State v. Sneed
| Decision Date | 23 June 1975 |
| Docket Number | No. 55875,55875 |
| Citation | 316 So.2d 372 |
| Parties | STATE of Louisiana, Appellee, v. Charles Wayne SNEED, Appellant. |
| Court | Louisiana Supreme Court |
Bobby L. Culpepper, Holloway, Baker, Culpepper & Brunson, Jonesboro, Nesib Nader, Shreveport, for defendant-appellant.
William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Barbara Rutledge, Asst. Atty. Gen., Leon H. Whitten, Dist. Atty., Robert Y. Butler, Asst. Dist. Atty., for plaintiff-appellee.
The defendant was convicted of murder in the second degree, La.R.S. 14:30.1 (1973), and sentenced to life imprisonment at hard labor. He relies upon 64 bills of exceptions upon his appeal. Only a few of them require discussion, since most concern issues well settled by our jurisprudence or else allege nonprejudicial errors unsupported by authority and plainly without merit.
The context facts are these:
During the nighttime hours of June 12--13, 1974, five young black males robbed Mr. and Mrs. Curtis Jones. Three of them broke into the Jones residence, armed with a rifle. In the course of the robbery, they severely beat the old couple about the head. Mr. Jones died of his injuries.
The defendant, then aged 17, is charged with participating in this crime. He was initially indicated for first degree murder, I.e., a killing of a human being when the offender has a specific intent to inflict great bodily harm and is engaged in the perpetration of an armed robbery. La.R.S. 14:30 (1973). He was convicted of second degree murder, La.R.S. 14:30.1 (1973), a responsive verdict, La.C.Cr.P. art. 814 (1973), subjecting the person convicted to life imprisonment instead of death.
The alleged error which causes us the most concern is that to which Bill of Exceptions 61 is taken. It concerns the introduction into evidence of an inculpatory statement made by the defendant the day following the murder. It was allegedly made to the defendant's college roommate. The defendant claims that he was not given the required pre-trial notice of its intended use, as required by law, so as to enable him to prepare a defense to it.
The Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure of 1966 provides by Article 768:
In alleged compliance with this requirement, on the morning of the trial the state handed to the counsel for the defendant a notice which stated: 'Please take notice that the State of Louisiana in this prosecution intends to introduce inculpatory statements, exculpatory statements, and/or confessions made by the Defendant and you are so advised in writing prior to the beginning of the State's opening statement as required by Article 768, La.C.Cr.P.'
During the trial, the state introduced the accused's confession. Later, as its final witness the state called Ezra Walker, the accused's college roommate.
Walker first testified that, when he went to sleep at 11 p.m. on the night of the murder, the accused was not in the room. The accused woke him momentarily when he returned at 2:30 a.m. Then, over objection by the defendant, Walker testified that, on the following morning, the accused told him that, the night before, he and four others had robbed the Joneses of money and had beaten up Mr. Jones.
The defendant's counsel's objection to introduction of this inculpatory statement was based on the ground that he had not been informed of any oral confession and that he had been not served with any notice of this particular oral statement, as required by La.C.Cr.P. art. 768.
The state contends that the above-quoted general notice of intent to introduce unspecified statements is sufficient compliance with Article 768. The state errs in this contention.
The practice of giving such a general and non-informative notice is follows in some of the judicial districts of this state. We deem it advisable to discuss why such sort of general notice does not comply with the statutory purpose or requirement of Article 768. While (as will be seen) no reversal is required in the present case, we will carefully scrutinize the prejudicial consequences of a failure to identify the particular statements to be introduced in trials to be held subsequent to the clarification of the application of Article 768 by this opinion.
Purpose and intent of statutory notice required by Article 768
Article 768 represents an innovation in the 1966 Code of Criminal Procedure. The official revision commentaries explicitly state the legislative intent in providing this change from the prior law.
The 1928 code of criminal procedure required the opening statement of the prosecutor to explain 'the nature of the charge and the evidence by which he expects to establish the same.' La.R.S. 15:333 (1950). The jurisprudential interpretations of this enactment required the prosecutor to specify the fact and the type of confession or inculpatory statement the prosecutor intended to rely upon. State v. Stahl, 236 La. 362, 107 So.2d 650 (1959); State v. Jones, 230 La. 356, 88 So.2d 655 (1956); Official Revision Comment (b), La.C.Cr.P. art. 769 (1966).
