State v. Seals
| Decision Date | 29 December 2011 |
| Docket Number | No. 09–KA–1089.,09–KA–1089. |
| Citation | 83 So.3d 285 |
| Parties | STATE of Louisiana v. Glen E. SEALS. |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Louisiana — District of US |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Paul D. Connick, Jr., District Attorney, Terry M. Boudreaux, Andrea F. Long, Juliet L. Clark, Thomas S. Block, Vincent Paciera, Jr., Assistant District Attorneys, Gretna, LA, for Plaintiff/Appellee.
Cecelia Trenticosta, Attorney at Law, Stephen I. Singer, Loyola Law Clinic, New Orleans, LA, for Defendant/Appellant.
Panel composed of Judges SUSAN M. CHEHARDY, JUDE G. GRAVOIS, and MARC E. JOHNSON.
[5 Cir. 3] Defendant, Glen Seals, appeals his conviction for the second degree murder of a cab driver, Ray Feeney, a violation of LSA–R.S. 14:30.1. On appeal, he argues thirty assignments of error. For the following reasons, we affirm defendant's conviction and sentence.
On August 15, 1991, the Jefferson Parish Grand Jury indicted Glen Seals for the first degree murder of a cab driver, Ray Feeney, during the commission of an armed robbery in violation of LSA–R.S. 14:30. In 1993, a twelve-person jury unanimously found defendant guilty as charged and sentenced him to death. The Louisiana Supreme Court subsequently affirmed defendant's conviction and sentence.1
In 1998, defendant filed an application for post-conviction relief that was granted on the basis that the trial court had, pretrial, ordered a sanity commission [5 Cir. 4] to determine defendant's competency to stand trial, which was never held. The trial court held a hearing to determine if a nunc pro tunc determination of competency could be made. Finding that the record failed to contain enough evidence upon which to make this determination, the district court vacated defendant's conviction and sentence and ordered a new trial. The Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the district court, concluding that it could not be retrospectively determined whether defendant had possessed the mental capacity to stand trial.2
On June 27, 2006, the State amended the original indictment, reducing the charge from first degree murder to second degree murder in violation of LSA–R.S. 14:30.1. Defendant was arraigned on the amended indictment on September 29, 2006 and pled not guilty. The case was tried from March 17 to March 26, 2009 before a twelve-person jury that unanimously found defendant guilty as charged. On April 3, 2009, defendant's motion for a new trial was denied. On April 20, 2009, the trial judge sentenced defendant to life imprisonment without the benefit of probation, parole, or suspension of sentence. Defendant filed a motion for appeal on April 3, 2009 that was granted on April 23, 2009.
On appeal, defendant raises thirty assignments of error:
1. The trial court erroneously failed to find a prima facie case of discrimination where the State removed black jurors at a rate twice as high as white jurors, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause.
2. Mr. Seals was denied due process and his right to challenge jurors peremptorily by the trial court's erroneous refusal to allow backstrikes.
3. The trial court deprived Mr. Seals of his right to put on a defense under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments.
4. The trial court erred by refusing to allow Mr. Seals to introduce a material and exculpatory crime scene diagram previously withheld by the State.
[5 Cir. 5] 5. he trial court erred by refusing to allow Mr. Seals to introduce a statement of his party-opponent under La.C.Cr.P. Article 801(D)(2).
6. Mr. Seals was denied his right to confrontation by the trial court's refusal to allow the defense to impeach an unavailable State witness under La.C.Cr.P. Article 806.
7. The trial court erred by refusing to allow Mr. Seals to recross-examine witnesses when new matters were brought up on redirect.
8. A conviction for second degree murder based on circumstantial evidence consisting of a single eccentric witness and ubiquitous hearsay cannot stand under Jackson v. Virginia and the Due Process Clause.
9. The trial court's repeated admission of out-of-court hearsay testimony, which the defense had no similar opportunity and motive to cross-examine, violated the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments.
10. The State violated the Confrontation Clause and due process by its elicitation of hearsay testimony to prove robbery.
11. The admission of the testimonial statement of Raymond Feeney violated the Confrontation Clause and due process.
12. The trial court erred by allowing the State to bolster the testimony of its unreliable witnesses by the use of hearsay testimony, in violation of the Due Process Clause and Mr. Seals' right to a fair trial.
