Case Name: STATE of Louisiana v. Billy Ray JACOBS
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1976-09-13
Citations: 344 So. 2d 659
Docket Number: No. 57629
Parties: STATE of Louisiana v. Billy Ray JACOBS.
Judges: DIXON, J., concurs, but is of the opinion that when it becomes a disputed issue that a witness did or did not identify a picture as a defendant, evidence of what the witness said may become a verbal act and as such admissible.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 344
Pages: 659–665

Head Matter:
STATE of Louisiana v. Billy Ray JACOBS.
No. 57629.
Supreme Court of Louisiana.
Sept. 13, 1976.
Dissenting Opinion April 6, 1977.
Charles S. Smith, Hayes, Harkey, Smith & Cascio, Monroe, for defendant-appellant.
William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Barbara Rutledge, Asst. Atty. Gen., J. Carl Parker-son, Dist. Atty., James A. Norris, Jr., Asst. Dist. Atty., for plaintiff-appellee.

Opinion:
CALOGERO, Justice.
In May of 1975, two men broke into the home of Mary Davis in Monroe, Louisiana, beat Mrs. Davis, an elderly woman, and robbed her of twenty dollars, several items of jewelry, a radio, and a gun. None of the stolen property was ever recovered, but police arrested Charles Overton and Billy Ray Jacobs for committing the aggravated burglary, a violation of La.R.S. 14:60. The state severed the trials of the two defendants, and defendant Jacobs, whose appeal is now before the Court, was found guilty as charged and was sentenced to serve twenty years at hard labor. In his appeal of that conviction and sentence, defendant Jacobs argues that there were five errors made at his trial which require this Court to reverse his conviction and to order him retried for the offense. Because we agree with the defendant that a trial error was committed which demands reversal of his conviction and sentence, we shall discuss only that issue, which he has assigned as error number three.
Assignment of error number three involves the introduction of hearsay evidence. It arose in this manner. Mrs. Davis, the victim of the crime, testified for the state but failed to positively identify defendant Jacobs as one of the men who beat and robbed her, although she did state several times that Jacobs "looked very much like" the perpetrator. She was not asked whether she had ever previously identified the accused, or whether she had ever been asked to identify him at a pre-trial photographic showup. Subsequent to her testimony, the state attempted to introduce evidence that Mrs. Davis had, in fact, chosen Jacobs' picture from a group of five photographs shown to her several weeks after the crime, and had identified Jacobs as one of her attackers. Andrew Milstead, a member of the Monroe Police Department, was asked about the photographs he had shown Mrs. Davis and he replied:
"The defendant's picture at this time was numbered number two (2), and she looked at the picture very carefully at this time. When she got to picture number two (2), she indicated and pointed out—
Mr. Smith: I'm going to object to hearsay, Your Honor.

"Q. And would you describe how she examined them?
A. Yes sir. She looked at the photographs and she examined them, number one, and she moved to the number two picture and she looked at it and examined it, and at this time she pointed out that this was definitely one of the subjects—
Mr. Smith: I'm going to object to hearsay. The detective is expressing his opinion and he is also possibly stating comment she made, now.
The Court: Sustained.

"A. Detective Milstead, did Mrs. Davis point out any particular photograph as being significant?
Q. Yes sir, she pointed out photograph number two, the defendant, as definitely being one of the suspects.
Mr. Smith: I'm going to object again, Your Honor. This 'definitely', that is hearsay.
Mr. Norris: Your Honor, the fact that Mrs. Davis — Mrs. Davis, now I grant it, you can testify to a fact. He saw Mrs. Davis pick a certain ¡photograph, but he can't testify—
The Court: —Sustained."
The jury was removed and the trial judge explained that, while the state was entitled to introduce evidence that Mrs. Davis picked out a particular picture, it was not entitled to editorialize that she "definitely" chose the accused's picture. When the jury was returned to the courtroom, the trial judge, on request of defense attorney, ad monished the jury members to disregard the word "definitely" in the witness' testimony. When asked again to describe what Mrs. Davis did while examining the photographs, Detective Milstead stated:
"[S]he examined [picture number two], she looked at it closely, and she pointed to the picture at this time and stated that this—
Mr. Smith: —I'm going to object.
The Court: Overruled.
A. And stated that this was one of the subjects in picture number two — to us, that this was one of the subjects."
The issues raised by the preceding testimony and rulings are two: first, was it error for the judge to allow the policeman to testify as to the conduct of a third party (Mrs. Davis) in selecting a particular picture; and second, was it error to allow the policeman to testify as to the statement of a third party?
