Opinion ID: 1747099
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 13

Heading: admissibility of state's evidence at the penalty phase

Text: Defendant argues in assignments of error 23, 24 and 27 that the trial court should have excluded all of the evidence the state presented at the penalty phase. Specifically, defendant asserts (1) that the state improperly introduced evidence of original charges when the defendant was convicted of a lesser charge; (2) that inadmissible hearsay alone supported attribution to defendant of another unadjudicated offense; (3) that the state improperly introduced evidence of what defendant claims was a non-felony conviction; and (4) that he received insufficient and untimely notice of the state's intention to use prior crimes evidence. Defendant's first claim involves a conviction of aggravated assault by the Superior Court of Pinal County, Arizona in 1974. Arizona authorities originally charged defendant with two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, a more serious charge, but defendant ultimately plead guilty to the reduced charge of aggravated assault. Defendant shows that the state improperly presented evidence of the original charges despite defendant only being convicted of the lesser charge. Defendant argues that the presentation of evidence of the original charge is a violation of State v. Jackson, 608 So.2d 949 (La.1992), [15] which specifically prohibit[s] evidence of the original charge when the conviction is for a lesser offense. 608 So.2d at 954. Defendant points to two documents to illustrate his pointan indictment for assault with a deadly weapon and a police release questionnaire showing a charge of assault with intent to commit murder. Both of these documents relate to a prosecution which resulted in a conviction on the lesser charge of aggravated assault. We find that defendant's first claim has merit. Secondly, defendant points to certain hearsay testimony which he claims demonstrated that he owned a number of assault rifles, thereby making him guilty of the unadjudicated crime of being a felon in possession of a firearm. At trial, the state elicited testimony from a police officer who described a declarant attributing ownership of the firearms to defendant. There was no other testimony that linked the guns to defendant. Under State v. Brooks, 541 So.2d 801 (La.1989), evidence of unadjudicated crimes at the sentencing phase of the trial will be admissible once a trial court determines... the proffered evidence is ... competent and reliable. The testimony of the police officer qualifies as hearsay under LSA-La.C.E. 801(C), and thus does not qualify as competent and reliable, [16] and was therefore not properly admissible against defendant. Defendant's second claim thus also has merit. In defendant's third claim, he argues that the state improperly introduced evidence of a prior conviction of aggravated assault in its case in chief at the penalty phase. Defendant claims that this was a non-felony conviction and thus the introduction of this evidence violates the rule of Jackson which limits the convictions on which the prosecutor may introduce evidence during the case-in-chief to crimes classified as felonies. 608 So.2d at 934. Though defendant cites Jackson correctly, he neglects to point out that under Arizona law, the offense to which he pled guilty, aggravated assault, did constitute a felony at the time of the offense. Az. R.S. § 13-245; Az. R.S. § 13-103. However, the crime to which he pled guilty does not constitute a crime at all in Louisiana. Then Az. R.S. § 13-241(A) defined assault as an unlawful attempt, coupled with a present ability, to commit a violent injury on the person of another. Thus, defendant pled guilty, in effect, to attempted aggravated battery, a crime not specifically designated as a crime in Louisiana. State v. Mayeux, 498 So.2d 701, 703 (La.1986). The fact that the crime constituted a felony in Arizona and does not constitute a crime at all in Louisiana raises the question left unanswered in Jackson, namely, which jurisdiction's law shall define what constitutes a felony for purposes of the Jackson limitations in a case such as this. Although the court has not spoken directly to this question, Louisiana law does contain at least one analogous provision which sets out the criteria by which the courts of this state evaluate criminal defendants' previous convictions from other jurisdictions. The legislature has, in LSA-R.S. 15:529.1(A), set out the rule whereby only other jurisdiction crimes which, if committed in this state, would be a felony qualify as prior felony offenses for enhancement purposes. This court has recently interpreted that law and found that when the other jurisdiction offense for which defendant was convicted did not necessarily include conduct criminal under Louisiana law, that conviction could not lead to an enhanced penalty. State v. Michalowski, 94-1479 (La. 9/23/94), 642 So.2d 1305. In addition, as a general matter, the well-established principle that in the absence of clear legislative (or judicial) intent, criminal statutes (or criminal jurisprudence) are to be construed in favor of the defendant, with lenity towards him, see, e.g., State ex rel. Mims v. Butler, 601 So.2d 649 (La.1992), would reinforce the view that under the Jackson rule, courts could admit only crimes which would constitute felonies in this state. [17] Therefore, we find that defendant's third claim also has merit. As to defendant's fourth contention of lack of notice, it clearly fails under the pre- Jackson rule of State v. Ward, 483 So.2d 578 (La.1986). There, this court found that a State response to a defense discovery request revealing that the State would rely on defendant's prior criminal record, without more, constituted sufficient notice of the state's intention to introduce prior crime evidence at the penalty phase. The court went on to point out that: ... the notice required in the penalty phase is not as detailed as that required by LSA-C.Cr.P. 720 in the guilt phase and State v. Prieur, 277 So.2d 126 (La.1973), because in the penalty phase there has already been a determination of guilt lessening the chance that the defendant will be tried for crimes other than those charged. 483 So.2d at 588. The same analysis would apply in the instant case because informing defendant of the state's knowledge that he had a significant prior history of violent activity similarly makes it logical to conclude the defendant was not surprised by the introduction of the evidence of the violent criminal behavior. Ward, 483 So.2d at 587. See also State v. Rault, 445 So.2d 1203 (La.1984), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 873, 105 S.Ct. 225, 83 L.Ed.2d 154 (1986) (trial court correctly allowed admission at penalty phase of evidence of defendant's other criminal activity, even when defense counsel claimed to have received no notice, when testimony of defense witness made it clear that the defense knew of the criminal activity, and defense did not articulate how notice would have changed its strategy). This fourth claim also fails even under Jackson, which requires [a]dequate notice, sufficiently detailed to allow the defendant to know the exact unrelated conduct he must be prepared to meet in the sentencing hearing, 608 So.2d at 957, because the defense had taken open file discovery. The file presumably contained documentation reflecting the other crimes, so the defense cannot complain of surprise or lack of specificity. Defendant's claims of lack of sufficient or timely notice lack merit. As stated, three of defendant's claims about the admission of evidence of unrelated criminal conduct at the penalty phase do have merit. This court can discount the errors only if it finds that the errors were harmless, that is, if it finds that the capital sentence actually rendered in this trial was surely unattributable to the error. State v. Code, 627 So.2d 1373 (La. 1993), quoting Sullivan v. Louisiana, ___ U.S. ___, ___, 113 S.Ct. 2078, 2081, 124 L.Ed.2d 182 (1993). It cannot be said that the death penalty in this case was surely unattributable to the improper admission of evidence at the penalty phase.