13. The trial court erred by allowing the State to present inadmissible evidence of the victim's “good character” in its case-in-chief, in violation of the Due Process Clause and Mr. Seals' right to a fair trial.
14. The State violated due process by improperly disposing of evidence before the defense could examine it and then making affirmative use of it in its case-in-chief.
15. The trial court abused its discretion by refusing to give the requested spoliation instruction to the jury, in violation of Mr. Seals' right to put on a defense.
16. The trial court violated due process by failing to inform the jury that the indictment is not evidence when the indictment was read.
17. The trial court erred by giving the jury instructions that relieved the State of its burden of proof, in violation of due process.
18. The trial court erred by refusing to give the defense's requested instruction in accordance with LSA–R.S. 14:20(D).
19. The trial court erred by giving jury instructions that contained a Cage due process violation.
20. The trial court erroneously instructed the jury that it could not nullify its verdict.
[5 Cir. 6] 21. The trial court erred by giving robbery instructions that lacked the element of criminal intent.
22. The trial court erred by refusing to include negligent homicide as a responsive verdict.
23. The trial court erred by refusing to instruct the jury on accident.
24. The trial court erred by refusing to require a unanimous verdict as to the elements in dispute.
25. Mr. Seals was denied his right to a fair trial in the parish in which the offense occurred.
26. The trial court erred in allowing the State to introduce evidence seized in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments and Article I, Section 5 of the Louisiana Constitution.
27. The trial court violated Mr. Seals' rights under the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments in allowing the State to introduce two statements of Mr. Seals that were the fruit of an unlawful search and seizure.
28. Discrimination in the selection of the grand jury foreperson violated the Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and requires reversal.
29. The trial court erred by allowing the State to expand the indictment and narrow its burden of proof at trial, in violation of due process and La.C.Cr.P. art. 464.
30. The cumulative effect of the errors requires reversal.
The facts from defendant's first trial as presented by the Louisiana Supreme Court in its previous opinion are very similar to the facts developed in the record of this case. Therefore, the factual summary from that previous opinion is set forth below, with notations of minor differences and additions in testimony:
Minutes before 11:00 p.m. on the evening of July 26, 1991, Coca–Cola employee Kevin Belile was driving home after his day's work.3 As he proceeded homeward, he spotted what appeared to be a shirtless man with blood on his chest lying on the ground on the roadside near the Clearview exit off the Earhart Expressway. Hoping [5 Cir. 7] to find law enforcement officers to alert, Belile proceeded to the Shoney's on Clearview Parkway near Elmwood, where he had often noticed Louisiana State Troopers congregated. When he saw there were no police units in Shoney's lot, Belile proceeded to the Shell Station adjacent to Shoney's and used the pay phone to call 911.
After giving the 911 operator his name and reporting what he had seen, Belile returned to the scene to render assistance. When Belile cautiously approached the recumbent form he had seen he queried, “Are you all right?” The man lying on the roadside rolled over, beseeching help and saying, “I'm dying.” Belile entreated the injured man to calm down and assured him that he had called the police and summoned an ambulance. When the victim asked for something to put his head on, Belile seized a torn brown paper bag full of documents which he saw nearby, which appeared to him to include a cab driver's trip records, 4 and pulled it over to support the injured man's head.
Because he promptly asked the victim's name and received a response, Belile learned the injured man was Ray Feeney. Receiving an affirmative answer when he asked Feeney if he had been shot, Belile learned from further responses to additional questions that Feeney was a cab driver for Metry Cab Service. Belile asked Feeney if he had been robbed and Feeney gave an affirmative answer. Belile then asked Feeney if his assailant was a black man or a white man and the victim responded, “Black.” Belile did not receive a response when he asked Feeney if the assailant mentioned a name, but when he asked Feeney what his assailant looked like and what age and height he appeared to be, Feeney reportedly gave a response stating his assailant was in his thirties and said the man was “five-feet-something.” Belile asked about the assailant's hair style, prompting a response by querying, “Did he have a big Afro or short hair, short and tight?” Feeney responded, “Short.” When Belile asked if the perpetrator had a mustache or any facial hair, Feeney said, [5 Cir. 8] “Mustache.” Queried about what his assailant wore, and urged to say whether he had on a certain color shirt or pants, Feeney responded, “Red hat.” Although Belile again questioned Feeney about the color of the assailant's...
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