State v. Cook

86 So. 3d 672, 2012 WL 204517, 2012 La. App. LEXIS 53
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedJanuary 25, 2012
DocketNo. 46,843-KA
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 86 So. 3d 672 (State v. Cook) 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. Cook, 86 So. 3d 672, 2012 WL 204517, 2012 La. App. LEXIS 53 (La. Ct. App. 2012).

Opinions

LOLLEY, J.

11 Adrian Cook was convicted by a unanimous 12-person jury for the second degree murder of Derodrick Randle, a violation of La. R.S. 14:30.1. After the trial court denied Cook’s post-verdict motions for acquittal and new trial, he was sentenced to serve the mandatory term of life at hard labor without parole. Cook appealed his sentence and conviction, which we affirm for the following reasons.

Facts

The following evidence was adduced at Cook’s trial. On July 2, 2009, a resident of the Kings Manor Apartments in Shreveport, Louisiana called police and reported hearing gunshots. Shreveport Police Department (“SPD”) Officers Colby Moss and Donald Belanger, Jr., responded to the dispatch. When the officers arrived, the defendant, Adrian Cook, came out of an upstairs apartment shouting “I can’t believe he tried to rob me.” The officers patted down Cook and asked him whether the other individual was still upstairs, to which Cook answered, ‘Yes.”

The officers discovered the bullet-riddled body of Derodrick Randle. The officers saw a stainless-steel Smith & Wesson .38 caliber revolver in one of Randle’s hands. Officer Moss testified that “the butt of the gun was just outside of his index finger or his pointer finger” and that the weapon was resting on the outside of his palm; also, “It did appear as if someone had placed it in his hand.” Officer Moss picked up the weapon, opened the cylinder and ejected five spent cartridge cases from the gun.

The officers entered the apartment and discovered a .40 caliber Glock Model 23 pistol behind a couch. The pistol’s slide was locked open and its ^magazine was empty. After finding no one else in the apartment, the officers returned to the victim. Randle had no pulse, and paramedics were unable to revive him; he died as a result of the gunshot wounds.

Another SPD officer, John Madjerick, arrived at the scene and, at the instruction of the other officers, detained Cook. As Officer Madjerick took the defendant to a patrol car, Cook stated repeatedly, “I’m the victim.” After the officer read Cook his Miranda rights, the defendant made a statement to Off. Madjerick, who testified:

I asked him basically what happened. I asked if he knew the guy that was upstairs that had been shot, he said yes, he’d known him five or six years. He knew his first name was Derodrick but he goes by the street name Can’t Get It Right, I believe is what he said, and they had known each other for some time. He stated that on that date that Dero-drick and another unknown black male came to his apartment and knocked on the door at which time I believe Mr. Cook stated he let them in and then shortly thereafter he said that Dero-drick produced a handgun and he thought was attempting to rob him so at that time he retrieved a handgun and shot Derodrick multiple times in the upper torso.

The officer testified that Cook told him that the victim was armed with the revolver and that he (Cook) was armed with the Glock.

Sergeant David Walls of the SPD conducted the inspection and documentation of the crime scene. He photographed and videotaped the relevant areas in and outside of the apartment, although the victim had already been removed by paramedics before Sgt. Walls arrived. Sergeant Walls also created a diagram of the scene based upon his observations. The only damage inside the apartment caused by bullets was found on the apartment’s front door and to the floor near the entry threshold. Walls [676]*676said that the damage was “[tjowards the doorway at head level area down to the |3floor and then some impact area straight into the floor at the bottom of the doorway where there were some fragments from a ricochet.” Sergeant Wall identified exhibit photos of this area which showed that most of the 11 spent .40 caliber cartridge cases recovered were on the floor of the hallway entering the apartment, a hallway only slightly wider than the entry door and extending for several feet into the apartment. He also identified five bullet holes in the apartment’s front door that were from about chest height to about knee level, as well as bullet impact damage to the wall outside that door.

Police transported Cook to the police station. Photos of him taken there show a small reddish stain on the front of his shirt but no other evidence of blood or obvious injuries. Once at the police station, SPD Detectives Rod Demery and Robert Gordon interviewed Cook. Detective Demery testified that he and Det. Gordon were assigned to the investigation of the murder. According to Det. Demery, Cook was Mirandized and opted to make a statement, giving the detectives some background about the situation. Cook’s statement taken by Dets. Demery and Gordon was played for the jury. In that statement, Cook told the officers that he had known the victim for years as a friend of a group of people that Cook associated with. The defendant told the officers that the victim came to see him because “I had green [i.e., marijuana] ... I mess with that green. He want to get a little green from me.” Cook also informed the detectives that the victim told him that he wanted to buy either a quarter or a half pound of marijuana, and Cook told the victim to meet him at Cook’s apartment at Kings Manor.

[ 4According to Cook’s statement to the detectives, when the victim arrived by car he was with another man who stayed in the car. Cook told the detectives that the victim then came into the defendant’s apartment:

... and he came in the house and he looked at the stuff. And he like — he was like saying — first, he tried to walk out the door. He grabbed it and tried to walk right out the door — but I was like, hold up, where you going? That’s what made me grab my gun. And so I — I—I grabbed it from him. I was like,' hold up, where you going, man, bring the money. So I put the weed back on the table. So he said he’s gonna go to the car and get it. He went outside. I grabbed my gun, you know what I’m saying, I pulled my gun.... I feel something spooky.... You know what I’m saying, so he come up in the house and — when he go out there, I looked out the window. That’s when I recognized the little dude. He said something to him and then he come back out. He come up the stairs. He come up the stairs. He come in the door. So I go to the door to try to lock the door. And as soon as I come-like my door right here. He come in, he walks around this way. I close it, I try to lock it. I turn around. He’s got the gun. Hey, D Baby, I gotta get you, like that there. I’m like, aw, man, that’s how you gonna do it, like that there? So he walk to the table and grab-tried to grab the green. He grabbed the green and got to walking off like that there. So I went ahead and grabbed him and turned him around cause when I grabbed him, like the gun was right there, facing my little homeboy sitting in my living room. So I twist him and he got to firing off so I’m — I’m [firing] and he let me up and I done hit him in his side a couple of times. And we pushed off and I — and I [677]*677just kept hitting him. And he fell on the ground so I looked — I tried to open up my door. I see his little partner done shot back down the stairs, you know what I’m saying.

Cook also explained to the officers that one of his friends, a man he identified as “Little Dude,” was present in the apartment during these events. Cook also explained the victim’s position at the time of the shooting:

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
86 So. 3d 672, 2012 WL 204517, 2012 La. App. LEXIS 53, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-cook-lactapp-2012.