State v. Mitchell

278 So. 2d 48
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedMay 7, 1973
Docket52747
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 278 So. 2d 48 (State v. Mitchell) 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. Mitchell, 278 So. 2d 48 (La. 1973).

Opinion

278 So.2d 48 (1973)

STATE of Louisiana
v.
Hubert Thomas MITCHELL.

No. 52747.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

May 7, 1973.

*50 Andrews, Barry & DeSalvo, Dean A. Andrews, Jr., Michael F. Barry, New Orleans, for defendant-appellant.

William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., LeRoy Hartley, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jim Garrison, Dist. Atty., Louise Korns, Asst. Dist. Atty., for plaintiff-appellee.

BARHAM, Justice.

Hubert Thomas Mitchell was tried and found guilty on the charge of simply burglary. After conviction he was charged and adjudged guilty as a second felony offender and sentenced to serve 15 years at hard labor. Twenty-seven bills of exceptions have been perfected, briefed, and argued before this court.

Before trial a hearing was held to consider motions to suppress the defendant's confession, some physical evidence seized from defendant's apartment and automobile, and identifications of defendant by two witnesses. Bill of Exceptions No. 2 was taken to the denial of the motion to suppress the identifications by Joseph Impastato and David Sloane. Impastato was the maintenance supervisor of the Mirabeau Apartments where this simple burglary occurred. At about the time of the crime, which was committed in the afternoon, Impastato noticed an unknown man standing next to a parked car in the parking lot for the building, and watched him for a while. When Impastato learned of the burglary, he gave the police a description of the stranger he had seen. A week or so after the offense was committed, Impastato identified a photograph shown to *51 him by the police as that of the man he had seen that day. The photograph was of the defendant. The defendant argues that the identification procedures followed by the police on this occasion were so suggestive as to taint Impastato's identification and render his in-court testimony illegal under Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 88 S.Ct. 967, 19 L.Ed.2d 1247 (1968).

In State v. Jackson, 259 La. 957, 254 So.2d 259 (1971), we considered the application of the Simmons rationale, noting that the test to be applied was whether the photographic identification procedure was so impermissibly suggestive as to give rise to a substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification. Here, at the time of the identification of the photograph no discussion was had or suggestion made by the officer to Impastato. Although as a general rule the witness should be shown a group of photographs, there is no indication that Impastato made his identification of this picture because it was the only one shown to him. He had had a good opportunity to see the stranger during the daytime in an open area for several minutes. The in-court identification of the defendant was based upon Impastato's recollection of the defendant from the parking lot and independent of the photograph that had been shown to him. The objection to this identification is without merit.

The other identification of the defendant was made by David Sloane, who had seen a man of the defendant's description on the day a burglary was committed at the house across from his. Bill of Exceptions No. 1 was reserved in connection with Sloane's testimony on the motion to suppress the identification. The defendant's picture was identified by Sloane from a group of photographs shown to him by the police. Sloane had described the hair of the man he had seen at the time of the burglary as short and dark brown. At the hearing defense counsel asked Sloane how many men in the photographs shown to him had short, dark brown hair. The court sustained the State's objection to the question since the photographs were in black and white and the color of the hair of the men in the photographs could not be determined. It is obvious that the witness could not have said which men in the pictures had dark brown hair. It is even more important to note that there was no suggestiveness in the procedure followed by the police when they showed Sloane the photographs, and that his in-court identification was based upon his having seen the defendant at the scene of the burglary at the house across from his own. (Sloane's testimony and identification were offered to show guilty knowledge, system, and intent at the trial. This will be discussed later in connection with other bills of exceptions.) This in-court identification was also properly allowed.

Bill of Exceptions No. 3 was reserved to the overruling of the motion to suppress defendant's confession, and Bill of Exceptions No. 17 was taken during the trial when the court ruled, out of the presence of the jury while the State laid its predicate for the confession, that the confession was free and voluntary. The oral confession of the defendant was made under the following circumstances: Defendant was arrested by the Jefferson Parish sheriff's department at the request of the New Orleans police and turned over to the Orleans police. He was taken to headquarters and told he had been arrested in connection with 13 burglaries. While his constitutional rights were being read to him from the "Rights of Arrestee" form, he made this statement: "I did not pull all of those jobs, some, but not all those. Let it stand as it is now." The officer wrote the statement down at the bottom of the arrestee form. There is nothing in the record to support defendant's argument that he was interrogated before being given the constitutional warnings as prescribed by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). At the hearing on the motion to suppress, the defendant did not take the stand to *52 give his version of how the statement was made. We find that the trial judge was correct in ruling, both on the motion to suppress and at the trial, that the confession was knowingly and voluntarily made, being a spontaneous, volunteered statement given without compelling influence or custodial interrogation. In Miranda the United States Supreme Court said: "Volunteered statements of any kind are not barred by the Fifth Amendment and their admissibility is not affected by our holding today." See State v. Hall, 257 La. 253, 242 So.2d 239 (1970).

At the hearing on the motion to suppress a dress belonging to the victim of this burglary found in the defendant's apartment and some screwdrivers found in defendant's automobile, Bills of Exceptions Nos. 4 and 5 were taken when the court ruled these items were admissible. Bills of Exceptions Nos. 22 and 23 were reserved when the court allowed these items to be offered and introduced into evidence at the time of the trial.[*] Four arguments are presented in connection with the use of these items. First, the defendant argues that the warrant issued for the search of his apartment was illegal because the address was changed after the warrant was issued. The face of the warrant shows that the apartment designation was typed in as "C" but that a "3" was written over it. At the hearing Officer De Rose testified that he noted and corrected the error before he submitted the papers to the issuing judge. The trial judge accepted this explanation, and we find no error in this ruling. The officer had been to the apartment previously and would have known the correct apartment designation. The judge who signed the warrant testified that he could not remember anything about this particular warrant.

The second contention of the defendant is that the search and seizure made in his apartment were unconstitutional.

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

Related

State v. New Bethany Baptist Church
535 So. 2d 1214 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1988)
State v. Bouffanie
364 So. 2d 971 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1978)
State v. Robinson
353 So. 2d 1001 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1977)
State v. Simms
341 So. 2d 874 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1977)
State v. Tallie
337 So. 2d 504 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1976)
State v. Freetime
334 So. 2d 207 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1976)
Jones v. State
327 So. 2d 913 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama, 1975)
State v. Davalie
313 So. 2d 587 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1975)
State v. Forbes
310 So. 2d 569 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1975)
State v. Rhodes
308 So. 2d 770 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1975)
State v. Peters
298 So. 2d 276 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1974)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
278 So. 2d 48, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-mitchell-la-1973.