State v. Ruff
| Decision Date | 25 February 1987 |
| Docket Number | No. 18355-KA,18355-KA |
| Citation | 504 So.2d 72 |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Louisiana — District of US |
| Parties | STATE of Louisiana, Appellee, v. Bedford Doyle RUFF, Appellant. |
Gravel & Brady by Helen Ginger Roberts, Baton Rouge, for appellant.
William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., William R. Coenen, Dist. Atty., Terry A. Doughty, Asst. Dist. Atty., Rayville, for appellee.
Before MARVIN, SEXTON and NORRIS, JJ.
The defendant, Bedford Doyle Ruff, was charged by indictment with second degree murder, LSA-R.S. 14:30.1, for the shooting death of W.O. "Posey" Adams. He urged self-defense, LSA-R.S. 14:20, and requested discovery of evidence that would support his claim. The state sought and received ex parte an order sealing a civil deposition which allegedly contained evidence favorable to the defense. The deposition was neither produced nor submitted to the judge for an in camera inspection in compliance with the discovery request, despite repeated requests. The defendant waived a jury and elected a bench trial in which extensive evidence was adduced. The trial judge concluded that the state had proved every element of the offense and had disproved self-defense. He found Ruff guilty and sentenced him to life in prison without benefit of parole, probation or suspension of sentence. After trial, he ordered the civil depositions unsealed.
Ruff now appeals, urging three assignments of error:
(1) Whether the state disproved, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant did not act in self-defense in the shooting death of the deceased.
(2) Whether the trial court could reasonably find, under the appropriate legal standard, that the mitigating factors of manslaughter, "heat of blood" or "sudden passion," were not present when the defendant shot the deceased.
(3) Whether the state improperly withheld exculpatory, material evidence which would have had a reasonable probability of changing the outcome of the case.
We find that the second and third assignments of error have merit and mandate reversal. Because of the odd interplay of legal rules that these assignments present, we are required to remand with special instructions for a new trial on manslaughter.
Although the mortal confrontation between Doyle Ruff and his victim was brief, it came at the end of a long sequence of facts that must be treated as a background. For our statement of these facts we rely heavily on the factual findings of the trial judge, 1 noting the discrepancies of testimony where applicable, and treating the evidence in light most favorable to the prosecution. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979).
For several months before New Years Eve 1984, Doyle Ruff had begun to feel his health and his fortunes decline. For one thing, he had begun seeing spots in his peripheral vision. His physician warned him that he was in danger of detaching his retina. This would have been devastating to the 56-year old Doyle, who was a commercial pilot and crop duster by trade. The doctor advised him to avoid heavy jolts and bumps since they could provide the force necessary to detach the retina and snuff out his sight.
More depressing, however, was the steady deterioration of Doyle's marriage. He and his wife, Glenda, had lived together for several years even though they were not married until May 1984. They lived in Girard, near Rayville. They began having disagreements, which Glenda attributed to jealousy. Because of these difficulties they separated at Thanksgiving 1984, with Glenda going to live with her sister and brother-in-law, Diane and Buddy Smith. Fearing she had left for good, Doyle contemplated suicide and wrote a will. Shortly afterward, Doyle heard that Glenda had been seen dancing with and kissing Posey Adams. Doyle confronted her with this information but she denied it. The following Saturday he saw Glenda and Posey talking at the Magnolia Lounge. He left; when he returned an hour later, he was told that she and Posey had left together. He was also told that Glenda and Posey had been seen dancing together at a bar in Tendal. Doyle was jealous of this relationship but denied any ill feelings toward Posey, whom he knew personally and as a brother at the Rayville Moose Lodge. He blamed it all on Glenda.
Doyle tried to win Glenda back. When he learned that Glenda's children from a prior marriage would be coming home for the holidays, he invited them to come stay with him so they could all be together. Glenda accepted, and on December 30 she and the children came to his home. They stayed together that day and night but Glenda did not intend it as a reconciliation.
The following day, New Years Eve, was the annual party and dance at the Moose Lodge. Glenda was to work there as bartender that afternoon and night. Doyle did not plan to attend. Instead, he spent most of the day visiting with various friends around Rayville. He had a fair amount to drink. In mid-afternoon he stopped by the Moose Lodge, had a drink and chatted with Glenda; he complimented her appearance and their conversation was friendly. He left around 4 p.m. to visit with other people.
