Case Name: STATE of Louisiana, Appellee, v. Pamela Ann LIESK, Appellant
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1975-03-31
Citations: 326 So. 2d 871
Docket Number: No. 55586
Parties: STATE of Louisiana, Appellee, v. Pamela Ann LIESK, Appellant.
Judges: DIXON and CALOGERO, JJ., dissent.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 326
Pages: 871–877

Head Matter:
STATE of Louisiana, Appellee, v. Pamela Ann LIESK, Appellant.
No. 55586.
Supreme Court of Louisiana.
March 31, 1975.
On Rehearing Jan. 19, 1976.
Dissenting Opinion Feb. 20, 1976.
Rehearing Denied Feb. 20, 1976.
Robert Glass, New Orleans, for defendant-appellant.
William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Barbara Rutledge, Asst. Atty. Gen., Harry F. Connick, Dist. Atty., Louise Korns, Asst. Dist. Atty., for plaintiff-appellee.

Opinion:
TATE, Justice.
The defendant, Mrs. Pamela Liesk, was convicted of attempted armed robbery, La. R.S. 14:27, 14:64, and sentenced to eight years at hard labor. She bases her appeal to this court on four assignments of error.
Assignment No. 1 (Bill of Exceptions No. 1)
After her arrest, the defendant was interrogated by the police. She dictated a statement, which was typed by the interrogating officer. However, after discussing -the matter with her father, she refused to sign it.
She now contends that the proper preparation of her defense was prejudiced by the trial court's erroneous denial of her motions for oyer to obtain access to this written but unsigned statement. This assignment presents a very close issue as to whether prejudicial error was committed.
The defendant is correct in the following contentions:
1. Her motions for oyer should have been granted. The defendant is entitled to pre-trial inspection of her written confessions or statements. State v. Dorsey, 207 La. 928, 22 So.2d 273 (1945). For the same reasons of fairness in affording a defendant a proper opportunity to prepare a defense, the accused is also entitled to pre-trial inspection of electronically recorded statements, State v. Bendo, 281 So.2d 106 (La.1973), and of videotape recordings of a confession, State v. Hall, 253 La. 425, 218 So.2d 320 (1969). The present recordings are admissible in the same manner as is a written confession, for they possess the same accuracy and the same qualities of being "reliable, tangible evidence", State v. Hall, 218 So.2d at 323. For these reasons, the defendant is entitled to pre-trial inspection of a statement of the nature here involved (which, moreover, is admissible in evidence in the same manner as if it had been signed, see State v. Dierlamm, 189 La. 544, 180 So.2d 135 (1938)).
2. By a later ruling, the trial court suppressed the statement on the defendant's motion. This ruling was based on the failure of the interrogating officers to assure effective Miranda warnings before the interrogation. As the transcribed ruling made at the time shows, the trial court rejected the defendant's further contention that his statement was, involuntary by reason of the defendant's mental condition. Thus, as the defendant contends, even though the statement itself was not admissible as part of the state's case, nevertheless, under Harris v. New York, 401 U.S. 222, 91 S.Ct. 643, 28 L.Ed.2d 1 (1971), it might have been used in cross-examination to impeach her credibility.
Relying upon the above (1 and 2) reasons, the defendant contends that the failure to afford her pre-trial inspection of her statement irreparably prejudiced her defense. Because of her mental condition, she herself did not know the contents of the statement. Her sole defense of insanity at the time of the offense might, her counsel argues, have been prejudiced had she taken the stand and her credibility have been injured by use of the statement typed by the police officers but not seen or signed by her. Thus, it is contended, her constitutional right to take the stand was inhibited, Brooks v. Tennessee, 406 U.S. 605, 92 S.Ct. 1891, 32 L.Ed.2d 358 (1972), by this wrongful denial to her of pre-trial inspection of her statement.
However, the defendant's right to take the stand was not, in fact, inhibited by the denial of oyer to her of the statement.
The state had not notified her, prior to trial, of any intent to use the confession or inculpatory statement, as required by La. C.Cr.P. art 768. Had the state attempted to use her typed but unsigned statement without giving such advance notice, even if only by way of impeachment, the trial court was required upon objection to deny such attempt: The failure to give notice to the defendant, as required by law, caused a prejudicial change of the position by defendant ; she took the stand, in reliance upon the state's intent not to use the statement. State v. Jackson, 260 La. 561, 256 So.2d 627 (1972).
The issue is not free from doubt. Despite the probability of reversal upon appeal if the trial court incorrectly permitted use of the unsigned statement by way of impeachment, the defendant may properly have wished to rely upon evidence justifying an acquittal by reason of insanity (instead of subjecting herself to conviction by injection of such statement into the trial issues, if she indeed took the stand). The closeness of the issue once more illustrates the risk the State takes when it resists reasonable requests for pre-trial inspection alleged to be needed by the defense in the preparation of its case.
Nevertheless, on balance, for the reasons stated we are not persuaded that the present record illustrates that actual prejudice was caused the accused's defense under the circumstances here presented. This assignment of error does not, therefore, present under the record before us any reversible error.
