State v. Grant

105 So. 3d 81, 2012 WL 4126963, 2012 La. App. LEXIS 1151
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedSeptember 20, 2012
DocketNo. 47,365-KA
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 105 So. 3d 81 (State v. Grant) 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. Grant, 105 So. 3d 81, 2012 WL 4126963, 2012 La. App. LEXIS 1151 (La. Ct. App. 2012).

Opinion

GASKINS, J.

11Following a jury trial, the defendant, Derrick Dewayne Grant, was convicted of attempted second degree murder. He was adjudicated a fourth-felony offender. The trial court sentenced him to the mandatory term of life in prison without benefit of probation, parole, or suspension of sen-, fence. The defendant now appeals. We affirm the defendant’s conviction and sentence.

FACTS

On October 5, 2008, three men were playing dominoes on the front porch of a house on East 71st Street in Shreveport, Louisiana. An SUV stopped in front of the house. Two men armed with assault rifles exited the passenger side of the vehicle and opened fire at the men on the porch. One of the gunmen approached from a vacant lot beside the house while the other approached the front of the house.

One of the men on the porch, Michael Parker, sustained four gunshot wounds— two in the side and one in each leg. He survived the attack, although the doctors were unable to remove all of the bullets due to proximity to the victim’s heart. The other two men, Tawon Parker, the victim’s nephew, and Matthew Perry, the nephew’s cousin, were uninjured.

Scott Marler of the Shreveport Fire Department was driving east on East 70th Street near Thornhill when he heard loud popping noises and saw a tan SUV parked at the intersection of Thornhill and East 71st Street. Both doors on the passenger side were open, and two men were standing outside, firing weapons at a house. The weapons appeared to be long rifles or semi-automatic weapons. Marler turned his vehicle around and went after the lgSUV when it left the scene. He called 911 and reported the shooting and the SUV’s license plate number while following the vehicle onto 1-49 southbound. When Shreveport Police Officer John Stratton approached from oehind them in a marked patrol unit, Marler signaled him which vehicle to follow. Officer Stratton then took over the pursuit.

As Officer Stratton pursued the SUV, it began traveling at a high rate of speed and exited 1-49 onto the westbound Highway 3182 ramp. The officer’s dashboard-mounted video camera documented the high-speed chase. As Officer Stratton followed the SUV on the ramp, a backseat passenger in the SUV leaned out and pointed a long gun at the patrol unit. Officer Stratton heard a loud popping noise and saw something hit his windshield. The officer never stopped his pursuit, and never lost sight of the SUV, within which he clearly saw three black males.

The driver of the SUV lost control of his vehicle twice during the chase. Eventually the SUV stopped in a ditch on West 78th Street, and its occupants fled. According to the officer, all three of the men were armed with long rifles. The men fled on foot through a thicket of bamboo and over a fence that had razor wire on top. Other officers arrived on the scene very quickly and within a few minutes, the initial perimeter was set up and the search for the men began.

A K-9 unit began tracking the scent of the men and alerted to a house at 158 W. 79th Street under which an assault rifle was recovered. The K-9 unit then alerted more strongly to a house at 150 W. 79th where three black males were located. Another assault rifle was found under that house. The [sofficers conducted a knock and talk, encountering the defendant, William Hall, and Ira Ross. The defendant had a fresh cut on his face. The house [84]*84belonged to the defendant’s girlfriend, La-Sonya Hailey, but the defendant gave permission for a protective sweep of the home to be conducted. The sweep revealed muddy clothes and tennis shoes, some of which were in the process of being laundered at the time they were discovered. The men were arrested and advised of their Miranda rights.

All three men were charged with attempted second degree murder and tried separately.1 Following a jury trial in June 2006, the defendant was convicted by a vote of 11 to 1. The state filed a habitual offender bill against the defendant. He was adjudicated a fourth-felony offender and sentenced to life in prison at hard labor without benefit of parole, probation or suspension of sentence. In October 2011, he was granted an out-of-time appeal.

BATSON CHALLENGES

In his first assignment of error, the defendant argues that the state systemi-eally struck African-American jurors from the jury venire in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

14Law

In Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986), the Supreme Court held that an equal protection violation occurs if a party exercises a peremptory challenge to exclude a prospective juror on the basis of a person’s race. The Supreme Court reaffirmed its position that racial discrimination in jury selection offends the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment in Miller-El v. Dretke, 545 U.S. 231, 125 S.Ct. 2317, 162 L.Ed.2d 196 (2005). Louisiana law codifies the Bat-son ruling in La. C. Cr. P. art. 795.

The three-step Batson process was described in Rice v. Collins, 546 U.S. 333, 126 S.Ct. 969, 163 L.Ed.2d 824 (2006), as follows:

A defendant’s Batson challenge to a peremptory strike requires a three-step inquiry. First, the trial court must determine whether the defendant has made a prima facie showing that the prosecutor exercised a peremptory challenge on the basis of race. Second, if the showing is made, the burden shifts to the prosecutor to present a race-neutral explanation for striking the juror in question. Although the prosecutor must present a comprehensible reason, the second step of this process does not demand an explanation that is persuasive, or even plausible; so long as the reason is not inherently discriminatory, it suffices. Third, the court must then determine whether the defendant has carried his burden of proving purposeful discrimination. This final step involves evaluating the persuasiveness of the justification proffered by the prosecutor, but the ultimate burden of persuasion regarding racial motivation rests with, and never shifts from, the opponent of the strike. [Internal quotations and citations omitted.]

The trial court’s responsibility when presented with a Batson challenge was detailed by the Louisiana Supreme Court in State v. Anderson, 2006-2987 (La.9/9/08), 996 So.2d 973, 1004, cert. denied, — U.S. [85]*85-, 129 S.Ct. 1906, 173 L.Ed.2d 1057 (2009):

|fiIf defendant makes a prima facie showing of discriminatory strikes, the burden shifts to the state to offer racially neutral explanations for the challenged members. If the race-neutral explanation is tendered, the trial court must decide, in step three of the Batson analysis, whether defendant has proven purposeful discrimination. The race-neutral explanation need not be persuasive or even plausible. It will be deemed race-neutral unless a discriminatory intent is inherent in the explanation. The ultimate burden of persuasion as to racial motivation rests with, and never shifts from, the opponent of the peremptory challenge.
The trial court’s findings with regard to a Batson challenge are entitled to great deference on appeal. When a defendant voices a Batson

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
105 So. 3d 81, 2012 WL 4126963, 2012 La. App. LEXIS 1151, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-grant-lactapp-2012.