Sometime after 5 p.m., he went to his brother-in-law Woody Graham's house. There he watched some football, ate and drank. By 10 p.m. he told Woody he was ready to go home. Woody prevailed on him and persuaded him to meet him at the Moose Lodge party. Doyle went home, changed clothes and returned to the Moose Lodge at 10:30. He parked on the driveway on the west side of the lodge, not far from the kitchen door through which he entered to go to the bar area. He took a seat on a stool on the west side of the bar. He sat there for about an hour, talking with his friends, Terry and Ramona Haire, and some other people. He was described as being quieter than usual, though he acted normally and ordered two or three drinks. The trial judge found that Doyle was not armed as he sat in the bar talking to his friends. The judge felt that Doyle was in a melancholy mood, contemplating the loss of Glenda. Posey was also at the party, mostly in the ballroom area of the lodge; he passed through to the bar a few times for drinks and exchanged acknowledgments with Doyle. There were no hostilities between the two, nor between Doyle and Glenda.
By 11:30, the other people in the bar had left. Glenda told the band that the bar was closing. At about 11:45, she said to Doyle, "Mr. Ruff, I'm closing the bar." Doyle got up and walked to the foyer, where Vern and Polly Leach were. On the way, he passed by Posey, who walked into the bar and closed the door behind him. Doyle waited near the ballroom door for two or three minutes. He testified he thought the bar was closed and could not understand why Posey could go in while he could not. Doyle therefore went back into the bar area and saw Glenda and Posey talking. Glenda testified she was mixing Posey a drink. She firmly told Doyle to leave and go home. The trial judge felt that this rebuke only added to Doyle's growing humiliation and anger. He was irked when Glenda chose to let Posey remain and ordered him to leave. He tossed his drink in Glenda's face. Posey, raising his voice, cursed Doyle and told him he was crazy. Doyle turned to Posey and told him in strong terms to leave his wife alone. Posey angrily denied the accusation and told Doyle he was tired of being accused. They began to scuffle; according to Doyle, Posey threw the first punch. Posey was a muscular man of 215 pounds who stood at 5' 10""; Doyle was much smaller, weighing only 130 pounds and standing 5' 7 1/2"". Because she was momentarily blinded by the liquid in her eyes, Glenda could not see the fight, but she could hear barstools being knocked over. By the time her eyes cleared, she saw them standing by the door. Posey told Doyle to meet him out back; he left through the kitchen door. Doyle hurried through the foyer and out the front door, slamming the doors behind him. Glenda rushed through after him, stopped in the foyer and told Vern and Polly Leach that she was afraid Doyle was going after a gun.
Doyle's truck was parked on the west side of the lodge, about 50 feet from the kitchen door through which Posey was exiting. Doyle reached his truck and started to open the door. The trial judge found that as he was attempting to open it, Posey emerged from the kitchen door and yelled at Doyle, "Wait a minute, we are going to get this [matter] straight." He came at Doyle "fairly rapidly." Doyle opened his truck door and said, "Get back, Posey." Posey only kept coming and hollered, "Wait a minute, * * *, we are going to get this [matter] straight." Doyle was not armed at this time but he had a five-shot .38 pistol in his door pocket. When he felt Posey was getting too close, he took the pistol and fired a "warning" shot toward the ground. The trial judge found that his first shot struck Posey in the upper right leg. According to Doyle, Posey did not stop but rather charged at him faster. Doyle then fired two more shots. One of them went through Posey's right forearm, which must have been raised, penetrated the rear deltoid muscle, re-entered the body, cut a major artery and struck the left rib cage. The trial judge found that this, the second shot, spun Posey completely around to his left and made him slump over. The third shot hit him in the back, starting in the lower right and going in at an angle. The trial judge found that after the third shot, Posey fell down. He was about 20 or 30 feet from Doyle's truck, according to an admittedly "rough" estimate that the trial judge accepted.
After firing the shots, Doyle walked back to the front door of the lodge. At some point he had clipped the holster to his belt, replaced the pistol in the holster and covered it with his coat. When he came back to the bar area, Vern Leach noticed the pistol and recalled Glenda's warning moments earlier; he asked him to surrender...
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