State v. Liner

397 So. 2d 506
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedApril 6, 1981
Docket80-KA-2109
StatusPublished
Cited by29 cases

This text of 397 So. 2d 506 (State v. Liner) 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. Liner, 397 So. 2d 506 (La. 1981).

Opinion

397 So.2d 506 (1981)

STATE of Louisiana
v.
David Jon LINER.

No. 80-KA-2109.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

April 6, 1981.

*508 William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Barbara Rutledge, Asst. Atty. Gen., William B. Faust, III, James F. McKay, Asst. Attys. Gen., for plaintiff-appellee.

Arthur A. Lemann, III, New Orleans, Allen A. McElroy, Jr., Berwick, for defendant-appellant.

GARRISON, Justice ad hoc.[*]

The defendant, David Jon Liner, was indicted in September, 1978, by the St. Mary Parish Grand Jury for the 1st degree murder of Roxanne Barrilleaux, in violation of La.R.S. 14:30. Inasmuch as the murder victim was a former secretary of the St. Mary Parish District Attorney's Office, that office was recused from prosecution of the case and the Attorney General's Office appointed to prosecute. Following trial of the defendant by a twelve-person jury from October 29, to November 1, 1979, the defendant unanimously was found guilty as charged. At the conclusion of the sentencing portion of the bifurcated trial the jury recommended a sentence of life imprisonment. The defendant's motion for a new trial was denied by the trial judge and a life sentence in accordance with the jury's recommendation was imposed.

In retrospect, the facts of this case are relatively simple. However, this hardly was apparent to the investigators at the outset.

In the early morning hours of May 20, 1978, in the kitchen of her trailer home, Roxanne Barrilleaux was repeatedly stabbed with forks and butter knives until she bled to death. Her body was discovered later that morning after a neighbor observed her eighteen-month-old child at the trailer window covered with his mother's blood. At the time of the occurrence of her murder the victim's husband had been working off-shore and she had been alone with her child that night.

In a nearby house the defendant, David Jon Liner, lived with his wife and parents. He had spent the earlier part of that evening with the victim's brother, whom he had known for a number of years. Following this, the defendant went home where he became involved with a fight with his wife.

After the fight, the defendant departed from his home and, upon seeing Roxanne's trailer, he went over and knocked. She answered the door in her night clothes and invited him inside. She apparently rejected sexual advances made by him and, as subsequently indicated by the evidence developed, he grabbed a knife from a kitchen drawer and stabbed her repeatedly until the knife broke. After that he grabbed other kitchen instruments and continued to stab her. On the handle of the oven door the defendant's fingerprint was subsequently found and in the blood on the floor were found sneaker prints which subsequently were identified as his.

During the days which followed, the defendant and many other people were interviewed. *509 Approximately three weeks after the murder, on June 11, 1978, the defendant was again interviewed and fingerprinted. Eventually, David Jon Liner confessed in full detail to the murder. The fact that the defendant was not a major suspect at the outset and the fact that the development of the case was a gradually accumulating process, during which other individuals in the area were questioned, is a significant part of the back drop of this case.

I.

THE ISSUE OF THE DEFENDANT'S SANITY

The evidence of the State presented at the trial consisted entirely of the taped recordings made during the course of the police interviews with the defendant. These particular tapes were made over a four-day period from June 11, 1978, to June 14, 1978. In each succeeding tape the defendant related more and more honestly the details of his involvement in the murder, correcting earlier tapes and lies and adding new details and admissions.

The defense counsel's presentation of evidence of the defendant's insanity consisted of the testimony of: defendant's wife, his maternal grandfather, his father, his mother, his brother and his sister. Each of these members of his family testified that the defendant was not having an affair with Roxanna Barrilleaux. It is important to point out, however, that on cross-examination the defendant's brother and sister testified firmly that they had never thought that their brother was insane.

In addition to the foregoing, the principal witnesses presented in behalf of the defendant were Dr. Nathan Lubin, a psychologist, and Dr. Kenneth Ritter, a psychiatrist. By stipulation with the State each doctor was qualified as an expert—Dr. Lubin as an expert psychologist and Dr. Ritter as an expert in the field of psychiatry. Each of the two doctors affirmatively stated that he had concluded that the defendant was psychotic, a schizophrenic and paranoid type, and that he had been so for at least ten years. Dr. Lubin refused to define the defendant's mental illness in terms of the ability to discern right from wrong but he did testify that the defendant was unable to function "in the right fashion" and could not control his actions. Dr. Ritter, on the other hand, specifically found that the defendant did not know the difference between right and wrong on the night of the homicide and that he was "legally insane".

The State presented no rebuttal testimony on the sanity question after the defense rested. The defense took the position that this amounted to a failure to present any evidence to refute the contention that the defendant was insane at the time he committed the crime, as required by State v. Poree, 386 So.2d 1331 (La.1980). (On rehearing).

However, although in Poree the State did present certain rebuttal witnesses on the sanity issue, the Poree court did not find that the jury's finding of sanity necessarily had to be restricted to evidence presented on the State's rebuttal nor even restricted to evidence presented by the State. The Poree court merely held that the record must contain some evidence of sanity, capability of distinguishing right from wrong. Poree, supra, at 1339. Accordingly, it cannot herein be concluded—simply because evidence tending to indicate sanity did not surface during rebuttal—that such evidence cannot be weighed. And furthermore, this court specifically has held that all the evidence, including both expert and lay testimony and conduct and action of the defendant, should be considered by the jury in determining sanity. State v. Daigle, 344 So.2d 1380 (La.1977).

However, it must be observed that there has been some refinement of the standard of review with regard to the Poree concept of "some evidence". More precisely, the concept has been implicitly qualified by State v. Roy, 395 So.2d 665 (La.1981), in which this court applied Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979), to the affirmative insanity defense. The Jackson case held that due process requires the jury verdict of sanity *510 be overturned if "viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution... the defendant established the affirmative defense of insanity by a preponderance of the evidence, and that no rational fact finder could have found him sane on the record evidence."

In Roy, supra (in Per Curiam denying Rehearing), this qualification subsequently was clarified by this court: "... When we said that Roy had proved his insanity by a preponderance of the evidence, we meant simply that, applying Jackson v. Virginia...

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

State of Louisiana v. Jewel Demon Humphrey
Louisiana Court of Appeal, 2023
State of Louisiana v. Jeffrey Clark
220 So. 3d 583 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 2016)
State of Louisiana v. Fermichael Harrison
Louisiana Court of Appeal, 2014
State v. Law
110 So. 3d 1271 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 2013)
State of Louisiana v. Demarcus W. Law
Louisiana Court of Appeal, 2013
State v. Matthews
859 So. 2d 863 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 2003)
State v. Franklin
803 So. 2d 1057 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 2001)
State v. Castleberry
758 So. 2d 749 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1999)
State v. Letulier
750 So. 2d 784 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1998)
State v. Smith
687 So. 2d 529 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1996)
State v. Hampton
687 So. 2d 505 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1996)
State v. Thomas
683 So. 2d 1272 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1996)
State v. Peters
643 So. 2d 1222 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1994)
State v. Tucker
591 So. 2d 1208 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1991)
State v. Lee
559 So. 2d 1310 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1990)
State v. Hall
549 So. 2d 373 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1989)
State v. Tyler
548 So. 2d 24 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1989)
State v. Lozard
542 So. 2d 707 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1989)
State v. Freeman
503 So. 2d 753 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1987)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
397 So. 2d 506, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-liner-la-1981.