State v. Lowdins

229 So. 3d 547
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedOctober 4, 2017
Docket17-157
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 229 So. 3d 547 (State v. Lowdins) 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. Lowdins, 229 So. 3d 547 (La. Ct. App. 2017).

Opinion

AMY, Judge.

| following police investigation of a domestic disturbance during which an officer was shot, the State charged the defendant, a prior felon, with attempted first degree murder and unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. A jury convicted the defendant as charged. The trial court sentenced the defendant to fifty years with the Department of Corrections for the attempted first degree murder charge and twenty years for the firearm charge, with the sentences to run concurrently. The defendant appeals. For the following reasons, we affirm with instructions.

Factual and Procedural Background

On June 23, 2014, Officer Ricky Benoit and Officer' Christopher Aguillard of the Jennings Police Department'arrived at a residence in résponse to a domestic disturbance call. According to Officer Benoit’s testimony,' the officers began speaking with a woman in the residence who was “crying uncontrollably” and “had a mark or ... as bleeding on her face as if she had been hit or struck.” Officer Benoit testifi'ed that he heard a noise and began to move throughout the residence in order to investigate the source, while Officer Aguillard continued to speak with the woman. Officer Benoit, testified that upon seeing movement, he yelled for the source of the movement to come out. Thereafter, Officer Benoit was shot in the neck and shoulder area, receiving disabling injuries. Officer Aguillárd testified that upon hearing the gunshot, he pursued and' successfully detained a;man fleeing the area from which the gunshot noise emanated. He identified the man as George: David Low-dins. Afterward, the defendant, George David Lowdins, was charged with attempted first degree murder, a violation of La. R.S. 14:30(A)(2) and 14:27, as well as unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, a violation of La.R.S. 14:95.1.

After originally pleading not guilty to the charges, the defendant filed a motion on October 16, 2014, to change his plea “from not guilty to guilty by reason of 12insanity.”1 On October 21, 2014, the trial court ordered the change in the.defendant’s plea “from not guilty to guilty by reason of insanity.”2 The defendant eventually filed another motion to change his plea, requesting a change “from not guilty to not guilty by reason of insanity.” The trial court, signed the order granting the plea change “from not guilty to not guilty by reason, of insanity.”3

The defendant also filed a motion for sanity commission as well as a motion for a psychiatric examination concerning his “competency to stand, trial and his insanity at the time of the offense with which [he] is charged.” The trial court granted the defendant’s motion for sanity commission and appointed Dr. Richard Edwards, III, a Louisiana family practice physician, and Dr. Alfred E. Buxton, PhD, MP, a Louisiana clinical/medical psychologist, to serve on the sanity commission and examine the defendant. After listening to the testimony of the members of the sanity commission, the trial court ruled the defendant competent, finding that he had “the capacity to understand the proceedings against him” as well as “the ability to assist his counsel in his defense[.]”

On December 10, 2015, the defendant filed another motion to change his plea in which he sought “to change his plea from not guilty and [sic] not guilty by reason of insanity.” On December 15, 2015, the trial . court denied the motion, referencing testimony from the sanity commission hearing. Subsequently, the matter advanced to trial, with the defendant maintaining a plea of not guilty.

laDuring voir dire, the defendant challenged certain jurors for cause, and these challenges were denied. Ultimately,' the defendant used all of his peremptory challenges before the end of voir dire. As such, one of the prospective jurors that the defendant challengfed-for cause was seated as a juror:

After trial, the jury returned a verdict of guilty of attempted first degree murder and guilty of unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. The trial court sentenced the defendant to serve fifty years for the attempted first degree murder conviction, and the trial court sentenced the defendant to serve thirty years without benefit of probation, suspension, or parole for the firearm conviction. The trial court ordered that the sentences run concurrently and that they be served with the Department of Corrections, The defendant orally presented a motion to reconsider the sentences based- on excessiveness. Upon noting an error in the explanation of the statutory maximum sentence on the firearm charge, the trial court amended that sentence tó twenty years without benefit of probation, suspension, or parole, but the trial court did not otherwise alter the sentences in response to the defendant’s motion. The trial court reiterated that the attempted first degree murder sentence and the amended firearm sentence were tó run concurrently. Thereafter, the defendant filed a motion in arrest of judgment based, in part, on a “tainted and bias [sic] jury[.]” The trial court denied that motion.

The defendant appeals his conviction, asserting as error that:

I. The Trial Court erred in denying Defense counsel’s challenges for cause.
II. The Trial Court erred in accepting Dr. Richard Edwards, III as an expert on forensic mental examinations.

| ¿Discussion

Errors Patent

In accordance with La.Code Crim.P. art. 920, all appeals are reviewed for errors patent. An-error patent is one which is “discoverable by a mere inspection of the pleadings and proceedings and without inspection of the evidence.” La. Code Crim.P. art. 920(2). On review, we note errors with regard to the sentences reflected in the minutes of the sentencing hearing. Namely, the minutes from the sentencing hearing indicate: “The- Court stated that there is a statutory clause of ‘without benefit of probation, parole or suspension of sentence’.” However, the transcript of the sentencing hearing reflects that this restriction was applied only to the defendant’s sentence for possession of a firearm by a eonvicted felon. If there is a conflict between the minutes and the transcript, the transcript prevails. State v. Wommack, 00-137 (La.App. 3 Cir. 6/7/00), 770 So.2d 365, writ denied, 00-2051 (La. 9/21/01), 797 So.2d 62. Accordingly, we instruct the trial court to correct- the sentencing minutes to .accurately reflect the transcript that the denial of probation, parole, or suspension of sentence was applied only' to the defendant’s sentence for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

Denials of Challenges for Cause

The defendant first questions the trial court’s denial of his challenges for cause of prospective jurors Byron Bennett, Frederick Fontenot, Mary Verret,4 Darlene Guidry, and Joshua Broussard as well as juror Shawn Williams. Recently, in State v. Clark, 12-0508, pp. 98-99 (La. 12/19/16), 220 So.3d 583, 663, petition for cert. filed (U.S. June 10, 2017) (No. 16-9541), the Louisiana Supreme Court discussed challenges for cause and the standard for appellate review of rulings on cause challenges as follows:

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

Related

State of Louisiana v. John Paul Simien
Louisiana Court of Appeal, 2022
Rentrop v. Arch Ins. Co.
241 So. 3d 357 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 2017)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
229 So. 3d 547, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-lowdins-lactapp-2017.