State v. Butler

503 So. 2d 1027, 1987 La. App. LEXIS 9064
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedFebruary 25, 1987
DocketNo. 18192-KA
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 503 So. 2d 1027 (State v. Butler) 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. Butler, 503 So. 2d 1027, 1987 La. App. LEXIS 9064 (La. Ct. App. 1987).

Opinion

MARVIN, Judge.

Phillip Butler appeals his conviction by jury verdict of the crime of second degree murder, contending that the evidence was sufficient to convict only of the lesser crime of manslaughter and that the conviction, in any event, should be set aside because of inflammatory and prejudicial argument made by the state. He also asks that we review the record for errors patent.

We find no reversible error or error patent, and affirm.

FACTS

Butler knew his victim, Theresa Traylor, and had lived with Theresa’s sister for about three years before the murder occurred in West Monroe on July 25, 1982. Theresa lived with Alex Littleberry in a house near Butler’s residence. Littleberry was confined in jail when the murder occurred.

After a night of carousing, drinking, shooting dice, and visiting with others in [1028]*1028the area, Butler walked by Theresa’s home during the early morning hours before dawn. He said he saw the light on in her home and decided to go in. His version, obviously found incredible by the jury, was that she let him in the front door, that she got a knife to cut something, not him, and inadvertently cut his hand, whereupon he went blank, out of his mind, and came to his senses while cutting her throat. Butler’s plea of not guilty by reason of insanity was rejected by the jury.

A neighbor of Theresa’s testified that upon leaving Theresa’s home after a visit several hours before the homicide, he checked the front door to be sure she had locked it as he had instructed. When the police arrived at the house after the murder, the front door was unlocked and the back door was bolted from the inside. Another witness testified that Theresa did not “get along” with Butler and that she had seen them at the same bar earlier that evening but they had no conversation or contact with each other.

Physical evidence at and near Theresa’s home indicated that a window screen had been partially torn off and the window raised; that Theresa’s robe was draped over the sofa and her brassiere and panties were tom from her body; that Butler had removed his shirt and his underwear either before or after he entered the house but did not have them on during the killing; that he stabbed Theresa repeatedly in the front and back of her body and slashed her throat from ear to ear; that her wounds were “offensive” wounds and were inflicted before she died; that Butler attempted to wash the blood from her body and himself in her bathroom; and that he wrapped Theresa’s body in a rug and dragged her body through the front door of her home when he departed in her boyfriend’s car, the keys to which he obtained from her purse.

The tires on Littleberry’s car went flat after Butler drove over a concrete abutment and he abandoned the car several miles from Theresa’s home somewhere near the Cheniere exit off 1-20 with its motor still running and Theresa’s body inside the car. A short time later, a state trooper discovered the abandoned car and Theresa’s body. A piece of window screen was also found in the car. A five-hour manhunt was unsuccessful. Butler eventually succeeded in escaping the vicinity after he stole car keys and money from a nearby residence. He was captured five days later in the stolen car at Sierra Blanca, Texas, near the Mexican border.

Butler thereafter confessed to the homicide.

SUFFICIENCY OF EVIDENCE

Defendant argues that the killing was an “explosive” or sudden act that was provoked by the victim cutting his hand shortly after he entered the house. He contends that the evidence establishes

-that he was not armed when he entered the house
-that he had no motive to kill -that the wounds to the victim were rapidly inflicted over a short period of time, two to five minutes
-that the knife wound to defendant’s hand was a “defensive wound,” and -that an expert psychologist opined that “if your hand were cut, you would do a lot of things you wouldn’t ordinarily do.”

When viewed in the light most favorable to the jury verdict, however, the evidence establishes that Butler entered the house through the window when he was perhaps partially undressed, that he tore Theresa’s clothes from her body and killed her by cutting her throat after stabbing her repeatedly, that he carefully and deliberately attempted to wash the blood from her and from himself, turning on and off light switches in several rooms of her home, before wrapping her body in a rug, taking the car keys from her purse and departing with her body in her boyfriend’s automobile.

On oral argument on appeal, defendant conceded the element of specific intent to kill or inflict great bodily harm, but argued that the homicide was committed in heat of blood caused by provocation sufficient to deprive an average person of self control, [1029]*1029as LRS 14:31 (1) provides in its first sentence. The second sentence of that subsection, however, states that provocation shall not reduce a homicide to manslaughter if the jury finds that the offender's blood had actually cooled, or than an average person’s blood would have cooled, at the time the offense was committed.

Butler’s argument rests primarily upon the credibility given his version of the homicide by the jury and resolution of the factual questions, who did what to whom, when, and why.

Although Butler remembered numerous details about his visit to Theresa’s house, he told the police he could not remember what she was going to cut with the knife she got from the kitchen, but that she did not get the knife to cut him. He could not remember whether she asked him to leave the house but said she “might have”; he said neither of them was angry at the other initially but that she later got mad at him and he did not know why, “unless she got mad when I first went over her house”. He said he followed her into the kitchen when she was getting the knife, but they had returned to the living room where she cut his hand. He said before he got the knife away from her, he hit her with a couple of ashtrays he threw at her. He said Theresa threw an ashtray at him but it missed.

Q. Alright what happened next after the ashtrays were thrown?
A. That’s when I just lost my head man just went crazy man and—
Q. OK.
A. I cut her with the knife.
Q. Alright, how did you get the knife?
A. Grabbed it out her hand and when— I — I just cutting — I just started with it — and just finally got the knife out her hand—
Q. OK.
A. And I started cutting on her.

Broken glass was found in Theresa’s living room. The coroner testified that Theresa’s face had lacerations other than knife wounds that could have been caused by some type of blow to her face. He found no defensive wounds on her body, and concluded that she apparently had not struggled against her attacker.

The coroner did not see or examine the cut on Butler’s hand. When asked hypothetically what type of injury would be expected if a person were to grab a knife such as the one used here with his open hand, he answered that “defense” wounds or cuts would be expected in the palm of the hand or hands.

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Related

State v. Ellis
677 So. 2d 617 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1996)
State v. Babin
637 So. 2d 814 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1994)
State v. Ealy
530 So. 2d 1309 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1988)

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Bluebook (online)
503 So. 2d 1027, 1987 La. App. LEXIS 9064, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-butler-lactapp-1987.