State ex rel. D.M.

91 So. 3d 296, 2012 WL 2479593, 2012 La. LEXIS 1936
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedJune 29, 2012
DocketNo. 2011-CK-2588
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 91 So. 3d 296 (State ex rel. D.M.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Louisiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State ex rel. D.M., 91 So. 3d 296, 2012 WL 2479593, 2012 La. LEXIS 1936 (La. 2012).

Opinion

PER CURIAM.

_JjThe state filed a delinquency petition in the Juvenile Court for Orleans Parish charging defendant with unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, La.R.S. 14:68.4, and resisting an officer, in violation of La.R.S. 14:108. After a hearing conducted on January 18, 2011, the court adjudicated defendant delinquent on the basis of both charges and placed him with the Office of Juvenile Justice for a total of one year, suspended, with two years’ active probation. On defendant’s appeal of his felony-grade delinquent act of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, a divided panel on the Fourth Circuit reversed the juvenile court’s adjudication and disposition order as to that charge on grounds that “[t]he juvenile-court judge was clearly wrong in adjudicating D.M. a delinquent because the evidence is insufficient to find beyond a reasonable doubt that D.M. knew that the vehicle in which he was a passenger was taken without the consent of its owner.” State in the Interest of D.M., 11-0462, p. 1 (La.App. 4th Cir. 11/2/11), 80 So.3d 18, 19. We granted the state’s application for review of the court of appeal’s decision and reverse for the following reasons.

As detailed in the evidence presented at the delinquency hearing, on October 22, 2010, Officer Blake Terrell received information that a silver Dodge Grand Caravan had been stolen from the 1000 block of Florida Street in Algiers, Louisiana. Terrell was patrolling the Fourth District in an unmarked police car and |ahe began searching for the stolen vehicle. Approximately two hours later, the officer observed the vehicle, occupied by four persons, and radioed for back-up units to assist him as he followed the van. When the marked cars arrived on the scene, Terrell activated his lights and siren but the van sped away and engaged the police in a chase through the Algiers Point area. The chase ended at the levee, where the vehicle stopped and the occupants spilled out and ran up the levee into the nearby woods, two running in [297]*297one direction and two running in the opposite direction. Defendant was among them and Terrell observed that he exited from the rear seat on the driver’s side. The driver, who ran with defendant, had left the van in reverse and the vehicle backed into the police units arriving on the scene. Terrell reached into the van, put the transmission into park as there was no key in the ignition to turn the engine off, and then pursued the fleeing suspects. Within minutes, and with the aid of a K-9 dog, the police had defendant and the driver of the van in custody after a brief confrontation in which the dog bit defendant in the leg. Upon inspecting the van, Terrell observed that while the interior of the vehicle otherwise appeared undamaged, the top covering of the ignition lock cylinder had been pulled off and was simply resting unattached on the steering column. Although it was dark, and “hard to really get a good look at it,” and the officer was reluctant “to mess with the evidence before [the] Crime Lab did,” Terrell testified he sat in the driver’s seat and then went into the back seat to retrieve a weapon. From both vantage points, “you could tell that the vehicle had been tampered with in a way to get it started.” Terrell acknowledged that when he went into the back seat to secure the weapon, he did not actually sit behind the driver’s seat, and, at that time, no one was occupying the seat.

The owner of the vehicle testified at the hearing and confirmed that her vehicle had been taken without her permission. A photograph of the interior she [shad taken through the opened door on the front passenger side, introduced as an exhibit at the hearing, clearly showed the damage to the steering column, which did not amount to more than removal of the top cover of the ignition, exposing the ignition lock cylinder. However, when asked whether a passenger seated behind the driver could have seen the damaged steering column, the victim conceded she had never sat in the back seat and therefore could not venture an opinion one way or the other.

In adjudicating defendant delinquent at the close of the hearing, the juvenile court judge specifically noted that the defense’s own photographic exhibit clearly displayed the keyless, defeated ignition, “indicating that the driver of the car was not actually the owner of the car.” The court further noted that the initial attempt by the police to stop the vehicle had prompted a high-speed chase “which, then, led to the suspects fleeing the car and running from the police at that time.” Given the visible damage to the steering column and the flight of all of the occupants of the vehicle after the pursuit with the police, the court found sufficient evidence to adjudicate defendant delinquent on the basis of his unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.

The majority on the court of appeal panel had no dispute with the juvenile court judge that the photograph taken of the vehicle by its owner clearly established that “the steering-column damage was visible from anywhere in the front seat.” D.M., 11-0462 at 6, 80 So.3d at 21. However, given the testimony of Officer Terrell and the vehicle’s owner that they did not sit in the back seat on either side of the van, the majority observed that there was “no direct or circumstantial evidence that from D.M.’s position in the van he could have observed the only damage to the vehicle or that he could have observed whether the van was being operated without a key in the ignition.” Id., 11-0462 at 7, 80 4So.3d at 22. On the premise that the offense of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle required the state to prove more than defendant’s mere presence in the vehicle to establish that he was a principal in the offense because he knew, or reason[298]*298ably should have known, the vehicle was operated without the owner’s permission, cf. State v. Bias, 400 So.2d 650, 652 (La.1981)(“[W]e construe the present statute proscribing unauthorized use of a movable as requiring a showing of mens rea or criminal intent-”), the majority concluded that the state’s case turned on the question whether defendant’s flight and concealment constituted reliable circumstantial evidence of his “ ‘consciousness of guilt and, therefore, [ ] one of the circumstances from which the [fact finder] may infer guilt.’ ” D.M., 11-0462 at 7, 80 So.3d at 22 (quoting State v. Davies, 350 So.2d 586, 588 (La.1977)); see also State v. Wilkerson, 403 So.2d 652, 659 (La.1981).

To resolve the question, the majority reviewed the evidence under not only the due process, rational fact finder test of Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979), but also under a broader civil standard by which an appellate court may review both the facts and law, specifically, the trial court’s factual findings, for clear or manifest error, “to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to satisfy the standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.” D.M., 11-0462 at 8, 80 So.3d at 22. The source for the latter approach is this Court’s decision in State in Interest of Batiste, 367 So.2d 784, 788 (La.1979) (“Juvenile delinquency proceedings do not fall within the category of criminal prosecutions, as is evident from long established jurisprudence.... Accordingly, since the constitution does not provide otherwise, the scope of review of this Court in juvenile delinquency proceedings extends to both the law and the facts.”) (citations omitted). Both standards are highly deferential to the factual determinations made by the trier of fact. Rosell v. ESCO,

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Bluebook (online)
91 So. 3d 296, 2012 WL 2479593, 2012 La. LEXIS 1936, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-ex-rel-dm-la-2012.