State v. Watson
| Decision Date | 27 February 1984 |
| Docket Number | No. 81-KA-2227,81-KA-2227 |
| Citation | 449 So.2d 1321 |
| Parties | STATE of Louisiana v. Willie WATSON, Jr. |
| Court | Louisiana Supreme Court |
William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Barbara Rutledge, Asst. Atty. Gen., Harry F. Morel, Jr., Dist. Atty., Abbott J. Reeves, Kurt F. Sins, Gregory Champagne, Asst. Dist. Attys., for plaintiff-appellee.
Victor E. Bradley, Jr., Norco, John L. Diasselliss, III, LePlece, for defendant-appellant.
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This is Willie Watson, Jr.'s second appeal from a death sentence for the slaying of Kathy Newman. After the first appeal, his first degree murder conviction was affirmed, the death sentence reversed because of improper jury instructions, and the case remanded for a new sentencing proceeding. State v. Watson, 423 So.2d 1130 (La.,1982). On remand, the state and the defense joined in a change of venue motion and the hearing was transferred to Vermilion Parish. Watson was again sentenced to death in accordance with the new jury's recommendation. In this appeal, Watson relies on fourteen assignments of error, consolidated into nine arguments, for reversal of his death sentence.
On April 5, 1981, Willie Watson abducted Kathy Newman, a third year Tulane medical student, at gunpoint from the parking lot of her apartment complex in the Carrollton section of New Orleans. Defendant forced Ms. Newman to drive to an isolated road in St. Charles Parish where he robbed her and raped her vaginally and anally. Watson then told Kathy Newman to dress herself. As she stood outside her car putting on her clothes, Watson shot her fatally in the back of the head. Defendant subsequently confessed to the killing and stated that he shot her because he was afraid she could identify him.
ASSIGNMENTS OF PROCEDURAL ERROR AFFECTING SENTENCE:
ASSIGNMENT OF ERROR NUMBER ONE
Defendant argues that the trial court erred in granting a state motion in limine to exclude the testimony of Father Lundy or any expert in the field of Christian morality.
At the sentencing hearing in defendant's first trial, Father Lundy, a Roman Catholic priest, qualified as an expert in Christian theology. Citing Biblical sources, he testified that the death penalty is an impermissible punishment under any circumstances. Two other Roman Catholic priests testified in rebuttal that their church is not opposed to the death penalty.
In her written reasons for excluding the expert testimony here, the trial judge stated: "Philosophical and moral considerations are not issues for the jury ... It is irrelevant to the jury's decision whether one person or one group believes that capital punishment should not be in the statutes or should not be an available sentence to any case." (Tr., Vol. 1, p. 30)
Defendant argues that that testimony was admissible because LSA-C.Cr.P. art. 905.5(h) provides that the jury shall consider "[a]ny other relevant mitigating circumstance", and the court has no right to limit the evidence of mitigating circumstance.
Relevancy of proffered evidence depends on whether it tends to prove or disprove a material fact at issue. LSA-R.S. 15:435. A trial court is vested with wide discretion in determining the relevancy of evidence and its ruling will not be disturbed in the absence of an abuse of discretion. State v. Kimble, 407 So.2d 693 (La.,1981).
LSA-C.Cr.P. art. 905.2 defines material issues at a sentencing hearing. "The sentencing hearing shall focus on the circumstances of the offense and the character and propensities of the offender." To accomplish this, the jury considers evidence of aggravating and mitigating circumstances to determine whether a particular defendant should receive a death sentence for the particular crime committed.
In State v. Unger, 362 So.2d 1095 (La.1978) defendant argued that reversible error occurred when the trial court sustained state challenges to eight prospective jurors because they could not consider returning a verdict of death. Defendant argued that a juror's firm opposition to the death penalty was a relevant mitigating circumstance under LSA-C.Cr.P. art. 905.5(h). Unger held that " 'other relevant mitigating circumstances' are those related to the offender, and not to the moral convictions and sentiments of the juror." 362 So.2d 1095 at 1100. The reasoning of Unger is controlling here. Louisiana's capital punishment scheme is constitutional. An individual's opinion that the death penalty has no place in the criminal justice system is irrelevant to a sentencing jury's deliberations. Mitigating circumstances must be offender-focused.
