State v. Salter

733 So. 2d 58, 1999 WL 93187
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedFebruary 24, 1999
Docket31,633-KA
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 733 So. 2d 58 (State v. Salter) 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. Salter, 733 So. 2d 58, 1999 WL 93187 (La. Ct. App. 1999).

Opinion

733 So.2d 58 (1999)

STATE of Louisiana, Appellee,
v.
William Joel SALTER, Appellant.

No. 31,633-KA.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Second Circuit.

February 24, 1999.

*60 Steven R. Thomas, Mansfield, Amy C. Ellender, Mer Rouge, Counsel for Appellant.

Richard Ieyoub, Attorney General, Don Burkett, District Attorney, Richard Z. Johnson, Jr., Anna Garcie, Assistant District Attorneys, Counsel for Appellee.

Before NORRIS, GASKINS and KOSTELKA, JJ.

GASKINS, J.

The defendant, William Joel Salter, was originally charged with three counts of attempted first degree murder. At trial, the defendant admitted to the shootings, but he claimed that he acted in self-defense. A jury convicted him of three counts of attempted manslaughter, in violation of La. R.S. 14:31 and 14:27. The trial court imposed concurrent sentences of 10 years at hard labor on each count. The defendant appealed. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm the defendant's convictions and sentences.

FACTS

On September 22, 1997, a series of confrontations between a group of young adults in Mansfield, Louisiana, culminated in the defendant shooting Solomon (Solan) Nussman, Eva McMellon, and Grady Lee Lewis.

Early in the day, Billy Hamilton had a hostile encounter with Scott Wisely, who was accompanied by Bill Campbell. Hamilton informed the defendant, Joel Salter, and several other friends of the episode. A group of these friends gathered to go "riding" in a pick-up truck that evening. The driver of the truck was Nanissa Terrell. Also riding in the cab of the truck were Chastity Jackson and Thomas Farris. In the bed of the truck were the defendant, Hamilton, and Matthew (Mack) Price. Also present in the back of the *61 truck were Clarence "Worm" Terrell, and Curtis "Bull" Terrell, Nanissa's brothers.

The group went to the residence of Kevin Robbins and Eva McMellon; they believed that Wisely also resided there. They drove past the house several times. On one pass by the house, there was a verbal exchange between the truck occupants and persons gathered outside of the house. The persons at the house included Robbins, Ms. McMellon, Wisely, Campbell, Breanna Endicott, Grady Lee Lewis and Solomon Nussman. At some point, the defendant drew a gun and fired two to three shots in the air. The truck then sped off.

Angered, Wisely and Campbell got in a gray Mustang and went in search of the truck occupants. Eventually, they found them at the Terrells' home in south Mansfield. A fight between Wisely and Hamilton quickly disintegrated into a "free-forall" brawl. Outnumbered, Wisely and Campbell lost the fight and left. As they departed, one of them threatened to kill the group at the Terrell house.

A second group consisting of Ms. McMellon, Ms. Endicott, Lewis, and Nussman also left the Robbins residence shortly after the confrontation with the truck occupants. Traveling in Lewis' white fourdoor Dodge, they first dropped off Ms. Endicott. They then began to go to the Terrells' residence. Maintaining that they had had no prior problems with them, the car occupants later testified that they wanted to confront the persons involved in the earlier incident to ascertain its cause.

En route to the Terrell residence, they encountered the departing Wisely and Campbell, who warned them to not go there. However, they proceeded. Lewis was driving, Nussman occupied the front passenger seat, and Ms. McMellon was seated directly behind the driver. No one in the car was armed with any weapon. According to their testimony, when they came over a hill close to the Terrell house, they saw a crowd gathered in the street and Lewis swerved to avoid hitting them.

The persons gathered in the street near the Terrells' house testified that they heard a car accelerate and then saw a white car coming at them. The group scattered. As the car left the road and went into the front yard, Curtis Terrell was struck; he hit the car hood and rolled off. Lewis placed the car in park, and the engine died.

Clarence Terrell ran to the driver's window of the car and began to beat Lewis through the partially open window. Ms. Terrell ran to where her brother Curtis lay on the ground. As Nussman began to try to open his car door, the defendant, who was on the passenger side of the car, began shooting into the vehicle.

Nussman was struck four times, first in the jaw, then the neck, the stomach, and the lower side. The driver, Lewis, was shot next. He was hit in the mouth, the back, and the leg. The back seat passenger, Ms. McMellon, was then shot in the arm.

When the defendant finished shooting, he ran from the scene. At trial, he claimed that he threw the gun away at some point during his flight. It was never recovered. Within two hours of the shooting, the defendant went to the police station at his sister's urging. He gave a voluntary statement in which he admitted the shootings at the Terrell residence but claimed that he "blanked out" and began firing. In the same statement, he lied about his actions at the Robbins house, claiming that not only had he not fired any shots there but that he did not even have the gun with him at that time. He was arrested that night for the shooting of Nussman, Lewis and Ms. McMellon.

Immediately after the shooting, Ms. Jackson drove the three gunshot victims to DeSoto General Hospital. Nussman and Lewis were airlifted to LSUMC in Shreveport. Nussman underwent surgery in which his gall bladder and a portion of one kidney were removed and his liver was *62 repaired. Lewis still has a bullet in his back as a result of the attack.

Curtis Terrell was also taken to the hospital, where he was treated for a fractured jaw and released within a few hours. He and his friends asserted at trial that they believed that Lewis deliberately tried to run them over. However, no charges were ever brought against Lewis for that incident.

The defendant was charged with three counts of attempted first degree murder. At trial, he contended that he believed that a drive-by shooting was in progress and that his life was in danger from the occupants of the car; he maintained that he shot them in self-defense. The jury rejected this defense but returned guilty verdicts on the lesser charge of attempted manslaughter. The trial court ordered a presentence investigation (PSI) report. After reviewing the report, the trial court sentenced the defendant to 10 years at hard labor on each count, the terms to be served concurrently. A timely motion to reconsider sentence was denied.

The defendant appeals. He assigns four errors.

SUFFICIENCY OF EVIDENCE

The defendant contends that, in light of his claim of self-defense, the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to convict him of attempted manslaughter. Such a claim is properly raised by a motion for a post verdict judgment of acquittal. La.C.Cr.P. art. 821. The record does not indicate that such a motion was filed. However, this court will review a sufficiency of the evidence issue even when it is raised solely by an assignment of error. State v. Green, 28,994 (La.App.2d Cir.2/26/97), 691 So.2d 1273.

The relevant inquiry when reviewing a conviction for the sufficiency of the evidence is whether, upon viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). That standard, initially enunciated in Jackson,

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
733 So. 2d 58, 1999 WL 93187, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-salter-lactapp-1999.