Opinion ID: 1691189
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Applicable Legal Precepts

Text: The instant case presents the situation wherein the state seeks to introduce into evidence at the penalty phase the defendant's confession, the only evidence as to unrelated and unadjudicated criminal conduct. At a pre-trial hearing on various motions, the state informed the district court that it had filed notice with defense counsel of its intention to introduce at the penalty phase evidence of the alleged Houston murder. Defense counsel responded that he would not object to such evidence until the penalty phase, because he did not expect the trial to reach that phase. Accordingly, the district court did not then rule on the matter. However, before the penalty phase commenced, defense counsel did object, claiming that the portion of defendant's statement in which he implicated himself in the Houston murder did not prove his culpability for the offense by clear and convincing evidence. The district court denied the motion. Though the court was reluctant to admit [the confession] since it was not a conviction, it felt constrained by this Court's ruling in State v. Marcus Hamilton, 92-1919 (La.9/5/96), 681 So.2d 1217. In Hamilton, this Court held the defendant's confession to an unadjudicated murder admissible in the penalty phase. Following the jury's verdict of guilty of the first degree murder of Father McCarthy, the state sought to introduce in the penalty phase the defendant's confession to the unrelated and unadjudicated murder of William Chattman. At a hearing outside the presence of the jury, the detective who had interviewed the defendant while he was under arrest for McCarthy's murder testified that defendant waived his rights and agreed to talk about Chattman's murder, to which he ultimately confessed. The detective testified that there had been no force, promises, threats, or inducements. The trial court ruled the confession admissible, finding that the confession was competent and reliable and that the evidence was clear and convincing as to defendant's guilt of the unrelated murder. On appeal, this court found no merit to the defendant's claim that he was incompetent at the time he gave the confession. The Court also found no merit to the defendant's claim that the jury's focus in the penalty phase was impermissibly shifted by the extent of the state's evidence, which consisted of the testimony of the detective who had taken the confession and the confession itself. [2] This court affirmed the sentence. In the case before us, the state urged the district court, as it now urges this court, to follow Hamilton, which does support the general proposition that a confession to an unadjudicated crime may be admitted in evidence in the penalty phase. The Hamilton court, however, was not called upon to make a specific finding that the evidence of the defendant's involvement in the unadjudicated crime, consisting solely of the defendant's confession, was otherwise reliable and sufficient to prove by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant had committed the unadjudicated murder. There was little doubt that the confession was reliable or that the evidence was clear and convincing, because, in his closing argument in the penalty phase, Hamilton's counsel conceded that his client had committed the unadjudicated murder of Chattman. Hamilton, 92-1919, p. 5, 681 So.2d at 1222. Counsel then pointed out for the jurors' consideration as a mitigating circumstance the fact that the trial judge had declared Hamilton to be incompetent to proceed to trial for Chattman's murder. Id. Thus, Hamilton did not reach the issue presented in the instant case. Defendant correctly argues that our decisions in Connolly, supra, and State v. Brooks (Brooks II), 92-3331 (La.1/17/95), 648 So.2d 366, which the district court did not address, control the issues raised here: whether the evidence introduced by the state in the penalty phase was competent and reliable and whether this evidence was sufficient to prove by clear and convincing evidence that defendant committed the unadjudicated Houston murder. Defendant contends that the portion of his statement concerning the Houston incident, without extrinsic evidence that he had committed the crime or that a murder had even occurred, was unreliable and untrustworthy and, therefore, should not have been admitted in evidence at the penalty phase. [3] Defendant thus maintains that the district court erred in admitting an insufficiently substantiated statement of unadjudicated criminal conduct that the state offered in order to demonstrate his deficient character and dangerous propensities. In Brooks II, the state introduced in the penalty phase the defendant's confession as the sole evidence of various unadjudicated crimes. We acknowledged that, under the corpus delicti rule, a criminal defendant cannot be convicted based on his own uncorroborated confession without some extrinsic proof that a crime has in fact been committed. 92-3331, p. 19 n. 19, 648 So.2d at 376 n. 19 (citing State v. Martin, 93-0285 (La.10/17/94), 645 So.2d 190; State v. Cruz, 455 So.2d 1351 (La. 1984)). However, as to the admission of other crimes evidence in the penalty phase, we stated: While we are unprepared to say that extrinsic corroboration of unadjudicated other crimes contained in a defendant's confession is a necessary predicate to the admission of that confession in the penalty phase of a capital trial, we do note that such corroboration is a traditional and time-honored method of demonstrating the trustworthiness of such statements. Such guarantees of trustworthiness are particularly necessary in capital cases where the risk of fabrication or inaccuracy must be viewed with an eye towards the question to be determined by the trier of fact. Brooks II, 92-3331, pp. 18-19, 648 So.2d at 376-77 (footnote omitted). The question to be answered, of course, is whether the defendant should be sentenced to death. We next addressed the issue in Connolly, wherein the state also introduced at the penalty phase the defendant's confession to unadjudicated criminal conduct as to which no other evidence was presented. After again acknowledging that an accused may not be convicted of a crime based solely on his own uncorroborated confession without some independent proof that a crime has been committed, we reasoned that, because only the appropriate sentence is at issue in the penalty phase of a first degree murder trial, the corroboration test is not necessary to facilitate introduction of evidence of other crimes in the penalty phase of a capital trial. 96-1680, pp. 14-15, 700 So.2d at 820. Nonetheless, relying on our recognition in Brooks II that a different confession-corroboration test is applied to other crimes evidence introduced at the penalty phase, 96-1680, p. 15 nn. 8, 9, 700 So.2d at 820-21 nn. 8, 9, we held in Connolly that: if the confession is reliable and trustworthy, then it alone may be sufficient to satisfy the clear and convincing evidentiary standard. However, in evaluating the reliability and trustworthiness of a defendant's confession for the admission of it at the penalty phase, one must also consider the circumstances surrounding the confession and the crime to which the defendant confessed. For example, the confession may be unreliable and untrustworthy if it is the product of police coercion or if there is no extrinsic proof that a crime even occurred. 96-1680, p. 15, 700 So.2d at 821 (emphasis in original)(footnote omitted). Under Brooks II and Connolly, therefore, the state, in order to introduce a confession in the penalty phase as the sole evidence of unrelated and unadjudicated criminal conduct, must show the district court that the evidence is competent and reliable by demonstrating the trustworthiness of the statement. Voluntariness is not the sole indicator of reliability and trustworthiness, because the district court must consider not only the circumstances surrounding the confession but also the crime to which the defendant has confessed and whether that crime has even occurred. Connolly, 96-1680, p. 15, 700 So.2d at 821; Brooks II, 92-3331, pp. 18-19, 648 So.2d at 376-77. Brooks II and Connolly thus rightly set the measure for the admission of a confession to unadjudicated other crimes before the jury may consider such evidence in its determination of whether to impose the ultimate penalty of death. See Brooks II, 92-3331, pp. 18-19, 648 So.2d at 376-77.