State v. Sellers

128 So. 3d 1235, 2013 WL 6091493, 2013 La. App. LEXIS 2373
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedNovember 20, 2013
DocketNo. 48,515-KA
StatusPublished

This text of 128 So. 3d 1235 (State v. Sellers) 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. Sellers, 128 So. 3d 1235, 2013 WL 6091493, 2013 La. App. LEXIS 2373 (La. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinion

MOORE, J.

|, After a jury found the defendant, Robert James Sellers, Jr., guilty of aggravated battery and attempted incest in violation of La. R.S. 14:34 and 14:78, respectively, the trial court imposed sentences of seven years and ten years for each count, to be served concurrently. The defendant filed this appeal challenging the sufficiency of evidence to support the convictions and the constitutionality of the harsh sentences. For the following reasons, we affirm the defendant’s convictions, vacate the sentences, and remand with instructions for resentencing.

FACTS

The defendant, Robert James Sellers, Jr., suffers from mild mental retardation. He has an IQ of 65, difficulty understanding language, a significant speech impediment, and several social and psychological disorders that make it very difficult for him to cope with ordinary life situations. Dr. Mark Vigen, an expert in forensic psychology, characterized Mr. Sellers’ disabilities to the jury:

[TJhis is a man who has significant cognitive limitations, you know, [his] testing in school as a student and then as an adult person with limited cognitive abilities. He has social disabilities. He has language disabilities. And all these factors including poor school performance, poor work performance, poor social performance, I’m merely telling the Court that these all — he has minimal abilities to really handle life well. He’s a dis— he’s a man with significant disabilities. And he’s — he’s not functioned well in life because of these disabilities.

According to Dr. Vigen, Robert’s mental disabilities placed him in the lowest one percent of the population.

| gSimilarly, Dr. Richard Williams, an expert in forensic psychiatry, also examined Mr. Sellers as part of the sanity commission.1 At trial, he reviewed several of the factors he considered in his competency evaluation, and he commented on where Mr. Sellers stood in relation to the norm of the general population:

So I’d give a rate of where — of basically how they’re functioning. That has to do with dealing with people, coping with their world. And I give him a 50, 55. So he’s 50 or 55. Somebody who’s psychotic out of touch [sic ] with reality that probably needs hospitalization would be — probably 20 or 25. Someone who’s functioning in here today is, you know, we’re all 80, 85 or above. So that’s kind of where I see him.

Robert had a history of problems in the home and at school. His mother, Barbara Sellers, testified that Robert’s father, now deceased, abused Robert because of his limitations. She testified that her husband [1238]*1238sexually molested their daughters, and she suspected that he may have molested Robert based upon comments made to her by her younger daughter, Trish. Robert’s father physically abused him, reportedly beating him with a whip. In addition to his mental retardation, Robert was born with a double-cleft palate only partially repaired by surgery, leaving him with a speech impediment. He suffers from dys-thymia (general, long-term depression) and is socially withdrawn.

At the time of the incident from which these proceedings arose, Robert was 26 years old and living in a mobile home with his mother. The home is located in a secluded rural area of Bossier Parish on approximately 125 acres of land that the family members inherited from their father and |,^partitioned among themselves. However, Robert donated his share of land inheritance to his mother.

Latrisha “Trish” Schact, the younger of Robert’s two older sisters, testified that Robert had been physically abused by their father and had expressed suicidal thoughts at a young age. Deputy Bill Mazike of the Bossier Parish Sheriffs Office (BPSO) testified that in 1996 or 1997, he was dispatched to the trailer to search for Robert, who had taken a butcher knife into a wooded area stating that he intended to commit suicide. Robert was found and later taken to a hospital.

On the morning of November 28, 2009, Barbara and Robert were home alone. Barbara testified that she was awakened by Robert knocking on her bedroom door. He told her he needed to talk. She testified that she got up and “[w]ent into the kitchen, got me a diet coke, popped it, [and] took my medicine.” Then,

.... He walked up behind me, patted my butt. I said, Robert you know this is wrong now back off. I thought he backed off and I started walking toward my bedroom. He came up behind me and started pulling my pajama bottoms down....
[[Image here]]
He just started pulling my pants up— my pants down. And I kept saying, Robert back off, back off. And he just kept on. He was just in a different world. Usually when he starts something like this I usually can call him off. But it didn’t go off. He finally got my pajamas off. I fell on the floor. He tried to finger me. I said, you touch me, you better not. I managed to get back up and try to run to my bathroom. He’s still right on top of me. I fell again. He went to try to finger me again. And that’s when I hollered and said, if you touch me in any form of way you might as well kill me. I am your mother.

Barbara testified she was able to get away from Robert and managed to get into her bathroom and lock the door.

|4Asked if she had felt Robert physically tried to touch her vagina, Barbara said, “It felt a little like he rubbed, but that’s about it.”

Asked if Robei’t had ever attempted something like this before, she said,

He has tried to, you know, not as— like this time. He would touch, you know, come in pop my bottom and say it’s mine. And I would say, no it’s mine back off. Usually he would back off but that one day he would not back off. He was, you know, in a different world.

Elaborating on this, she said: “He had glassy eyes like he was angry, real hostile, you know, wanting to push me and — onto the different — the beds and all.”

Coming out of the locked bathroom after a while, Barbara left the trailer and drove to the nearby home of her daughter Trish. She testified that she did not see Robert in the trailer when she left and did not see [1239]*1239him until he returned the next day. She told Trish about the incident and sought advice on how they could obtain help for Robert. Barbara said that Trish’s husband agreed that they needed to seek help for Robert, and he suggested that they contact a Mr. Bobby Masters for advice. According to Trish, Mr. Masters was a former detective for Bossier Parish and a close friend of theirs. Barbara and Trish spoke with Masters, who advised them to call the BPSO, which dispatched Deputy Carroll Parker to the home to detain Robert for a civil commitment. However, Robert could not be located when the deputies arrived at the home. He had apparently fled into the nearby woods. Deputies proceeded to search for Robert. Trish warned that Robert had his rifle and had said that he would shoot anyone that got in his way. IsAfter an unsuccessful day-long search for Robert, Barbara suggested that they call it off, believing that Robert would return home on his own as he had done in the past.

Robert did return home the next day, and closed himself up in his room. Barbara tried several times to speak with him. Robert stated that he wanted to kill himself. She saw Robert place the rifle’s muzzle in his mouth. Barbara feared he was going out in the woods to commit suicide.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
128 So. 3d 1235, 2013 WL 6091493, 2013 La. App. LEXIS 2373, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-sellers-lactapp-2013.