Court Opinion

ID: 9673206
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:08:16.992267+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:20.709557
License: Public Domain

HAWTHORNE, Justice
(dissenting).
I do not agree with the holding of the majority that the trial judge erred - in charging the jury on the law of conspiracy. In fact, I think he was required to do so.
We are here dealing with a bill of information against three defendants, Skinner, Gueldner, and Charbonnet, for possession and sale of a narcotic drug (marihuana). It is well settled under the jurisprudence of this court that where an indictment charges that the crime was committed by two or more persons, such an indictment necessarily involves a conspiracy. State v. Ford, 37 La.Ann. 443, 459 (six defendants charged with murder) ; State v. Gebbia, 121 La. 1083, 1104, 47 So. 32 (two defendants charged with murder) ; State v. Dundas, 168 La. 95, 104, 121 So. 586 (two defendants charged with stealing cattle) ; State v. Gunter, 180 La. 145, 151, 156 So. 203 (two defendants charged with murder); see also State v. Brasseaux, 163 La. 686, 112 So. 650. To say that an indictment charging two or more persons with a crime involves a conspiracy does not mean that the jury may return a verdict of guilty of conspiring to commit the crime charged. What this means is that evidence of a conspiracy may be admitted without a formal allegation of conspiracy. State v. Ford, supra.
In the instant case the State offered evidence seeking to prove a conspiracy, as was entirely proper under the authorities cited above. The trial judge tells us in one of his per curiams: “The State had already established that the three defendants on trial had conspired together to sell marijuana to Officer Fullington on May 21, 1965 [the date the offense was charged as having been committed].”
In charging the jury on the law of conspiracy in the present case the trial judge was following a mandate of our law, and had he failed so to charge, the defendants in this case would have had legal cause for complaint. That mandate reads: “The judge shall charge the jury on the law applicable to the case and shall charge the jury that it is their duty to accept and to apply the law as laid down for them by the judge.” Former R.S. 15:385; C.Cr.P. Art. 802. This court has held that under *326this mandate “the judge is required to cover every phase of the case supported by evidence whether or not accepted hy him as true. Moreover, although a judge in a criminal case is not required to charge on an issue not presented on the evidence, he should give such instructions as are pertinent to the evidence”. (Italics ours.) State v. Youngblood, 235 La. 1087, 106 So. 2d 689; State v. Tucker, 38 La.Ann. 536; State v. Short, 120 La. 187, 45 So. 98; State v. Robichaux, 165 La. 497, 115 So. 728.
In State v. Capaci, 179 La. 462, 154 So. 419, two persons were indicted for murder. They were tried separately, and each was found guilty of murder. On the appeal of the defendant Capaci this court said: “The complaint that defendant was prejudiced because the court reiterated in the charge the phases of the law dealing with conspiracy is, in our opinion, frivolous. It was the duty of the court to charge the jury fully as to the law of conspiracy in this case, as the defendant is jointly charged with his codefendant for murder, and the indictment necessarily involves conspiracy. * * * ” (Italics ours.) In support of this holding the court cited State v. Ford and State v. Gebbia, both of which I have cited above.
In State v. Terrell, 175 La. 758, 144 So. 488, three defendants, indicted for murder, were found guilty and sentenced to death. In that case, as in this one, the objection was made that it was error for the judge to give instructions on the law of conspiracy since the defendants were charged with murder and not with conspiracy. The holding of this court was that the indictment which charged the several defendants with the crime of murder involved also a conspiracy, that evidence of conspiracy was properly introduced and that it was proper for the judge to give instructions on the law of conspiracy.1
Not only is it the law of this state that the trial judge shall instruct the jury on the law applicable to the evidence adduced, but it is the law which prevails throughout the United States. Corpus Juris Secundum states the applicable rule as follows:
“ * * * As a general rule, the court should instruct on every essential question in the case so as properly to advise the jury of the issues * * *.
* * # * * *
“Ordinarily, the court should instruct the jury on every principle of law applicable, and submit every question or issue suggested by the evidence, whether offered by the prosecution or by accused, or by both; and it is immaterial whether the jury would accept the evidence as true or in what light it was regarded by the trial *328judge. * * * ” 23A C.J.S. Criminal Law § 1190, pp. 474-476.
Specifically, where there is evidence of a conspiracy (as there was here), Corpus Juris Secundum gives the rule thus: “Where there is evidence relating to conspiracy in committing the offense, an instruction as to such law is proper * * Óp.cit. supra, sec. 1287, at p. 692. As authority for this statement cases are cited from Alabama, California, Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, and Texas; and so far as I can ascertain, there is no case to the contrary.
R.S. 15 :455 provides:
“Each coconspirator is deemed to assent to or to commend whatever is said or done in furtherance of the common enterprise, and it is therefore of no moment that such act was done or such declaration was made out of the presence of the conspirator sought to be bound thereby, or whether the conspirator doing such act or making such declaration be or be not on trial with his codefendant. But to have this effect a prima face case of conspiracy must have been established.”
Ultimately the question of whether a conspiracy has been established is a question of fact for the jury, but the jury must be instructed on the law of conspiracy so that this law may be properly applied once the jury has made a determination on the question of fact: Thus, if'the'jury finds' that a conspiracy existed and that the defendant or defendants on trial were engaged in it, the jury is free to give such weight as it thinks proper to the evidence of acts and declarations of the codefendants out of the presence of one another in furtherance of the common enterprise. If, on the other hand, the jury finds that a conspiracy has not been established, such evidence should not be considered to the prejudice of the accused. State v. Gebbia, supra. It can thus be readily seen how the failure of the judge to charge the law of conspiracy may prove prejudicial, for the jury must be instructed that unless a conspiracy has been established, the acts- and declarations of one defendant do not bind the other defendants. State v. Bolden, 109 La. 484, 33 So. 571; State v. Gebbia, supra; State v. Lebleu, 137 La. 1007, 69 So. 808; State v. Brasseaux, supra.
There can be no question that when evidence is adduced of, for instance, flight of the defendant or alibi or self-defense or intoxication, it would be the duty of the trial judge to charge the law applicable to flight or alibi or self-defense or intoxication, and it would be error for him not to do so. I do not understand why the majority opinion here puts conspiracy in a different' category from these other matters of which the judge is required to charge the law if evidence of them is adduced. Under former R.S. 15 :385, and under Article 802 of the present Code of Criminal Procedure, *330the judge is required to charge the law applicable to the case, yet under the majority holding in this case, even though evidence of conspiracy is adduced and the law of conspiracy is therefore applicable, the judge will commit reversible error if he charges the law of conspiracy. In short, the statutory law requires the judge to charge the law of conspiracy when there is evidence of conspiracy, and the latest expression from this court says he must not.
The defense relies on two cases, State v. Gunter, 208 La. 694, 23 So.2d 305, and State v. Fletcher, 236 La. 40, 106 So.2d 709, both of which were cited with approval in the majority opinion. In each of those cases it was held that the refusal of the trial judge to give a special charge on conspiracy was correct and did not constitute reversible error. In my view the Fletcher case was correctly decided, since the charge was against only the one defendant and thus did not necessarily involve a conspiracy and since there was no evidence of a conspiracy adduced on the trial. The Gunter case stands alone in our jurisprudence, and if it can be deemed authority for the holding of the majority, it is contrary to the established jurisprudence of this court, as shown by the cases cited above, as well as to the jurisprudence of other states, and contrary to the express provisions of our statutory law embodied in former R.S. 15:385 and Article 802 of our present Code of Criminal Procedure. It should therefore be disregarded or, if necessary, overruled.