Assignment No. 2 (Bill No. 5)
The defendant moved to quash the petit jury venire on the contention that the trial judge had, by asking for volunteers from the veniremen 'present, converted it into a self-selected group. Because of this self-selection, it is alleged, the venire was not a cross-section of the community.
The contention is based on the following circumstances:
La.C.Cr.P. art. 418 provides that the Orleans Parish Jury Commission shall draw indiscriminately not less than 75 veniremen for service during each monthly session of each criminal court section. One hundred twenty-five veniremen were selected for service that month, of whom 120 individuals appeared. The maximum seating capacity of the courtroom is 55.
The trial court initially accepted the 49 veniremen who had volunteered for service that month. It then interviewed the remaining 71 veniremen as to their excuses. The trial court excused immediately any prospective juror with a valid medical excuse or who did not qualify, but it reserved decision as to other preferred excuses until all interviews had been completed.
At the conclusion of the interviews, the court excused those veniremen advancing the most serious reasons (age, work, vacation, illness in the family).
It refused to excuse eight others of those interviewed. The remaining petit jury venire thus comprised these eight plus the initial 49 prospective jurors who had not sought to be excused.
The defendant makes no showing, other than the above, that the trial court excused jurors arbitrarily or so as to deprive her of representation on the venire of any identifiable component of the population. Factually, there is no showing that the ve-nire as finally constituted did not reflect a cross-section of the community as much as did the original venire indiscriminately selected from the randomly chosen general venire.
A petit jury venire shall not be set aside in the absence of fraud or some shown injury to the defendant. La.C.Cr.P. art. 419. The discretion of the trial court under La.C.Cr.P. art. 783 to excuse jurors from service will not be disturbed, in the absence of shown collusive material injury to the defendant. State v. Witherspoon, 292 So.2d 499 (La.1974). We find none here.
Assignment No. 3 (Bill No. 4)
The defendant re-urges her contention that she, a female defendant, was deprived of her constitutional right to jury trial by the effective exclusion of women from the jury venire under the Louisiana law in effect prior to January 1, 1975. The defendant was tried and convicted in 1973.
The United States Supreme Court has indeed held that juries selected under pre-1975 Louisiana law were constitutionally deficient because of the effective exclusion of women from the venires. Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, 95 S.Ct. 692, 42 L.Ed.2d 690 (1975). However, it subsequently held that Taylor was not retroactive and did not apply to "convictions obtained by juries empanelled prior to the date of that decision." Daniel v. Louisiana, 420 U.S. 31, 95 S.Ct. 704, 705, 42 L.Ed.2d 790 (1974). Subsequently, despite the theoretic difference in contention when urged by a female defendant (as contrasted with the male defendants in Taylor and Daniel), the United States Supreme Court has denied certiorari as to the similar contention raised by a Louisiana female defendant. Devall v. Louisiana, 420 U.S. 903, 95 S.Ct. 820, 42 L.Ed.2d 832 (1974).
The assignment is therefore without reversible merit.
Assignment No. 4 (Bill No. 6)
Prior to final argument, the defendant filed a request for special charges to the jury instructing it as to the mandatory maximum and minimum penalties for the armed robbery charge and as to the effect of a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.
The defendant correctly contends that the trial court had the discretion to so charge the jury. According to the trial judge's per curiam, however, the trial court deliberately exercised its discretion not to do so, since such instructions might confuse the jury and also since it felt, under the facts, the real issue before the jury was the defendant's mental condition at the time of the offense, the offense itself being admitted. The trial judge did, however, permit counsel to argue to the jury the effect of a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity, i. e., that this would commit the accused to a mental institution and not set her free upon the streets.
A majority of this court has held that the trial court is not required to charge the jury as to the sentence-effects of verdicts, State v. Blackwell, 298 So.2d 798 (La.1974), nor as to the consequences of an acquittal on the ground of insanity, State v. Babin, 319 So.2d 367 (La.1975) (decided February 24, 1975).
Nor do we find, under the circumstances, any prejudicial abuse of the discretion of the trial court's failure to so charge, even though it did permit counsel to argue the effect of the insanity acquittal to the jury. Nothing in the instructions to the jury derogated from the argument of counsel based upon the effect of a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity. The trial court's exercise of its discretion to permit this argument was favorable to the accused, and there is no showing that the failure to further instruct the jury as to this issue was prejudicial to the accused.
Accordingly, we do not find reversible merit to this assignment of error.
Decree
For the reasons assigned, we affirm the conviction and sentence.
Affirmed.
DIXON and CALOGERO, JJ., dissent.
. In State v. Hall, the state contended (as it does here) that the recorded statement was not subject to pre-trial inspection under the rule that oral statements are not. In rejecting the analogy and instead analogizing recorded statements as more similar to written statements, the court noted that such an oral statement can only be established by parole evidence. 253 La. 425, 218 So.2d 322. Whatever tlie merits of the reasons for refusing to extend pre-trial discovery to oral statements, see State v. Watson, 301 So.2d 653 (La. 1974), they do not here apply.