We have recently dealt with the hearsay issue in State v. Ford, 336 So.2d 817 (La.1976), where we held that the testimony of a police officer describing the conduct of a witness who identified a defendant is inadmissible because it is assertive hearsay. In that case the admission of the hearsay evidence was found not to be reversible error because it merely corroborated the witness' own prior direct testimony that he had indeed previously identified defendant as the perpetrator. Under the Ford rationale, the policeman's testimony as to Mrs. Davis' conduct in choosing defendant Jacobs' picture was inadmissible assertive hearsay because the witness was testifying as to the out-of-court communication of a third person and the third person, Mrs. Davis, had not testified that she had made a pre-trial identification of the accused. However, this error was neither briefed nor assigned and was, in fact, specifically waived by defense counsel at trial. The error, therefore, is not before this Court, and we turn to the second type of hearsay admitted at the trial — Detective Milstead's testimony that Mrs. Davis had "stated that this was one of the subjects in picture number two."
Hearsay evidence is an out-of-court statement made by a third party who made the statement while he was not under oath and not subject to cross-examination. McCormick, Law of Evidence 225 at 449 (Hornbook ed. 1954); II Wharton's Criminal Evidence 265, at 3 (13th ed. 1972) [hereinafter Wharton's]; 21 Loy.L.Rev. 279 (1975). The validity of hearsay evidence rests in part on the truthfulness of the third person. Hearsay evidence is excluded from trials because the safeguards which tend to insure that a person speaks truthfully and on the basis of his own knowledge are lacking: the third person was not under oath when he made the statement; there was no opportunity to cross-examine him at the time he made the statement; and the jury cannot observe his demeanor so as to judge his credibility, Wharton's, id. See generally, Edmund M. Morgan, Hearsay Dangers and the Application of the Hearsay Concept, 62 Harv.L.Rev. 177 (1948). Moreover, there is a chance that the witness is consciously or unconsciously misrepresenting what he was told by the third person. Wharton's id. at 6. For these reasons, hearsay evidence is inadmissible in Louisiana criminal trials unless otherwise provided by law. R.S. 15:434.
The evidence at issue in this case is undisputably hearsay. Detective Milstead (the witness) testified that Mrs. Davis (the third party) stated that picture number two was a photograph of her attacker. Mrs. Dávis' statement was not made under oath nor while she was subject to cross-examination. It was presented to the jury to prove the truth of the matter asserted, i. e., that it was the accused who attacked Mrs. Davis. The officer's testimony went far beyond Mrs. Davis' testimony because she did not definitely identify Jacobs at the trial and was not even asked about a pre-trial photographic identification. It was only through the testimony of the police officers that the state attempted to establish that Mrs. Davis had previously identified Jacobs as the man who had beaten her. Detective Milstead's testimony injected new evidence into the trial; it did not merely repeat what had already been established.
We have previously held that when hearsay identification testimony is admitted into evidence, we will not find the error reversible if the witness' testimony repeated the third party identifier's own testimony that he had made a pre-trial identification. State v. Ford, supra; State v. Smith, 285 So.2d 240 (La.1973); State v. Vassel, 285 So.2d 221 (La.1973); State v. Wilkerson, 261 La. 342, 259 So.2d 871 (1972); State v. Maiden, 258 La. 417, 246 So.2d 810 (1971). However, when this Court has reviewed an officer's testimony which related that the accused had been identified as the guilty party by a third person and the officer's testimony was introduced as substantive evidence (not corroboration) of that fact, we have consistently reversed the conviction. State v. Murphy, 309 So.2d 134 (1975) (noted with approval at 36 La.L.Rev. 673 [1976]); State v. Hayden, 243 La. 793, 147 So.2d 392 (1962); State v. Kimble, 214 La. 58, 36 So.2d 637 (1948); State v. Garon, 158 La. 1014, 105 So. 47 (1925); State v. Cole, 145 La. 900, 83 So. 184 (1919). Moreover, we have held that a trial judge's refusal to admit an unsworn out-of-court statement made by a witness who had already testified was correct because that evidence was inadmissible. State v. Hamilton, 302 So.2d 267 (La.1974); see State v. Nero, 319 So.2d 303, 310 (La.1975). Our jurisprudence is consistent with that of the overwhelming number of states which likewise disallows the testimony of a witness who states that a third person has identified the accused as the perpetrator of the crime, especially if there has been no previous testimony about that pre-trial identification. We hold, therefore, that the state may not bolster its case with an inadmissible extrajudicial identification when the identifier has not testified that she made such a pre-trial identification.
It has been suggested that this rule should not be applied in a case such as the present where the identifying witness could have been recalled by the accused for cross-examination about the pre-trial identification procedure. We can find no reason for such an exception. Mrs. Davis was at the trial as a witness for the state. It was the state, not the defendant, which wanted to present evidence to the jury of her previous identification of defendant Jacobs. It was the state which was charged with presenting its evidence through the legally acceptable vehicle, the witness herself, instead of choosing to replace her live testimony with the hearsay testimony of other persons.
