due to insufficiency of evidence and ordered him discharged. State v. Mussall, supra.

Ray Siebenkittel, a 27 year old bellman at the Marie Antoinette Hotel, testified that he received a phone call at work from the defendant, Edward Mussall, in January of 1983. Siebenkittel said that he was surprised to hear from Mussall whom he had met but once briefly in 1979 as they waited at an air terminal to go to separate off shore jobs. He was at a loss to say how Mussall located him, except that he believed that he had given Mussall his name four years earlier. According to Siebenkittel, Mussall tried to interest him in purchasing or investing in the purchase of a Lafitte skiff that a friend of Mussall's might be willing to sell cheaply. Siebenkittel said he at first refused but finally agreed to look at the boat after Mussall called a second and third time during the next three weeks. Although Siebenkittel said he had not seen the boat and did not know where it was located or who owned it, he testified that he liquidated his entire savings of $4,000, which he saved while working at minimum wage and living at home, and borrowed $2,000 from his sister at 18 1/2% interest. With the $6,000 cash in an envelope, he said, he drove 6 to 8 blocks to meet Mussall in the 700 block of Governor Nichols Street after he got off work at 3:00 p.m. on February 25, 1983. Siebenkittel testified that as they walked along Governor Nichols Street at about 3:20 p.m. Mussall pulled a handgun and robbed him of the envelope containing $6,000.

Siebenkittel testified that he drove immediately to the First District Police Station and reported the crime about 10 to 12 minutes after it had occurred. He gave the police Mussall's name and description. Siebenkittel testified that before the robbery Mussall had given him his home telephone number and that he had reached the defendant at that number. Three weeks after the robbery, on March 17, 1983 a police officer showed Siebenkittel a photographic line up containing Mussall's picture, and Siebenkittel correctly identified one of the photos as being that of Mussall. A bulletin was issued for Mussall's arrest after this photo identification.

The state did not introduce any evidence to corroborate Siebenkittel's testimony as to the robbery. There was no other witness to the robbery itself or to any fact in Siebenkittel's version of his prior contact with Mussall. There was no corroboration of Siebenkittel's withdrawal or liquidation of $4,000 savings or of a $2,000 loan from his sister at 18 1/2% interest. The state did not introduce the handgun, robbery loot, envelope or any evidence that Mussall had ever possessed any of them. There was no evidence to explain why Mussall had not been arrested immediately after the crime was reported instead of sometime after the photo-lineup, which occurred three weeks following the robbery.

Mussall took the stand in his own defense and testified that Siebenkittel had fabricated the armed robbery story out of revenge and to recover money that he believed Mussall had wrongfully taken from him. Mussall claimed that he, Siebenkittel, Jim W. Pace, Nicholas G. Felton, and Henry Canniglio, Jr., had pooled their money to finance the purchase and importation of a load of marijuana, in hopes of turning a large profit in the local market. The marijuana was never obtained however, and the money was lost. The other participants accused Mussall of bilking them and conspired in alternate means of retaliation. According to Mussall, Pace, Felton and Canniglio, Jr. fabricated a civil claim that Mussall had defaulted on a contract with them to sell shrimp and sought recovery of $45,000 for their investment in the venture. Mussall introduced a collection letter he had received from their attorney on this claim dated August 18, 1982. Mussall testified that Siebenkittel trumped up the armed robbery charge and filed a separate civil suit based thereon. Nevertheless, Mussall contended that both lawsuits were part of a conspiracy between Siebenkittel, Pace, Felton and Canniglio to seek retribution and recovery as a result of the abortive drug transaction. Mussall claimed that he was innocent of cheating his former marijuana partners but that he was a likely target for their wrath because he stood to recover a big judgment in a personal injury case.

In support of his testimony, Mussall introduced documentary evidence of the two lawsuits filed against him. Siebenkittel sued Mussall to recover $6,000 for the cash taken in the robbery and $100,000 in damages. Pace, Felton and Canniglio sued for $45,000 as contractual damage caused by Mussall's default. Both suits were filed on April 29, 1983 by the same New Orleans attorney, both petitions were verified in that attorney's office on that day by the respective plaintiffs, and both suits were served that same day on the defendant at central lockup where he was being held on the armed robbery charge.

In the state's rebuttal, Siebenkittel testified that he had never met Pace, Felton or Canniglio, that he was not aware that they had filed a lawsuit against Mussall on the same day as his or that they were using the same attorney. He denied any involvement in drug-related activity with them or Mussall. He admitted filing his lawsuit against Mussall but insisted that it was based on the armed robbery which actually happened. He admitted signing the pleadings in his attorney's office but denied seeing the plaintiffs in the other suit or being told anything about them. He testified that he picked the attorney for his suit out of the phone book and selected him because his office was near his own work place.

LEGAL PRECEPTS

This is a close case demanding an accurate, precise study of the appropriate legal precepts and the methods of their application. The armed robbery conviction is supported exclusively by the uncorroborated testimony of an eye witness. Unimpeached documentary evidence and several eccentricities in the victim's story tend to cast doubt on whether any robbery occurred. We are confronted with forceful conflicting arguments that a reviewing court must, on the one hand, give deference to the trier of fact's credibility call, and, on the other, reverse if no rational trier of fact would have found guilt beyond a reasonable doubt based upon the whole record. Accordingly, before applying the reasonable doubt or sufficiency of evidence standards, further study of their purpose and underlying principles is required.

REASONABLE DOUBT

The United States Supreme Court has explicitly held that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects each person accused of a crime against conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged. In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 368, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 1075, 25 L.Ed.2d 368, 377-78 (1970). The ancient demand for a higher degree of persuasion in criminal proceedings and the virtually unanimous acceptance of the reasonable doubt standard reflect a profound judgment about the way in which law should be enforced and justice administered. In re Winship, supra, 397 U.S. at 361, 90 S.Ct. at 1071, 25 L.Ed.2d at 373-74; McCormick, On Evidence, Sec. 341, at 962 (3rd ed. 1984); 9 J. Wigmore, Evidence, Sec. 2497, at 317 (3rd ed. 1940); see Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 88 S.Ct. 1444, 20 L.Ed.2d 491 (1968). The accused during a criminal prosecution has at stake interests of immense importance, both because of the possibility that he may lose his liberty upon conviction and because of the certainty that he would be stigmatized by the conviction. In re Winship, supra, 397 U.S. at 363, 90 S.Ct. at 1072, 25 L.Ed. at 375. The reasonable-doubt standard is a prime instrument for reducing the risk of a deprivation of his good name or freedom based on factual error, thus providing concrete substance to his presumption of innocence. To this end, the reasonable doubt standard is indispensable, for it places on the other party the burden of persuading the fact finder of the guilt of the accused beyond a reasonable doubt, and it impresses on the trier of fact the necessity of reaching a subjective state of certitude on the facts in issue, rather than merely performing an abstract weighing of the evidence in order to determine the quanta produced. In re Winship, supra, 397 U.S. at 364, 368, 90 S.Ct. at 1072, 1074, 25 L.Ed.2d at 375, 377; Dorsen & Rezneck, In re Gault and the Future of Juvenile Law, 1 Family Law Quarterly, No. 4, 1, 26-27 (1967). Moreover, use of the reasonable doubt standard...

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