State v. Thibodeaux

• Decision Date: 08 September 1999
• Docket Number: No. 98-KA-1673.,98-KA-1673.
• Parties: STATE of Louisiana v. Damon THIBODEAUX.
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

750 So.2d 916

STATE of Louisiana v. Damon THIBODEAUX.

No. 98-KA-1673.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

September 8, 1999.

Rehearing Denied November 19, 1999.

Denise LeBoeuf, New Orleans, for Applicant.

Richard P. Ieyoub, Attorney General, Paul D. Connick, Jr., District Attorney, Terry Michael Boudreaux, Cornelius Edward Regan, New Orleans, for Respondent.

James Oury, Clark Oury, for Damon Thibodeaux, amicus curiae.

TRAYLOR, Justice.¹

On July 25, 1996, a Jefferson Parish grand jury indicted defendant, Damon Thibodeaux, for the first degree murder of Crystal Champagne, in violation of La.Rev. Stat. 14:30. After a trial by jury, the Defendant was found guilty as charged. At the conclusion of the penalty phase the jury, having found one aggravating factor, unanimously sentenced the Defendant to death. The trial judge sentenced Defendant to death in accordance with the jury determination. This matter is on direct appeal to this court. La. Const. art. V, § 5(D). On appeal, Defendant alleges fifty-five assignments of error for the reversal of his conviction and sentence.² Because we find no merit to Defendant's assignments of error, we affirm his sentence and conviction.

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On July 25, 1996, a Jefferson Parish grand jury indicted defendant, Damon Thibodeaux, for the first degree murder of Crystal Champagne, in violation of La.Rev. Stat. 14:30. Defendant appeared for arraignment with counsel and entered a plea of not guilty. After motions and discovery, defendant's trial commenced on September 29, 1997. The jury returned the verdict of guilty of first degree murder on October 3, 1997. At the conclusion of the penalty phase, the jury unanimously returned the sentence of death after finding one aggravating circumstance: that the offender was engaged in the perpetration of an aggravated rape. Defense counsel filed motions for a new trial and for post-verdict judgment of acquittal, which the trial court denied. Defendant now appeals his conviction and death sentence on the basis of fifty-five assignments of error.

FACTS

On Friday, July 19, 1996, the victim, fourteen-year-old Crystal Champagne, left her home at the Tanglewood apartments in Westwego at about 5:15 p.m. to walk a short distance to a nearby supermarket. When she failed to return, her mother, Dawn Champagne, visited the supermarket looking for her and asking if any of the store personnel had seen anyone fitting Crystal's description. Crystal's father, C.J. Champagne, and Defendant were at the apartment when Crystal left. The two men began searching for her around 6:30 or 6:45 p.m. Several friends and neighbors also joined in the search. Dawn reported her daughter missing to Westwego police at approximately 7:30 p.m., and she did not recall that Defendant was still at the apartment at that time. C.J. indicated that Defendant left the apartment when he (C.J.) got on his bike to ride around Tanglewood looking for his daughter.

Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office (JPSO) became involved in the missing person case and learned that the previous night, Thursday, July 18, 1996, Crystal's parents, Dawn and C.J. Champagne, had gone out drinking with Defendant and Stacy Melancon, a friend of Dawn's, while Crystal spent the night at Stacy's house and baby-sat her children. Stacy brought Crystal home on Friday around 2:00 p.m. and paid her $20 for babysitting.

Defendant was related to the Champagnes through his mother's previous marriage to Dawn's brother. Crystal was Defendant's step-cousin. Although Dawn knew Defendant as a little boy, he had lived in Texas for several years and had returned for his sister's wedding. Defendant had recently secured a job with Callie Towing Company, working as an offshore deckhand. He had been hanging around the Champagne home since he got back in from offshore on Thursday, July 18, 1996. That night, Defendant spent the night with the Champagnes, because he had drunk too much to drive home. The following afternoon, Defendant took C.J. to get his check cashed, and then purchased some rollerblades so that he could go rollerblading with Crystal and her 12-year-old sister, Samantha. However, Crystal quit skating early because of the heat. Later at the apartment, Defendant, Samantha, and Crystal drank cold drinks before Crystal left to go to the supermarket.