Our procedure does allow the state to introduce in transcript form the previous testimony of a witness who is unavailable at trial, because the testimony is inherently trustworthy (it was initially given while the speaker was under oath and subject to cross-examination) and is especially needed. C.Cr.P. art. 295; McCormick, supra at § 231. When the witness who has testified at a preliminary. hearing is unavailable at the trial because of death or other acceptable reason, then an extrajudicial identification which was part of that previous testimony could be admitted into evidence, but when the witness is available, then there is no need to introduce the evidence in the form of hearsay testimony. In that case the element of necessity upon which exceptions to the hearsay rule are usually founded is lacking. Martin A. Dyer, Extrajudicial Identification, 19 Md.L.Rev. 201 (1959). When the witness is available at trial, as Mrs. Davis was at defendant's trial, there was no necessity for having her extrajudicial identification of defendant introduced in hearsay form. The state has chosen to ignore its own available witness who could presumably have related her own extrajudicial identification, and has presented the identification through hearsay testimony. It has therefore chosen to inject into the trial hearsay testimony— with its lack of safeguards and possibility of unreliability — in a situation in which the problem of hearsay need not ever have arisen. Whether the state's action was a purposeful choice or mere neglect to question Mrs. Davis carefully, the state cannot now be heard to ask this Court to fashion a new exception to the hearsay rule which would allow hearsay testimony to be introduced in place of the testimony of its own available witness. The notion that the accused bore the burden of recalling Mrs. Davis so as to either dispute the state's hearsay evidence or to corroborate it assumes that this Court is willing to shift the burden of calling an available witness, to the defendant, so that he must cure the hearsay error by a risky questioning of the witness. We do not recognize such an exception to the hearsay rule.
Moreover, we cannot agree with the state's position that the admission of the hearsay identification in the absence of the identifying witness was harmless error. Mrs. Davis' identification was the crux of the state's case against Billy Jacobs, and she failed to positively identify him in coui't. The ingredient necessary to convince thé jury that defendant Jacobs should have been convicted may well have been the testimony of Detective Milstead as to Mrs. Davis' out-of-court identification of him.
Therefore, for the reasons assigned, we reverse defendant's conviction and sentence, and remand the case to the trial court for re-trial.
DIXON, J., concurs, but is of the opinion that when it becomes a disputed issue that a witness did or did not identify a picture as a defendant, evidence of what the witness said may become a verbal act and as such admissible.
DENNIS, J., dissents and will assign reasons.
. This decision follows a line of cases which includes State v. Smith, 285 So.2d 240 (La.1973), State v. Maiden, 258 La. 417, 246 So.2d 810 (1971), and State v. Garon, 158 La. 1014, 105 So. 47 (1925), but it overrules State v. St. Amand, 274 So.2d 179 (La.1973) which had held to the contrary.
. With its next witness, Officer Deen, the state again attempted to bolster its case with evidence of Mrs. Davis' pretrial identification. On this occasion the witness stated that Mrs. Davis looked at accused's picture, "knew it was the subject that attacked her and said so." That testimony raised the identical legal issue here in dispute, but on this occasion the trial judge correctly ruled, as he should have done in the first instance, that the officer's testimony was inadmissible and should be disregarded by the jury.
. Many states, of course, do not allow even the identifier himself to testify as to a pre-trial identification that he made of the accused. See cases collected at 71 A.L.R.2d 449, § 7 et seq. and 1 Wharton's Criminal Evidence, § 187 at n. 56 (13th ed. 1972).
. Jackson v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 507 S.W.2d 231 (1974); Jones v. State, 17 Md.App. 209, 300 A.2d 424 (1973); People v. Smith, 105 Ill.App.2d 8, 245 N.E.2d 23 (1969); People v. Caramante, 32 A.D.2d 821, 302 N.Y.S.2d 374 (1969); People v. Townsend, 111 Ill.App.2d 316, 250 N.E.2d 169 (1969); People v. Weis, 32 A.D.2d 856, 301 N.Y.S.2d 186 (1969), cert. denied 397 U.S. 1047, 90 S.Ct. 1377, 25 L.Ed.2d 659; State v. Zaragosa, 6 Ariz.App. 80, 430 P.2d 426 (1967); Blankenship v. State, 1 Tenn.Cr.App. 178, 432 S.W.2d 679 (1967); Lyons v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 388 S.W.2d 950 (1965); and other cases collected at 1 Wharton's Criminal Evidence § 187, nn.82, 87 (13th ed. 1972) and 71 A.L.R. 449, § 13 et seq.
.A very few states do allow hearsay evidence concerning identification to be admitted if the identifying witness is available for cross-examination. 71 A.L.R.2d 449, § 14, 16.