Case Name: STATE of Louisiana v. Roger Daniel BRYAN
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1980-09-03
Citations: 398 So. 2d 1019
Docket Number: No. 64603
Parties: STATE of Louisiana v. Roger Daniel BRYAN.
Judges: MARCUS, J., dissents from remand and assigns reasons.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 398
Pages: 1019–1025

Head Matter:
STATE of Louisiana v. Roger Daniel BRYAN.
No. 64603.
Supreme Court of Louisiana.
Sept. 3, 1980.
On Rehearing May 18, 1981.
Dissenting Opinion on Rehearing May 19, 1981.
William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Barbara Rutledge, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tommy Adkins, Dist. Atty., Dan Grady, III, Asst. Dist. Atty., for plaintiff-appellee.
Bobby Culpepper, Jonesboro, C. Wayne Smith, Ruston, Paul Henry Kidd, Monroe, for defendant-appellant.

Opinion:
PER CURIAM.
On September 21, 1978, the Union Parish Grand Jury indicted defendant Roger Daniel Bryan for the first degree murder of Robert Taylor. La.R.S. 14:30. After a lengthy trial the jury found him guilty as charged, then, in the sentencing phase of the bifurcated proceeding, La.C.Cr.P. Art. 905, recommended a sentence of life imprisonment without benefit of parole, probation or suspension of sentence, which was binding on the trial court. He now appeals on the basis of forty-two assignments of error; of these, we find that only one merits written treatment.
I.
On the evening of September 16, 1978, defendant was to have met with Deputy Sheriff Robert Taylor to post bond on an offense for which he had been indicted. Defendant missed the appointment and Deputy Taylor sought him out at home later that night, in an encounter that ended with the shooting of Taylor. Fatally wounded, the deputy drove a mile down the road and radioed for assistance; before he died, he reported that defendant had shot him, and no more.
What had led up to the shooting was the subject of active controversy at trial. By circumstantial evidence the state attempted to show that defendant had known of his impending arrest and took purposeful measures to resist it, which included barricading himself into his home, and ultimately, killing Deputy Taylor. Defendant and his wife, on the other hand, testified that Taylor had come to the house near midnight while they were asleep, kicked in the back door, dragged defendant from the bedroom by his hair, and beaten him without provocation. The fatal shots, they claimed, had been fired in self-defense.
II.
By assignment of error no. 38, defendant contends that the trial court erred in refusing to hear testimony on alleged newly discovered evidence, relative to the victim's past misconduct, presented in the motion for a new trial.
At trial, defendant indirectly placed Taylor's character at issue by attributing brutality to him in the attempted arrest. On rebuttal the state countered the evidence of abuse by testimony of the Sheriff that Deputy Taylor was a just and temperate man who had never, to the witness' knowledge, mistreated arrestees. In its motion for a new trial, the defense alleged prior threats against defendant, along with several specific instances of police brutality on the part of Taylor or complaints to the Sheriff concerning this deputy. The trial court refused to entertain evidence on these allegations, because it considered them insufficiently material and further concluded that the evidence could have been discovered in advance of trial by the exercise of due diligence. See, La.C.Cr.P. Art. 851(3).
We find that those determinations cannot be made without a close inspection of the evidence offered. Because of the circumstantial nature of the state's case, the verdict must have rested in part upon the jury's incredulity that Taylor would have conducted himself in the manner alleged by the defense. If so, the impact of evidence of Taylor's dangerous character and threats against defendant, see, La.R.S. 15:482, cannot be underestimated. Additionally, if appointed counsel had inadequate resources to conduct a thorough investigation, his failure to uncover the new evidence before trial may be excusable. See, State v. Gilmore, 332 So.2d 789 (La. 1976).
III.
Accordingly, we remand the case for a hearing on the allegations of the motion for a new trial relative to threats and misconduct by Deputy Taylor. We conclude that the remaining allegations of the various motions for a new trial were correctly dismissed and need not be further examined.
Should the court find the allegations material and their late presentation excusable, it shall order a new trial. The right to appeal from an adverse ruling is reserved to defendant; barring such appeal, the conviction and sentence are affirmed. See, State v. Franklin, 353 So.2d 1315 (La. 1978).
REMANDED.
MARCUS, J., dissents from remand and assigns reasons.
BLANCHE and WATSON, JJ., dissent from remand.