The search party for Crystal continued through the night and into the following day, Saturday, July 20, 1996. That afternoon around 5:30 or 6:00 p.m., Stacy Melancon went to pick her boyfriend up from work and the two of them stopped at several restaurants and convenience stores on the way home to drop off fliers about the missing Crystal. While they were at the Circle-K in Bridge City, they encountered two women who indicated that they had seen a girl fitting Crystal's description the night before, walking on the levee. Stacy and John went to the area of the levee where the women indicated. John walked on a path through some trees to a grassy area of the batture under the Huey P. Long Bridge and yelled for Stacy. They found Crystal's corpse on a concrete slab. She was naked, with her shirt and bra pulled up to her shoulders, revealing a red wire ligature wrapped around her neck. Her shorts and panties were pulled down around her ankles. Stacy recalled that she had washed the clothes Crystal had on the previous morning before she took her home. Maggots and ants had invaded her body. Stacy went and called the police, who arrived on the scene at 7:47 p.m. Dr. Fraser MacKenzie of the Jefferson Parish coroner's office performed the autopsy on Crystal. He attributed the cause of death to asphyxiation by ligature application. He described indentation injuries to the neck corresponding to the placement of the ligature. In addition, he related secondary injuries including trauma and hemorrhaging to the right eye and right forehead and a skull fracture in the same area. He surmised that this injury was not caused by a fist but something harder like a rock or a bat. The victim was missing an upper right tooth and a lower tooth was chipped. She had blood in the socket, indicating that the tooth had been knocked out in her final struggle. The authorities located the missing tooth beside Crystal's body at the murder scene. She also had an injury to her lip and her tongue was protruding because of the pressure applied to her neck during the strangulation. He also noted contusions to her buttocks which indicated a struggle. During autopsy, the doctor located sixteen dollars in one of Crystal's socks. Finally, Dr. MacKenzie estimated that the victim had been dead approximately twenty-four hours when her body was discovered and that it probably took between five and ten minutes to die.

Dr. Lamar Leek, professor of entomology at Louisiana State University, testified as an expert in the field of forensic entomology. He examined the insect samples taken from Crystal's body. He testified that flies will lay eggs on a carcass within a couple of hours, but will not lay eggs after dark. Therefore, he determined that the eggs were laid before nightfall on July 19, 1996, and calculated the age of the fly larvae (maggots) to be between 24-28 hours old at discovery.

On July 20, 1996, before Crystal's body was found, the authorities continued searching for the missing girl and questioned anyone who had been with her before she disappeared. Lt. Kevin Theriot, commander of the JPSO juvenile crimes unit, interviewed Defendant at the police station at 7:56 p.m. in conjunction with the missing person case. During the officer's advisement of rights, another officer notified him that Crystal's body had been discovered. Accordingly, Lt. Theriot terminated the interview, without obtaining Defendant's signature on the rights form, and the case became a homicide investigation. Sgt. Dennis Thornton, a JPSO homicide detective, became the case officer and prepared a new rights form, which Defendant signed, indicating that he waived his rights. Sgt. Thornton began interviewing Defendant at 8:10 p.m. Defendant was cooperative and gave a statement around 10:20 p.m. in which he denied any knowledge of Crystal's disappearance or death. Defendant eventually gave a full confession admitting that he had picked Crystal up at the supermarket and they rode around in his car for a little while, ending up on the levee under the bridge. Defendant claimed "she wanted me to have sex with her," so they started kissing. He stated that when they started to have sex, Crystal "started hollering `Ouch, it hurts! Take it easy.'" Defendant admitted that, at this point, he actually started getting rougher and just "snapped," hitting her two or three times. He continued having sex with Crystal, who started fighting and kicking him, so he put his hands around her throat. He claimed that as he squeezed her throat, he ejaculated, both inside and outside Crystal. He continued to squeeze her throat for about ten to fifteen minutes and admitted that he looked at her face and she looked scared. He then retrieved a speaker wire from the trunk of his car and "put it around her throat and tied it." Defendant admitted that after killing Crystal, he went back to the apartment and started to help the family search for her.

Two women walking on the levee for exercise observed Defendant after the murder, pacing and acting nervous. They subsequently identified him from a photographic lineup and at trial.

Following Defendant's arrest, the police executed search warrants for Defendant's home and car. The officers seized several items of Defendant's clothing and bath towels. Also seized was a pack of Marlboro cigarettes. Hairs and fibers were vacuumed from Defendant's car and compared with samples taken from the victim. No matches were found by the crime lab which conducted the forensic and trace analysis. In addition, a male rape examination was conducted on Defendant, but no semen was recovered from any of the victim's clothing or from any...