State v. Neames
| Decision Date | 10 December 2020 |
| Docket Number | 2020 KA 0335 |
| Parties | STATE OF LOUISIANA v. AARON JOSHUA NEAMES |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Louisiana — District of US |
NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION
The defendant, Aaron Joshua Neames, was charged by grand jury indictment with attempted second-degree murder, a violation of La. R.S. 14:27 and 14:30.1. He pled not guilty and, following a jury trial, was found guilty by a ten-to-two verdict of the responsive offense of attempted manslaughter, a violation of La. R.S. 14:27 and 14:31. He was sentenced to three years imprisonment at hard labor. The defendant now appeals, designating two assignments of error. We set aside the conviction and sentence and remand for a new trial.
Benjamin Jarreau did not personally know the defendant, but he knew of him and where he lived. Jarreau stole a Ford Fusion and on the morning of March 1, 2015, drove to the defendant's trailer in Pannu Trailer Park in Walker, Livingston Parish. Jarreau planned to rob the defendant to support his ongoing drug habit.
Jarreau entered the defendant's trailer with a loaded .22 caliber long rifle. The defendant was not home, but several people were in the trailer. Jarreau, at gunpoint, had all the people wait in the trailer for a few hours until the defendant came home. When the defendant got home, Jarreau shot at the floor near the defendant's feet. Jarreau approached the defendant. The defendant grabbed Jarreau's rifle, and they struggled. The defendant wrested the rifle from Jarreau. The defendant produced his own gun, a .40 caliber semi-automatic pistol. Jarreau went to his knees and pleaded not to be killed. After two or three people in the trailer struck Jarreau several times, the defendant told him to get out of his house.
Jarreau left the trailer, got in the Fusion, and began driving away. The defendant approached the Fusion from behind and began firing at Jarreau, striking him in the shoulder and in the elbow. Jarreau drove toward the back of the trailerpark, where he got stuck in a ditch. Jarreau left the car and went to a nearby Best Stop store, where he was detained by the police. The defendant was brought in for questioning and arrested.
The defendant did not testify at trial.
In his second assignment of error,1 the defendant argues that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction for attempted manslaughter. The defendant does not deny shooting at the victim but argues that he was acting in self-defense.
A conviction based on insufficient evidence cannot stand as it violates Due Process. See U.S. Const. amend. XIV; La. Const. art. I, § 2. The standard of review for the sufficiency of the evidence to uphold a conviction is whether or not, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 2789, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). See La. Code Crim. P. art. 821(B); State v. Ordodi, 2006-0207 (La. 11/29/06), 946 So.2d 654, 660. The Jackson standard of review, incorporated in Article 821, is an objective standard for testing the overall evidence, both direct and circumstantial, for reasonable doubt. When analyzing circumstantial evidence, La. R.S. 15:438 provides that the factfinder must be satisfied the overall evidence excludes every reasonable hypothesis of innocence. State v. Patorno, 2001-2585 (La. App. 1st Cir. 6/21/02), 822 So.2d 141, 144.
Louisiana Revised Statutes 14:31(A) provides, in pertinent part:
Louisiana Revised Statutes 14:27(A) defines attempt, in pertinent part, as:
Any person who, having a specific intent to commit a crime, does or omits an act for the purpose of and tending directly toward the accomplishing of his object is guilty of an attempt to commit the offense intended; and it shall be immaterial whether, under the circumstances, he would have actually accomplished his purpose.
