State v. Jenkins

267 So. 3d 1178
Louisiana Court of Appeal·Decided April 3, 2019·No. NO. 2018-KA-0253·Published·Cited by 1 cases

Opinion

Judge Regina Bartholomew-Woods

Defendant, Dominique Jenkins (hereinafter referred to as Defendant), appeals the jury's verdict finding him guilty of manslaughter and the district court's October 20, 2017 judgment sentencing him to thirty-eight (38) years imprisonment at hard labor. For the reasons that follow, we affirm Defendant's conviction and sentence.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

On December 11, 2014, a grand jury returned a true bill of indictment charging Defendant, Howard Taylor ("Mr. Taylor"), and Vernon Clay ("Mr. Clay") each with one count of second degree murder in violation of La. R.S. 14:30.1.1 Defendant appeared for arraignment and entered a plea of not guilty on January 29, 2015. On August 14, 2015, the district court held a hearing on the motion to suppress the statement of Defendant and co-defendants. The district court rendered its ruling on December 9, 2015, granting the motion to suppress Mr. Taylor's statements and denying the suppression of Mr. Clay's and Defendant's statements. The State of Louisiana ("the State") and Mr. Clay objected and noticed their intent to seek writs.2 On April 21, 2017, Defendant filed a motion to sever his case from Mr. Taylor and Mr. Clay requesting that each have separate *1180trials, which the district court granted. Subsequently, Mr. Clay withdrew his plea of not guilty and entered a plea of guilty to accessory after the fact and to being a second felony offender.3 On August 9, 2017, the State filed a motion in limine to exclude Mr. Taylor's statement, which the district court granted.4 In response, Defendant filed a writ application for supervisory review of the district court's ruling. This Court and the Louisiana Supreme Court both denied Defendant's writ application. State v. Jenkins , 2017-0756, p. 1 (La. App. 4 Cir. 9/6/17), writ denied , 2017-1521 (La. 9/8/17), 225 So.3d 475.5

The jury trial commenced on September 13, 2017, and on September 15, 2017, the jury returned a ten-to-two verdict finding Defendant guilty of manslaughter, a violation of La. R.S. 14:31.6 On October 2, 2017, Defendant filed motions for a new trial and post-verdict judgment of acquittal, which the district court denied. On October 20, 2017, Defendant was sentenced to thirty-eight (38) years of imprisonment at hard labor with credit for time served. Defendant filed a motion to reconsider sentence, which the district court denied. Defendant now files this appeal and asserts six (6) assignments of error including two pro se assignments of error.

STATEMENT OF FACTS

In the early morning hours of June 25, 2014, Detective Chris Laborde of the Eighth District, as well as other members of the New Orleans Police Department ("NOPD"), responded to a call of an aggravated battery by shooting that occurred in the 500 block of Frenchman Street. The victim of the shooting was Julius Dunn ("Mr. Dunn"). A cursory investigation occurred in which several photos were taken of the area and two shell casings were recovered. Mr. Dunn was injured on the scene and taken to the hospital where he later succumbed to his injuries.

Detective Vaught's Testimony

Detective Ryan Vaught ("Detective Vaught") of the NOPD Homicide Division was then assigned the case. Detective Vaught was able to obtain video surveillance footage of the shooting from several establishments in the area.7 In his narration of the surveillance video obtained from Club Vaso ("Vaso"), Detective Vaught testified that Defendant, Mr. Clay, and Mr. Taylor exited the club and headed *1181toward Decatur Street. The same surveillance video showed Mr. Dunn and a group of friends exiting Vaso on Frenchmen Street walking along the sidewalk toward Chartres Street.8 Further, the video showed Mr. Dunn, Defendant, Mr. Clay, and Mr. Taylor engage in a verbal discussion outside of Vaso.

The surveillance footage from Louisiana Music Factory showed Defendant, Mr. Clay, and Mr. Taylor exit Vaso; Defendant is seen turning back toward Vaso and Mr. Dunn and his group of friends as Defendant walked away. Defendant, Mr. Clay, and Mr. Taylor, subsequently, exited the camera frame. Shortly thereafter, a white SUV, with its headlights off, pulled out of a parking lot on Decatur Street. During his investigation, Detective Vaught discovered Defendant, Mr. Clay, and Mr. Taylor occupied the white SUV on the night of the shooting.

On the surveillance video obtained from the Blue Nile, the white SUV is seen with the brake lights illuminated, indicating that it was slowing or stopping. Then, people are seen reacting to something and Mr. Dunn is seen holding his stomach while running outside of the camera frame. According to Detective Vaught, the shooting occurred at the Blue Nile. He summarized that the white SUV pulled out of a parking lot located on Decatur Street near Elysian Fields Avenue with its headlights off, traveled westbound on Decatur Street, and turned right on Frenchman Street heading northbound, passing several businesses and continued to the Blue Nile where the shooting happened, and then continued to travel northbound on Chartres Street to Royal Street where it turned left.

During Detective Vaught's investigation, he discovered one of the friends with Mr. Dunn that night was Daniel Bryant ("Mr. Bryant") who was near Mr. Dunn when he was shot. Detective Vaught interviewed Mr. Bryant the day after the homicide. During the interview, Mr. Bryant showed an Instagram photograph of Defendant and Mr. Clay on his cellphone and identified both men by name, assigning Defendant as the shooter.9 Detective Vaught stated that he printed out the photograph and both Mr. Bryant and Detective Vaught signed it. After this interview, Detective Vaught performed a query search of the names of Defendant and Mr. Clay to obtain any records10 . He obtained a search warrant for the Instagram account associated with the photograph. Thereafter, he received a data compact disc from Instagram containing information for the account of "Shawtyy_too_turnt;" the account contained more than a hundred photographs of Defendant, but not many photographs of Mr. Clay or Mr. Taylor. The court record reflects that this Instagram account belonged to Defendant.

Detective Vaught conducted a second interview with Mr. Bryant and his attorney, Dante Butler ("Mr. Butler"), wherein Mr. Bryant identified Defendant and Mr. Clay as two of the three suspects in the surveillance footage. Further, Mr. Bryant confirmed the identities of Defendant and Mr. Clay when the photographs were presented.11

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State v. Jenkins, 267 So. 3d 1178 (La. Ct. App. 2019).

267 So. 3d 1178 (State v. Jenkins) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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