State v. Andrews

61 So. 3d 121, 2010 La.App. 4 Cir. 1020, 2011 La. App. LEXIS 230, 2011 WL 543269
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedFebruary 16, 2011
DocketNo. 2010-KA-1020
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 61 So. 3d 121 (State v. Andrews) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Andrews, 61 So. 3d 121, 2010 La.App. 4 Cir. 1020, 2011 La. App. LEXIS 230, 2011 WL 543269 (La. Ct. App. 2011).

Opinion

MAX N. TOBIAS, JR., Judge.

hThe defendant, Charles Andrews (“Andrews”), was charged by bill of information with the attempted first degree murder of Scott Sosely (“Sosely”), in violation of La. R.S. 14:27 and 14:30. Andrews pleaded not guilty at his 17 April 2009 arraignment. The trial court denied his motion to suppress the identification. Andrews was found guilty as charged by a twelve-person jury on 18 March 2010. He filed a motion for post-verdict judgment of acquittal on 6 April 2010. On that same date he filed a motion for, and was granted, an appeal. On 14 May 2010, the defendant was sentenced to fifty years at hard labor, without benefit of probation, parole, or suspension of sentence. On 20 October 2010, the trial court denied the defendant’s motion for post-verdict judgment of acquittal.

FACTS

Andrews was charged with, tried for, and convicted of the 7 January 2009 attempted first degree murder of Sosely.

Cindy Woods, New Orleans Police Department (“NOPD”) custodian of records for the communications division, identified State Exhibit S-l, an incident recall, No. A08161-09, pertaining to an armed robbery reported from 3900 Hamilton Street in New Orleans at approximately 8:52 p.m. on 7 January 2009. [ 2Ms. Woods also identified an audiotape of a 911 call associated with that incident recall.

NOPD Detective Christopher Harris testified that he responded to an aggravated battery call in the 3900 block of Hamilton Street on 7 January 2009. The victim, later identified as Sosely, was lying at the corner of Hamilton and Dixon Streets, in front of 3901 Hamilton Street. He had sustained two gunshots wounds to his chest and one to his hip. The victim’s Chevrolet Blazer was parked in the 3900 block of Hamilton Street. Sosely had driven it there. Detective Harris identified photographs of the scene and items of evidence collected at the scene, including two .45 auto spent cartridge casings found in the victim’s vehicle and a spent bullet found in the street nearby. He did not speak with Sosely until 11 January 2009, when he visited him in the hospital, for the victim had been in critical condition until that time. Detective Harris’s investigation led him to identify Andrews as a suspect. [123]*123He presented the victim with a photographic lineup on 5 February 2009; Sosely immediately identified the defendant.

Detective Harris admitted on cross examination that there was no physical evidence linking Andrews to the shooting of the victim. He confirmed that during the course of his investigation he learned the alleged perpetrator’s nickname, “Big D.” He also confirmed that he ran the nickname through the NOPD’s “MOTIONS” computer system, but “Big D” did not come up as a nickname for Andrews. He also confirmed that none of the persons for whom “Big D” did come up as a nickname matched the approximate age description of the perpetrator provided by the victim. The detective acknowledged that the victim admitted to him that he was a drug user. He believed the victim was on pain medication at the time he presented the victim with the photographic lineup. No other witness, save RSosely, identified Andrews as the perpetrator. Asked if there was any blood found inside the victim’s Chevrolet Blazer, Detective Harris said he believed there were two bits of flesh on the lower driver’s side panel. There were no bullet holes in the Blazer, and no spent bullets/pellets on the driver’s side.

Detective Harris stated on redirect examination that one of the crime scene photos depicted a pool of blood at the intersection of Hamilton and Dixon Streets, with a trail of blood droplets leading from the Blazer to that location. No weapon was recovered at the scene or on the victim.

The victim, Sosely, confirmed that he had been convicted in 1985 of attempted robbery, in 1998 for attempted possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and in 2005 for theft. He was not employed because he was disabled as a result of this shooting. On the day of the shooting he purchased a vehicle with insurance proceeds from an accident. With those funds he also paid a few bills and contacted Andrews to pay off a $60 debt for marijuana that he had purchased from him. He had been introduced to Andrews by someone and had not known the defendant’s name. He had been to Andrews’s Marre-ro, Louisiana residence three or four times. When he wanted to contact Andrews he would call him on his cell phone.

On the night of the incident, Andrews asked him, Sosely, for a ride to the east-bank. The victim paid Andrews what he owed him for the marijuana. They followed another car to the eastbank of New Orleans. Both vehicles stopped. Andrews got out of the victim’s car and got into the other vehicle. Andrews exited the other vehicle and returned to the victim’s car wearing his hoodie over his head. The other car drove off. The defendant entered the victim’s car through the passenger side and ordered the victim to give him the rest of the money in the Rvictim’s possession. The victim bolted out the driver’s side door. Andrews shot him twice as he was fleeing. The victim identified photos of the crime scene, including one of the inside of the Chevrolet Blazer’s driver’s side door, which had what the victim described as “part of my arm” on it. Andrews first shot the victim in the left scapula, with the bullet exiting his throat right below his collar bone. He said his lungs collapsed and he could not breathe; that was why he collapsed in the street. Sosely said that after he collapsed Andrews stood over him with the gun again asking where the rest of his money was. Sosely told him that it was in his left pocket. At that point Andrews fired a shot into the victim’s left hip, and then reached into the victim’s pocket, grabbed the money — approximately $600 to $800 of the victim’s insurance proceeds — and ran. Sosely said he believed the police found [124]*124the bullet that fractured his hip and exited his left buttock.

Sosely said tubes were placed into his chest in the hospital because of his collapsed lungs. One was in for three days, the other for seven and that he was in University Hospital for seven days following his shooting. He had had numerous surgeries. He has a brachial plexus nexus nerve injury in his right arm from being shot, resulting in paralysis and “RSD.” He identified Andrews in court as the person who shot him. He acknowledged that he identified the defendant in the photographic lineup presented to him by Detective Harris.

Sosely confirmed on cross examination, as he had testified on direct examination, that he no longer resided in Louisiana. He admitted that the District Attorney’s Office had purchased an airline ticket for him to come to testify, paid for a hotel room for him to stay in, and paid for food he ate at the hotel restaurant.

ERRORS PATENT

|SA review of the record reveals one patent error. The trial court did not dispose of defendant’s timely-filed motion for post-verdict judgment of acquittal prior to sentencing, as required by La.C.Cr.P. art. 821(A).1 The trial court did not rule on the motion until after the 14 May 2010 sentencing, denying it on 20 October 2010.

In State v. Anderson, 99-1407 (La.App. 4 Cir. 1/26/00), 753 So.2d 321, this court noted as an error patent that the trial court had failed to rule on the defendant’s timely-filed motions for new trial, post-verdict judgment of acquittal, and in arrest of judgment until after sentencing. This court held that the error required that the sentence be vacated and the matter remanded for resentencing.

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Related

Andrews v. McCain
E.D. Louisiana, 2019
State v. Cavalier
171 So. 3d 1117 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 2015)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
61 So. 3d 121, 2010 La.App. 4 Cir. 1020, 2011 La. App. LEXIS 230, 2011 WL 543269, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-andrews-lactapp-2011.