In order to obtain a conviction for attempted manslaughter under La. R.S. 14:31(A)(1), the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant possessed the specific intent to kill. Specific intent is that state of mind which exists when the circumstances indicate that the offender actively desired the prescribed criminal consequences to follow his act or failure to act. La. R.S. 14:10(1); State v. Cousan, 94-2503 (La. 11/25/96), 684 So.2d 382, 390; State v. Gregoire, 2013-0751 (La. App. 1st Cir. 3/21/14), 143 So.3d 503, 506, writ denied, 2014-0686 (La. 10/31/14), 152 So.3d 151. Such a state of mind can be formed in an instant. Cousan, 684 So.2d at 390. Specific intent need not be proven as a fact, but may be inferred from the circumstances of the transaction and the actions of the defendant. State v. Mickelson, 2012-2539 (La. 9/3/14), 149 So.3d 178, 182. The existence of specific intent is an ultimate legal conclusion to be resolved by the trier of fact. State v. Jackson, 2018-0261 (La. App. 1st Cir. 11/2/18), 265 So.3d 928, 934, writ denied, 2018-1969 (La. 4/22/19), 268 So.3d 304. It has long been recognized that specific intent to kill may be inferred from a defendant's act of pointing a gun and firing at a person. State v. Reed, 2014-1980 (La. 9/7/16), 200 So.3d 291, 309, cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 137 S.Ct. 787, 197 L.Ed.2d 258 (2017);State v. Eby, 2017-1456 (La. App. 1st Cir. 4/6/16), 248 So.3d 420, 424, writ denied, 2018-0762 (La. 2/11/19), 263 So.3d 1153.
The use of force or violence upon the person of another is justifiable under La. R.S. 14:19(A)(1)(a) when committed for the purpose of preventing a forcible offense against the person or a forcible offense or trespass against property in a person's lawful possession, provided that the force or violence must be reasonable and apparently necessary to prevent such offense. An aggressor may not claim self-defense without showing he first withdrew from the conflict in good faith and in such a manner that his adversary knew or should have known of his intention to withdraw and discontinue the conflict. La. R.S. 14:21.
Louisiana law is unclear as to who has the burden of proving self-defense in a non-homicide case, and what the burden is.2 State v. Barnes, 590 So.2d 1298, 1300 (La. App. 1st Cir. 1991). As we noted in State v. Serigny, 2019-0958 (La. App. 1st Cir. 1/9/20), 2020 WL 104684, at *2 (unpublished), because this issue has never been resolved by our supreme court, this circuit has similarly left the issue unresolved. See State v. Freeman, 427 So.2d 1161, 1162-63 (La. 1983). In previous cases, this court has analyzed the evidence under both standards of review, which is whether the defendant proved self-defense by a preponderance of the evidence or whether the State proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did not act in self-defense. State v. Mollerberg, 2018-0256 (La. App. 1st Cir. 9/24/18), 260 So.3d 599, 605-06. Similar to our approach in Mollerberg, we do not decide the issue of who has the self-defense burden because under either standard the evidence established the defendant did not act in self-defense. See State v. Thomas, 2019-0409 (La. App. 1st Cir. 10/25/19), 289 So.3d 1030, 1039.
The defendant herein does not deny that he shot Jarreau. He claims rather that the only question in this case is whether he acted in self-defense. According to the defendant, he shot at the car Jarreau was in only after Jarreau began backing his car toward the defendant. The defendant asserts that Jarreau "of course denied backing up the car, his only remaining 'weapon,' and aiming it" for the defendant. Thus, the defendant concludes, he had every right under Louisiana law to prevent a forcible offense against himself and fire his pistol at the car after Jarreau had "made the choice to reverse his car towards" the defendant.
We note initially that, despite the defendant's assertion, Jarreau never denied backing up the car. In fact, he was clear in his testimony that he backed up the car after going forward. The defendant's trailer was one of the first trailers on the left when Jarreau turned into the trailer park and parked. There was no exit at the back of the trailer park; rather, after entering, a driver could exit only after driving a loop around the trailer park back toward the entrance. Jarreau parked on the street in front of the defendant's trailer so that the driver's side door was facing the trailer. When the defendant told Jarreau to get out of his house, Jarreau got in the car and turned right, his intention being to turn the car around and drive out the front of the trailer park. Unable to complete a U-turn, he put the car in reverse to back up to give himself more room for the right-hand turn. The defendant started shooting at Jarreau. Jarreau then put the car in drive and drove forward; that is, he drove toward the back of the trailer park because that was the only direction he could go to distance himself from the defendant's shooting.
The defendant did not testify at...
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