State v. Robertson

511 So. 2d 1237
Louisiana Court of Appeal·Decided August 19, 1987·No. 18801-KA·Published·Cited by 21 cases

Opinion

511 So.2d 1237 (1987)

STATE of Louisiana, Appellee,
v.
Wilbert ROBERTSON, Appellant.

No. 18801-KA.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Second Circuit.

August 19, 1987.
Rehearing Denied September 17, 1987.

*1239 Larry Johnson, Shreveport, for appellant.

William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Barbara B. Rutledge, Asst. Atty. Gen., Paul Carmouche, Dist. Atty., Fred Ratzburg, Asst. Dist. Atty., Shreveport, for appellee.

Before HALL, JASPER E. JONES and FRED W. JONES, Jr., JJ.

HALL, Chief Judge.

Defendant, Wilbert Robertson, was convicted after trial by jury of aggravated burglary in violation of LSA-R.S. 14:60 and of aggravated rape in violation of LSA-R.S. 14:42. He was acquitted of an additional aggravated burglary charge. After conviction, the district attorney filed an information accusing defendant of a prior felony conviction. LSA-R.S. 15:529.1. Defendant was subsequently adjudged an habitual offender. He was sentenced to fifty years at hard labor on the burglary conviction, and to life imprisonment at hard labor without probation, parole or suspension of sentence on the rape conviction. The sentences were ordered to run consecutively. Defendant appealed asserting eight assignments of error.

FACTS

During the early morning hours of March 30, 1985 the twenty year old female victim, alone in her house, was awakened by a male intruder standing in her bedroom doorway. The victim was able to see the intruder because the kitchen and bathroom lights had been left on. Momentarily, they stared directly at each other. As the victim attempted to move, the intruder sprang towards her. A scuffle ensued. The victim effectively fended off her attacker until she was struck in the head with a blow which she later described as "to hard to be his hand". The victim did not, however, know whether the assailant had a weapon.

After striking his victim a second time, the assailant covered her head with some sheets scattered about the bed. The assailant demanded to know where "the money" was located. Initially, she denied having any money but then told him where her purse could be found.

The assailant took $45.00 from her purse and left the bedroom but warned the victim that he was still in the house. He threatened to kill her if she moved. Minutes *1240 later, the assailant returned to the bedroom and the victim heard what sounded like a belt buckle hitting the floor. The assailant wrapped the sheets around the victim's head and raped her. The victim testified that she did not resist because the assailant had already struck her twice and she thought he had a weapon.

The police were summoned to the victim's house shortly after the incident occurred. The crime scene was secured and the point of entry, a window opening into a back bedroom, was dusted and latent fingerprints were discovered. Prints lifted from the victim's window positively matched the defendant's.

Tests for seminal fluid were positive. The seminal fluid came from a secretor of either "A" or "O" blood type. The victim's common law husband, who had intercourse with the victim hours prior to the rape, was a non-secretor of "O" blood. The defendant, however, was a secretor of "O" blood.

The victim identified the defendant as the assailant in photographic and physical lineups and in court.

ASSIGNMENT OF ERROR # 1

In his first assignment of error, defendant argues the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress, citing LSA-C.Cr.P. Art. 703(D) in support of this contention. Defendant, however, fails to point out what evidence should have been excluded or how he was prejudiced by its admission. He merely refers the court to the transcript of the hearing on the motion.

In a motion to suppress filed August 27, 1985, defendant asserted there was no probable cause for his arrest, therefore, any evidence obtained subsequent to that arrest should be suppressed. He also claimed that the search warrant issued for his "person, house, papers and effects" was not valid. Additionally, he argued that inculpatory statements made after his arrest were not voluntary. In a motion to suppress an identification filed November 14, 1985, defendant complained that the results of the line-up in which he was identified as an assailant should be held inadmissible because the line-up was conducted after a warrantless arrest and without probable cause and because the line-up was not conducted in a fair and impartial manner.

Based on lineup identifications by the victim and another person, the police officers had reasonable cause to believe that the defendant had committed an offense thereby justifying the warrantless arrest. The evidence clearly shows that statements made by the defendant were free and voluntary after advisement of his Miranda rights. Defendant's home was searched pursuant to valid written consent of the defendant and his common law wife. The home was searched again under a search warrant supported by probable cause. There is no indication that the lineups were suggestive or unreliable. To the contrary, they were conducted in a fair and impartial manner. Furthermore, most of the evidence involved in the motions to suppress was not used at trial.

This assignment of error, as argued and briefed, lacks merit.

ASSIGNMENTS OF ERROR # 2 AND # 7

By these assignments, defendant contends the trial court erred in refusing to quash the grand jury indictment which charged him with aggravated burglary and aggravated rape because the indictment violated the double jeopardy provisions of the Louisiana and United States Constitutions.

This court set forth the applicable jurisprudence in State v. Lockhart, 457 So.2d 176 (La.App.2d Cir.1984), later reaffirmed in State v. Jacobs, 493 So.2d 766, (La. App.2d Cir.1986), as follows:

The double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution, made applicable to the state through the Fourteenth Amendment, provides that no person shall be "subject for the same offenses to be twice put into jeopardy of life or limb." Article 1, Section 15 of the 1974 Louisiana Constitution contains a similar guarantee.
In State v. Knowles, 392 So.2d [651] 652 (La.1980), the Louisiana Supreme Court citing Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 52 S.Ct. 180, 76 L.Ed. 306 (1932), outlined the following *1241 criteria for examining violations of double jeopardy:
... The applicable rule is that where the same act or transaction constitutes a violation of two distinct statutory provisions, the test to be applied to determine whether there are two offenses or only one, is whether each provision requires proof of an additional fact which the other does not....

This test was held constitutionally required by the U.S. Supreme Court in Brown v. Ohio, 432 U.S. 161, 97 S.Ct. 2221, 53 L.Ed.2d 187 (1977), and is embodied in Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure Article 596:

Double jeopardy exists in a second trial only when the charge in that trial is: (1) identical with or a different grade of the same offense for which the defendant was in jeopardy in the first trial, whether or not a responsive verdict could have been rendered in the first trial as to the charge in the second trial; or (2) based on a part of a continuous offense for which the offense t

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