The purpose of this requirement was to force a disclosure of this aspect of the state's case 'in fairness to permit the defendant to adequately present his defense and avoid being taken by surprise.' State v. Jones, cited above, at 88 So.2d 658. See also: State v. Ward, 187 La. 585, 175 So. 69 (1937); State v. Silsby, 176 La. 727, 146 So. 684 (1933); State v. Ducre, 173 La. 438, 137 So. 745 (1931). Thus, if the prosecutor failed to describe the confession or statement in his opening argument, he could not use the statement even in cross-examination of the defendant if the latter took the stand. State v. Ward, cited above ( a conviction on that account).
The jurisprudential strictness in this regard had several undesirable consequences, see Official Revision Comments (b) and (c)(2), Article 769: Even if the failure to announce the confession was inadvertent and not really prejudicial, the conviction was reversed. Again, the announcement of the prosecutor that he was going to introduce a confession or inculpatory statement tended to prejudice the jury against the defendant before a word of evidence was heard. On the other hand, if the confession was described in the opening statement but later not admitted into evidence, a reversal was required, see State v. Cannon, 184 La. 514, 166 So. 485 (1936).
The new approach of the 1966 code was designed to end these undesirable consequences of the former practice. The state was prohibited from adverting in any way in the opening statement to a confession or inculpatory statement by the defendant. Article 766. Instead, it was required to advise the defendant in writing prior to the state's opening statement of an intent to use this type of evidence, with a failure to do so making (as formerly) the confession or statement inadmissible in evidence. Article 768.
The undoubted intent, as in the pre-1966 jurisprudence cited above, was to afford the defendant full notice of the state's intent to prove its case insofar as the intended introduction of confessions or inculpatory statements. As stated in Official Revision Comment (c)(2), Article 769: 'The defendant cannot properly prepare to meet the issue unless he is apprised that the state intends to use The confession.' (Italics ours.) 1
The purpose is not simply to give the defendant notice of a confession or inculpatory statements, but also of the state's intent to use it at the trial. See Official Revision Comment (f), Article 703, and pre-1966 decisions cited; Bennett, 31 La.L.Rev. 374 (1971). The defendant's trial strategy (such as a decision to testify or not) and the preparation of this defense (such as securing witnesses to attempt to prove involuntariness or to explain an involuntary statement) are affected by the state's notice (or not) of its intent to use a given confession or statement. See E.g., State v. Jackson, 260 La. 561, 256 So.2d 627 (1972).
Article 768 itself provides that the state must give notice of its intent 'to introduce A confession or inculpatory statement in evidence.' (Italics ours.) The use of the singular (as well as the functional intent of the article) means that the state must give sufficient notice of Each confession or inculpatory statement it intends to use, with sufficient specificity as to date or occasion and as to persons to whom given as to afford adequate notice sufficient to permit the defendant a fair opportunity to meet the issue.
A general notice, as here, that the state intends to use unspecified confessions or inculpatory statements complies neither with the letter nor the functional intent and purpose of Article 768. Upon well-founded objection that the notice required by Article 768 has not been given, the trial court is required to exclude the inculpatory statement by the mandatory terms of the legislative enactment. Nevertheless, where substantial compliance with the article's purpose has been met through other pre-trial pleadings, as here, the technical deficiency of the notice may not bar introduction of the statement.
Prior applications of Article 768
The jurisprudence interpreting Article 768 recognizes its essential purpose as being to afford notice to the defendant of inculpatory statements or confessions sufficient to enable him to prepare his defense as to the issue. State v. Lacoste, 256 La. 697, 237 So.2d 871 (1970); State v. Rodgers, 251 La. 953, 207 So.2d 755 (1968). An example of the particularized notice contemplated is found in State v. Richey, 258 La. 1094, 249 So.2d 143, 160 (1971), which held notice must be given of the fact of the statement, but not of its content.
Despite this recognition, the failure to give...
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...the jury, La.C.Cr.P. art. 767, with its inherent prejudice to the defendant should the statement later be held inadmissible. State v. Sneed, 316 So.2d 372 (La.1975). The present case was tried prior to the clarification of the nature of the notice required under La.C.Cr.P. art. 768 enunciat......
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