This assignment lacks merit.
Defendant argues that the trial judge erred in admitting photographs of the victim and allowing them to be viewed by the jury. Further error allegedly occurred when the prosecutor was permitted to wave these photographs before the jury.
State exhibits numbers one, two and three are photographs from different angles of the victim's body as it was found by the police. Exhibit number four is a photo of the victim's hand showing a ring removed from the middle finger. Exhibit number five is a crime scene close-up of the victim's face. Exhibits numbers six and nine are victim photos taken at the morgue. Exhibits eight and nine are close-ups of the bloody entry and exit bullet wounds to her head. All the photographs were admitted in evidence at the guilt phase of Watson's trial.
The core of the defense argument is that this sentencing hearing was heard by a different jury and only evidence relevant to aggravating or mitigating circumstances was admissible. LSA-C.Cr.P. art. 905.2 states that "[t]he jury may consider any evidence offered at the trial on the issue of guilt." Defendant argues that the word "may" means admission is not automatic. He maintains that the probative value of these pictures was outweighed by their prejudicial effect, and, since the defense offered to stipulate to the facts of the crime, they were not necessary for their probative value.
LSA-C.Cr.P. art. 905.2 allows the sentencing jury to "consider any evidence offered at the trial on the issue of guilt." The state may introduce into evidence at the sentencing hearing all the previous testimony, physical evidence, and stipulations that were entered in the case-in-chief at the guilt phase of the proceedings. State v. Jordan, 420 So.2d 420 (La., 1982); State v. Monroe, 397 So.2d 1258 (La., 1981); State v. Kelly, 375 So.2d 1344 (La., 1979). Photographs of the victim are probative of the "circumstances of the offense" which is by law the focus of the sentencing hearing. LSA-C.Cr.P. art. 905.2; State v. Monroe, supra. The governing statutes do not distinguish this situation where two different juries pass on the issues of guilt and penalty.
Under Louisiana Supreme Court Rule XXVIII, mandated by LSA-C.Cr.P. art. 905.1, all capital sentences must be reviewed to determine whether they were influenced by passion, prejudice or other arbitrary factors. The pictures must be tested under this standard.
Post-mortem photographs of a murder victim are admissible to prove corpus delicti, to corroborate other evidence establishing the cause of death, and to provide positive identification. State v. Lindsey, 404 So.2d 466 (La., 1981); State v. Brogdon, 426 So.2d 158 (La., 1983). The admission of gruesome photographs will not be overturned unless it is clear that their prejudicial effect outweighs their probative value. An offered stipulation bears upon this balancing test, but the decision is primarily one for the trial court. State v. Lindsey, supra; State v. Bodley, 394 So.2d 584 (La., 1981). The state cannot be robbed of the moral force of its case merely because the stipulation is offered. State v. Harvey, 358 So.2d 1224 (La., 1978).
The photographs are not unduly prejudicial. None are so gruesome as to "overwhelm reason" to associate the accused with the atrocity without sufficient evidence. State v. Lindsey, 404 So.2d at 476. The record does not establish that the state waved the photographs before the jury to arouse passion or prejudice.
These assignments lack merit.
Defendant contends that the trial court erred in admitting his confession into evidence without a proper foundation.
At the hearing, Sergeant Ronald Doucette testified that he had personally read Watson his Miranda rights, was present when defendant signed a rights of arrestee form, and was the officer who took Watson's statement. After Doucette's testimony, the state offered defendant's confession into evidence and it was admitted. In overruling defendant's objection, the trial court stated that the voluntariness of the confession had already been decided at the guilt phase of the trial.
This assignment is "palpably without merit." State v. Monroe, 397 So.2d 1258 at 1273 (La., 1981). LSA-C.Cr.P. art. 905.2 clearly permits the sentencing jury to "consider any evidence offered at the trial on the issue of guilt." State v. Jordan, 420 So.2d 420 (La., 1982).
Defendant's argument that evidence presented to a different sentencing jury has to be treated without regard to its introduction ab initio lacks merit. LSA-C.Cr.P. arts. 905.1 and 905.2 do not make this distinction.
This assignment lacks merit.
Defendant assigns as error the trial court's failure to give four special jury charges. 1 The charges requested by Watson are as follows:
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