State v. Brand

520 So. 2d 114, 1988 WL 1932
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedJanuary 18, 1988
Docket87-K-1132
StatusPublished
Cited by46 cases

This text of 520 So. 2d 114 (State v. Brand) 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 v. Brand, 520 So. 2d 114, 1988 WL 1932 (La. 1988).

Opinion

520 So.2d 114 (1988)

STATE of Louisiana
v.
Janice BRAND.

No. 87-K-1132.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

January 18, 1988.

Brady Jones, III, Alton Moran, Office of Public Defender, for applicant.

William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Bryan Bush, Dist. Atty., E. Kay Kirkpatrick, Asst. Dist. Atty., for respondent.

LEMMON, Justice.

We granted certiorari to review the intermediate court's decision that the evidence was sufficient to support defendant's conviction of public bribery and that defendant did not carry her burden of proving the affirmative defense of entrapment.

Defendant, as a safety enforcement officer with the Office of Motor Vehicles, had access to confidential driving and criminal records maintained by the state and by the National Crime Information Center (NCIC). State and federal laws prohibited her from releasing information from the NCIC records to the general public.

At trial, Jerry Peters was the principal witness presented by the prosecutor to establish that defendant accepted something of value with the intent to influence her conduct in relation to her position as a public employee.[1] Peters testified that he *115 was a Federal Bureau of Investigation informant covertly investigating a security guard union and had been appointed to the position of security chief for the union. In April, 1984, he was told by Bobby Blanton, another union official, that he could obtain information on driving or criminal records of union members and employees by calling defendant at a specified telephone number. After meeting defendant at a union meeting, he obtained confidential information from her verbally on several occasions, but no compensation was requested or paid for this information. When Peters mentioned this source of information to his F.B.I. contact and said that defendant had bragged about her access to "close security" state police information, Lieutenant Joseph Booth of the Louisiana State Police asked him to investigate and also to determine whether defendant released this type of information on a regular basis or only as a favor to him and his union.[2]

About June 26, 1984, Peters called defendant at Booth's request to obtain confidential information about five persons and gave her their names, addresses and dates of birth. During the conversation he mentioned giving her money for this information and told her that he was doing some work for New Orleans area lawyers in locating missing persons.

On June 29, 1984, Peters met defendant at a restaurant to obtain the documents. At that meeting Peters had a wireless transmitter strapped to his body, and the conversations were monitored and recorded by Booth and the F.B.I. agent on a receiver across the street from the restaurant. While much of the recording was unintelligible because of background noise in the restaurant, the following conversation outside the restaurant was very clear:

Peters: "When I come back from Eunice, if it's alright with you, I'll bring your money then. OK?

Defendant: "When are you coming back?
Peters: "Next couple days.
Defendant: "OK.

Peters: "O.K. Before you go to Jamaica —when are you going to Jamaica?

Defendant: "We're leaving here August 5. We're going to stay in Houston a couple of nights. We're leaving on the 8th.

Peters: "OK. I'll make you rich with these printouts.
Defendant: "Yeah, I could use the money."

After the meeting Peters turned the documents over to Booth.

On July 31, 1984, Peters went to defendant's office with $100 in cash obtained from Booth and gave her the money on a ramp outside the building.[3] Although Peters never saw defendant again, defendant was not arrested until December because Peters was acting as an undercover agent on other cases.

Defendant testified and admitted that she gave Peters the documents on June 29 at the restaurant and received $100 from him on July 31 at her office. However, she stated that Peters knew before the June 29 meeting that she was seeking a loan to have extra money for a trip to Jamaica. When Peters called her on June 26 to request the information on the five persons and asked her if she wanted $100, she thought he was lending her that amount *116 for her trip. When asked on cross-examination about her statement on the tape in response to the "make you rich" comment, she replied that she was shocked and that the statement "was not really meant the way it came down".

The jury returned a verdict of guilty as charged. On appeal, the intermediate court affirmed the conviction, but set aside the sentence and remanded for resentencing. 506 So.2d 702 (La.App. 1st Cir.1987). We granted certiorari. 512 So.2d 445.

Sufficiency of Evidence

In complaining of the denial of her motion for post verdict judgment of acquittal, defendant contends that the evidence does not support the jury's finding that defendant agreed to accept the money with the intent that the payment would influence her conduct in relation to her public employment. She argues that the money was received as a loan a month after delivery of the documents and that the evidence did not establish her intent to accept payment in exchange for the information prior to or at the time she delivered the documents.

Peters was apparently a poorly prepared witness, and his testimony as to dates of events was confused. However, he clearly stated that he offered defendant money in return for the information prior to her delivering the documents.[4] Defendant's contrary testimony that she was seeking a loan and received the payment for that purpose is certainly plausible, particularly in view of the fact that she did not request payment for any previous information. Nevertheless, the resolution of the conflict between defendant's version of the payment as a loan and Peters' version of the payment in return for delivery of confidential information was a matter for the jury to decide. Indeed, defendant's extremely damning recorded statement at the time of delivery of the documents strongly favors the jury's resolution of that issue against her and establishes that she intended and agreed to accept money in exchange for the documents at the time of that meeting or earlier. Moreover, there is no indication that defendant attempted to repay any part of the "loan" during the five months between her receipt of the money and her arrest. Finally, the fact that Peters was deriving income from the extra work for the lawyers in missing persons cases possibly explains why he paid for this additional information, although defendant had previously provided similar information without charge as a favor for Peters and his union. We therefore conclude that the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the prosecution, was sufficient for a rational trier of fact to find that every essential element of the crime had been proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed. 2d 560 (1979); La. C.Cr.P. art. 821.

Entrapment

Defendant contends that the evidence established her defense of entrapment.

*117

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
520 So. 2d 114, 1988 WL 1932, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-brand-la-1988.