State v. Landry

729 So. 2d 1019, 1999 WL 21338
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedJanuary 20, 1999
Docket98-KK-0188
StatusPublished
Cited by31 cases

This text of 729 So. 2d 1019 (State v. Landry) 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. Landry, 729 So. 2d 1019, 1999 WL 21338 (La. 1999).

Opinion

729 So.2d 1019 (1999)

STATE of Louisiana
v.
Aristide LANDRY and Raymond Scardino.

No. 98-KK-0188.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

January 20, 1999.

*1020 Richard Phillip Ieyoub, Atty. Gen., Harry F. Connick, Dist. Atty., David Kirk Groome, Jr., Metairie, John Jerry Glas, New Orleans, for Applicant.

Perman Glenn, III, Donald Anthony Sauviac, Jr., David Craig, Clive Adrian Stafford Smith, New Orleans, for Respondent.

PER CURIAM:[*]

Resolving a credibility choice between state and defense witnesses with regard to the circumstances under which both defendants accompanied police officers from their residence to the Homicide Division of the New Orleans Police Department, where they gave videotaped statements at issue here concerning the death of Lester Hansen, the trial court found that the police had arrested the defendants in their home without arrest warrants in violation of Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980). The court further ruled that "[e]verything that happened thereafter was fruits of the poisonous tree, and thus should be suppressed." The court of appeal found "no error in the trial court's ruling." State v. Scardino, 97-2582 (La.App. 4th Cir.12/18/97). We granted the state's application not to review the exercise of the trial court's factfinding discretion but to consider its ruling in light of New York v. Harris, 495 U.S. 14, 21, 110 S.Ct. 1640, 1644-45, 109 L.Ed.2d 13 (1990), which held that "where the police have probable cause to arrest a suspect, the exclusionary rule does not bar the State's use of a statement made by the defendant outside of his home, even though the statement is taken after an arrest made in the home in violation of Payton." See also State v. Galliano, 96-1736, pp. 13-14 (La.App. 1st Cir.6/20/97), 696 So.2d 1043, 1051. The trial court apparently concluded that the inquiry into the probable cause basis for arresting the defendants had been foreclosed not only by the Payton violation but also by the opinion of the lead investigating officer, Detective Dwight Deal, expressed in response to a direct question from the court during the suppression hearing, that he did not have probable cause to arrest the defendants at the time he went to their residence because the officer "didn't have everything that I wanted to have to satisfy myself." Detective Deal therefore did not apply to a magistrate for arrest warrants because he "wanted to build this and make it a stronger case."

We have made clear that "the determination of reasonable grounds for an investigatory stop, or probable cause for an arrest, does not rest on the officer's subjective beliefs or attitudes but turns on a completely objective evaluation of all of [the] circumstances known to the officer at the time of his challenged action." State v. Kalie, 96-2650, p. 1 (La.9/19/97), 699 So.2d 879, 880 (emphasis in original) (citing Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 116 S.Ct. 1769, 135 L.Ed.2d 89 (1996) and State v. Wilkens, 364 So.2d 934, 937 (La.1978)). Detective Deal's opinion about the status of his investigation, or his desire to obtain more information before applying to the magistrate for arrest warrants, therefore did not preclude the trial court from inquiring into the probable cause basis for Deal's actions, once it found that the detective had, in fact, arrested the defendants in their home. See Hoffa v. United States, 385 U.S. 293, 310, 87 S.Ct. 408, 417, 17 L.Ed.2d 374 (1966) ("The police are not required to guess at their peril the precise moment at which they have probable cause to arrest a suspect, risking a violation of the Fourth Amendment if they act too *1021 soon.... Law enforcement officers are under no constitutional duty to call a halt to a criminal investigation the moment they have the minimum evidence to establish probable cause, a quantum of evidence which may fall far short of the amount necessary to support a criminal conviction."); cf., State v. Rodrigue, 437 So.2d 830, 833, n. 5 (La.1983) ("[T]hat a better showing of probable cause could have been made, if the officers seeking the warrant had waited for the development of available information does not detract from the showing of probable cause that was made.").

In its application, the state has provided this Court with information which it contends supplied the probable cause basis for taking the defendants into custody before they gave their videotaped statements. Deal testified at the hearing that he had interviewed Benjamin Scardino, the brother of Raymond Scardino and cousin of Aristide Landry, approximately 12 hours before he led a team of officers to the defendants' home. In that statement, Benjamin Scardino told the detective that shortly after Hansen's murder the defendants confided to him that they had gone to Hansen's home in Lake Catherine, Louisiana, on the day of the crime with Ricky Alford and eventually helped Alford tie the victim up and beat him, apparently in an effort to make Hansen confess to abusing Alford's children sexually. Alford then took a large knife, slit the victim's throat so viciously that Hansen's head hung only by the flesh at the back of his neck, and stabbed him in the back with enough force to sever Hansen's ribs and penetrate one of his lungs. The defendants and Alford wrapped the victim's body in a sail from his sailboat, put the body in a car they had borrowed earlier that day, and disposed of the body, weighted by a large brick tied to its feet, in some water, possibly a canal, "near the Interstate."

According to the state, details of the stabbing provided in Benjamin Scardino's account matched the results of the autopsy on Hansen after his nearly decapitated body, wrapped in a sail and bound hand and foot and weighted, was recovered from Bayou Sauvage half a mile from U.S. 90 in Lake Catherine. Those details, the state argues, vouched for the reliability of his information, as did the way in which Benjamin Scardino acquired the information. See Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 425, 89 S.Ct. 584, 593, 21 L.Ed.2d 637 (1969) (White, J., concurring) ("[I]f, for example, the informer's hearsay comes from one of the actors in the crime in the nature of admission against interest, the affidavit giving this information should be held sufficient."). The state also argues that Benjamin Scardino's familial relationship with the defendants further vouched for the reliability of his information. See 2 W.R. Lafave, Search and Seizure, § 3.3(c), pp. 136-37 (West 1996) ("[T]here may be circumstances in which the informant's implication of someone whom he could be expected to protect will sufficiently show the reliability of his information.").

It appears, however, that the state failed to introduce any of this information pertinent to the question of probable cause at the suppression hearing. The trial judge therefore could not have ruled on the question even if it had been so inclined.

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Bluebook (online)
729 So. 2d 1019, 1999 WL 21338, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-landry-la-1999.