State v. Barbour

35 So. 3d 1142, 2009 La.App. 4 Cir. 1258, 2010 La. App. LEXIS 435, 2010 WL 1136505
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedMarch 24, 2010
Docket2009-KA-1258
StatusPublished
Cited by44 cases

This text of 35 So. 3d 1142 (State v. Barbour) 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. Barbour, 35 So. 3d 1142, 2009 La.App. 4 Cir. 1258, 2010 La. App. LEXIS 435, 2010 WL 1136505 (La. Ct. App. 2010).

Opinions

MAX N. TOBIAS, JR., Judge.

1 ]The defendant, Troy Barbour, was charged by bill of information on 15 June 2006 with attempted second degree murder. He pleaded not guilty at his 14 August 2006 arraignment. The trial court granted Mr. Barbour’s motion to suppress the identification in part, and denied it in part, and subsequently denied his motion to suppress his statement. He was tried by a twelve-person jury on 16-17 June 2008 and found guilty as charged. On 27 June 2008 the state filed a bill of information charging Mr. Barbour as a fourth-felony habitual offender.

On 1 April 2009 the trial court denied defendant’s post-verdict motion to declare La.C.Cr.P. art. 782 A unconstitutional to the extent it allows for a non-unanimous guilty verdict in a non-capital felony cases. On that date the trial court also denied Mr. Barbour’s motion for post-verdict judgment of acquittal and motion for new trial. He waived all legal delays and was sentenced to forty-eight years and six months at hard labor, without benefit of parole, probation, or suspension of sentence and granted his motion for appeal.

FACTS

Mr. Barbour was convicted of the 8 January 2008 attempted second degree murder of Donald Baker (“Baker”).

Baker confirmed at trial that Mr. Barbour shot him several times on the evening of 8 January 2006. He knew Mr. Barbour as Michael Lee. Baker used to do remodeling and construction work. He hired Mr. Barbour after Hurricane Katrina, after someone brought him to his attention. Mr. Barbour was living in a car and was not eating, to-wit, starving. Baker said he [1144]*1144gave Mr. Barbour a place to live and hired him. The defendant eventually found another place to live. On one sheet rocking and paneling job at the residence of Yolanda Jones, Mr. Barbour took a swing at Baker with a hatchet; Baker fired him. Baker subsequently felt sorry for the defendant and rehired him. Mr. Barbour took a swing at Baker again with a hatchet, and Baker told him that was it, and fired him.

Subsequently, Baker was working in Ms. Jones’ residence cutting a wall outlet out of a piece of paneling with a jigsaw when something happened that caused him to think he had cut himself. He moved the piece of paneling to inspect where he had cut himself. He did not realize he had been shot until he stood up and looked to see Mr. Barbour shoot him the second time in the hip. Baker said he flipped off the defendant, and Mr. Barbour shot him a third time, in the armpit, breaking his shoulder blade in seven places. The defendant shot Baker a fourth time, in the left arm, and a fifth and final time, in his shoulder blade. He said Mr. Barbour pulled the trigger again, but the snub-nosed revolver was empty. Baker said the gist of what the defendant was saying to him as he shot him was that he was going to kill him. Baker said he moved to a different room and picked up a razor knife. When Mr. Barbour saw this he grabbed Baker’s cell phone and left, |3telling Baker that he was going to bleed to death. The residence phone apparently had been reconnected, and Baker was able to call 911 for help. Baker told a police officer at the hospital that “Michael Lee” had shot him. On 9 January 2006, Baker was shown a photo of the defendant and confirmed that it was the person who shot him.

Baker confirmed on direct and cross examination that he was aware that while at the hospital his urine tested positive for cocaine. He said he had used cocaine a week and a half to two weeks prior to being shot. He replied in the negative when asked on direct examination whether he had taken or drank anything that would have caused him to not realize what was happening. Baker admitted on cross examination that he previously had been convicted of a crime, destruction of state property, for which he served a sentence of imprisonment. Baker denied on cross examination that he had ever threatened the defendant with a gun. Baker admitted threatening an unknown individual who had broken the windows in the vehicle he was driving. He admitted that after he fired Mr. Barbour he told him that he would mess him up if he ever got in sight of him. Baker said he delayed telling police who shot him until he got to the hospital because he was worried that the defendant might come back and shoot him again.

Robert Shafor, M.D., was a general surgeon on call at Slidell Hospital on 8 January 2006. He treated the Baker’s gunshot wounds. The victim’s wounds were around his shoulders, upper thighs, and the groin. His internal organs and blood vessels were fine, although one wound from a bullet that entered his upper thigh and exited around his scrotum gave him concern because it was fairly close to major blood vessels. Dr. Shafor confirmed that a hospital toxicology test for the presence of narcotics in Baker was positive for cocaine.

14Yolanda Jones-Taylor (“Jones-Taylor”) testified that after Hurricane Katrina she hired Donald Baker to put a new roof on her home and do some sheetrock work. Baker brought in the defendant to help him with the work. Jones-Taylor identified Mr. Barbour in court. She stated she never saw the victim intoxicated, but acknowledged Mr. Barbour called her to complain that the victim was not paying [1145]*1145him. She eventually helped Mr. Barbour get a job sheet rocking with her son the week before the shooting. On the day of the shooting, a Sunday, Jones-Taylor brought the defendant some papers giving him permission to be on the property where her son was working. She picked up Mr. Barbour and dropped him off. Jones-Taylor went home. Baker was there working. The defendant called Jones-Taylor and told her he had forgotten the papers in her car. Jones-Taylor arranged to meet the defendant at a grocery store on Franklin Avenue and Leon C. Simon Boulevard. She left her home and went there, but never found the defendant. When she returned to her home, she found police there. Baker had been shot. She did not see Mr. Barbour after-wards, and did not hear from him until the next day, when he telephoned her to tell her he had shot Baker and that Baker was probably dead.

Jones-Taylor stated on cross examination that she did not tell Baker she was going to meet the defendant on the day of the shooting because she did not want him to know she was going to meet him. She confirmed that she knew of the feud between the two men and did not want to cause any more problems. Jones-Taylor also stated that she remembered when someone broke the windows on Baker’s car, that Baker thought the defendant had done it, and that Baker was angry and upset about it. Baker told her he had a gun that he kept for his protection. She told Baker she did not want any guns in her home.

| r,Alice Barthe (“Barthe”) testified that her stepdaughter, Katy, and the defendant stayed with her and her husband in their Tylertown, Mississippi home, and later in a camper on their property from November 2005 until January 2006. A snub-nosed revolver she purchased around the first of January 2006, just after Christmas, was stolen from her home approximately four days after she bought it. It was stolen late Saturday night or early Sunday morning. Barthe said Mr. Barbour and his friend, Jamie, were in the residence that Saturday when she, her stepdaughter, and her husband went to an auction approximately an hour and a half drive away. When they returned Mr. Barbour and Jamie were gone, a Cadillac automobile was gone, and the revolver was missing from her nightstand. Barthe identified the defendant in court, as well as her revolver.

Ellis Barthe, Alice’s husband, testified similarly to his wife.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
35 So. 3d 1142, 2009 La.App. 4 Cir. 1258, 2010 La. App. LEXIS 435, 2010 WL 1136505, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-barbour-lactapp-2010.