State v. Lewis

43 So. 3d 973, 9 La.App. 5 Cir. 783, 2010 La. App. LEXIS 812, 2010 WL 2136313
Louisiana Court of Appeal·Decided May 28, 2010·No. No. 2009-KA-783·Published·Cited by 12 cases

Opinion

MARC E. JOHNSON, Judge.

|2Pefendant was charged with terrorizing, a violation of LSA-R.S. 14:40.1, and was found guilty by a unanimous jury verdict in the 24th Judicial District Court. Defendant was sentenced by the trial court to serve twelve (12) years in the custody of [977] the Department of Corrections. For the following reasons, we affirm defendant’s conviction and sentence.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

On June 27, 2007, the Jefferson Parish District Attorney filed a bill of information charging defendant, Mitchell Lewis, Jr., with terrorizing in violation of LSA-R.S. 14:40.1. Defendant was arraigned on July 24, 2007 and pled not guilty. On August 1, 2007, defendant filed a motion to appoint sanity commission to determine competency to stand trial. On September 19, 2007, a competency hearing was held, after which the trial court found defendant not competent to stand trial. The trial court ordered defendant committed to a mental health facility. Competency hearings were held again on April 8 and September 16, 2008, after which the trial court found defendant competent to stand trial both times.

| ^Defendant filed a motion for speedy trial on October 14, 2008. On January 12, 2009, the trial court granted the State’s motion for continuance of the trial. Defendant subsequently filed a writ application with this Court, challenging the trial court’s ruling on the motion to continue trial. On March 24, 2009, this Court granted the writ application for the limited purpose of reviewing his request for mandamus under LSA-C.Cr.P. art. 701(D). This Court denied the writ in part, finding that defendant had not shown that his right to speedy trial had been violated. This Court also granted the writ in part, finding that the 120-day time period delineated in the statute would run if trial was not commenced by March 31, 2009.

On March 31, 2009, the morning of trial, the trial court denied defendant’s motion to suppress statement. On March 31 and April 1, 2009, the case was tried by a six-person jury, which unanimously found defendant guilty as charged. The trial court sentenced defendant on June 25, 2009 to imprisonment at hard labor for 12 years. On that same date, defendant filed a timely motion for appeal that was granted.

FACTS

The following facts were elicited at trial.

On May 21, 2007, at 1:14 p.m., defendant, who lived in Gretna, called Sony Corporation and spoke to Hugo Avila, a customer service representative in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. Defendant told Mr. Avila that he wanted to have his “unit” replaced. After checking the work order, Mr. Avila learned that the “unit” was damaged and, therefore, not eligible for replacement. Defendant said that he did not cause the damage, and that the damage was caused either during shipping or by a technician.

|4Pefendant became very upset and said all he wanted was to have his “unit” replaced, and that he wanted to avoid going to small claims court. Mr. Avila again told defendant that it was not possible to have his “unit” exchanged or replaced, and that the “unit” no longer had a warranty on it, so they were unable to do anything. In a threatening manner, defendant told Mr. Avila that he might go to Laredo with a gun. Defendant then added, “I don’t deal with small guns. I deal with bombs.”

Mr. Avila told defendant he would be documenting their conversation in the file. Defendant told Mr. Avila that they had his number and to call the police because “they already knew who he was.” Mr. Avila again said he would document the conversation, and defendant said, “Okay. We’ll see you in small claims.” Mr. Avila did not refer that call to a supervisor or alert anyone.

On that same date, at 5:45 p.m., defendant called Sony Corporation again and spoke to Chantal Lamotte, a customer service representative in Fort Myers, Florida. Defendant was very angry because they [978] could not repair his “unit”, and he was very hostile on the phone. In a threatening manner, defendant said three or four times he would “blow up the building,” not he had blown up his “unit.” He also said, “You don’t know what I’m capable of. I’ve gone to the airport with knives and a gun, and it took eight policemen to hold me down.”

Ms. Lamotte told defendant that their call could possibly have been recorded. Defendant responded that he hoped that someone was listening, and that that person would call the police, because he wanted them to arrest him so he could be on television and tell everybody how bad Sony products were. Ms. Lamotte testified that she felt threatened even though she knew defendant was in Louisiana, and not in Florida where she was; however, she later testified that she did not personally feel threatened by defendant at that time because she and defendant ftwere not in the same state. Ms. Lamotte immediately reported the call to her supervisor, because they were told to report any kinds of threats if they felt that “it could be dangerous.”

The next day, early in the morning, Eloy Gutierrez, the on-site manager of the Sony Electronics Laredo, Texas facility, received a call on his cell phone alerting him that there was a customer who was very upset and had made threats on the Laredo facility in Texas.1 Mr. Gutierrez understood that the threat was that this customer stated that he had placed some explosives in some of the packages that he had shipped back to their facility, and that he was also threatening to drive all the way to Laredo to confront them with a handgun. After learning that information, Mr. Gutierrez immediately evacuated the 35,000 square foot facility in Laredo, Texas, where they employed 150 people.

Mr. Gutierrez also contacted Sony’s vice presidents at headquarters in San Diego, Sony’s Vice President of World Security, and the police department. The Laredo Police Department received the call at 9:21 a.m. and responded within minutes. The fire department also arrived, and they searched around the building. Once the police learned there was a bomb threat on the building, they brought in two K9 handlers with two bomb-sniffing dogs who searched the inside of the facility and the trailers in the receiving docks; however, they did not find any explosive devices. Mr. Gutierrez noted that they received approximately 2,500 parcel units per day. The evacuation took approximately four hours and cost Sony approximately $6,000.00.

Because they were concerned that something might be in transit, Mr. Gutierrez contacted their mail delivery services to ensure that they checked their fthubs. Additionally, Mr. Gutierrez hired two K9 handlers for the following three days to check every parcel unit that came in to make sure that no explosives were in the boxes. Also on that day, the Gretna Police Department received a call in reference to a terrorizing threat made by defendant. Officer Craig Dougherty was then dispatched to defendant’s residence at 500 Solon Street in Gretna to investigate the complaint. Before he went to defendant’s residence, he talked to Ms. Lamotte who told him the threats defendant had made. Officer Dougherty then went to defendant’s residence and identified himself. He repeated the threats defendant had [979] made to Ms. Lamotte, and defendant admitted that he made the calls and the two separate threats.

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State v. Lewis, 43 So. 3d 973, 9 La.App. 5 Cir. 783, 2010 La. App. LEXIS 812, 2010 WL 2136313 (La. Ct. App. 2010).

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