State v. Sparkman

5 So. 3d 891, 2008 La.App. 4 Cir. 0472, 2009 La. App. LEXIS 191, 2009 WL 213091
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedJanuary 28, 2009
Docket2008-KA-0472
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 5 So. 3d 891 (State v. Sparkman) 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. Sparkman, 5 So. 3d 891, 2008 La.App. 4 Cir. 0472, 2009 La. App. LEXIS 191, 2009 WL 213091 (La. Ct. App. 2009).

Opinions

JAMES F. McKAY, III, Judge.

| ,On January 23, 2007, the appellant was charged by bill of information with one count of violating La. R.S. 14:62, relative to simple burglary. He entered a not guilty plea at his arraignment on January 29, 2007. On March 13, 2007, a six person jury returned a verdict ■ of guilty as charged. On October 29, 2007, the appellant was found to be a second felony offender and sentenced to six years in the custody of the Louisiana Department of Corrections, with credit for time served.

STATEMENT OF FACT

Prior to Hurricane Katrina, Ethel Bell, the victim, resided for about twenty years at 2105 Fourth Street. The property was owned by her father Willie Williams and his wife Julie Williams (Ms. Bell’s stepmother). The defendant is the grandson of Julie Williams. This home is a double with two municipal addresses, 2105 and 2107 Fourth Street. As a result of Hurricane Katrina, Ms. Bell was forced to vacate the residence, leaving most of her possessions behind. The home was not damaged by the hurricane. In October of 2006, Ms. Bell returned to her residence to find that it had been ransacked. At trial, the State called three witnesses to the stand, Ms. Clara Jackson, Ms. Ethel Bell, and Ms. Doris Bryer.

|2Ms. Clara Jackson was the first witness. She testified that her mother, Ethel Bell, lived at 2105 Fourth Street in New Orleans prior to Hurricane Katrina. At the time of the burglary, no one actually lived in the house; it had been empty since the hurricane. The witness testified that she visited the house at least every other day to check up on it. On the Friday before the burglary she had checked the residence and did not notice any damage. She could not remember the exact date when she noticed that something was out of the ordinary, only that it was a Sunday. On that day she noticed that the windows were broken in the back of the house, the air conditioner had been pushed in, and there was glass everywhere. She saw a cedar robe that was broken into, the lock was broken and it was empty. She testified that the cedar robe contained jewelry and other “nice things.”

Ms. Jackson identified the appellant as a person whose “grandmother had married her grandfather,” and was the person that she saw “just standing outside” in front of the house at 2105 Fourth Street on the [893]*893Sunday evening to which she referred earlier. She also recollected that there was a garbage bag sitting in front of the steps of the house. The witness said that she called to appellant, saying “someone has broken into Ethel’s house,” and the appellant replied, “Oh, maybe someone just broke into it to see what they could find.” She never saw the contents of the garbage bag.

On cross examination, the witness told the jury that she never saw appellant take anything and that appellant never said that he took anything from the house. Ms. Jackson confirmed that her grandfather, Willie Williams, and appellant’s grandmother, Julie Williams, were married. She also admitted that she had no idea who was the legal owner of the house.

| ¡;Ms. Ethel Bell, the second witness, testified that she has lived in Gloster, Mississippi since the storm. She lived at 2105 Fourth Street before Katrina for twenty years. She admitted that she did not own the house; rather, it was her father’s house (Willie Williams), describing it as a double with 2107 Fourth Street. When she moved to Mississippi, she locked the house. The building was not flooded, but sustained wind damage. She testified that her neighbor Ms. Bryer had contacted her sometime in October of 2006, to let her know that something was wrong with the house. She returned to find the window air conditioner at the back of the house pushed in, and the room ransacked. The doors to her cedar robe were broken in, and the lock to her cedar chest at the foot of her bed was broken. She reported missing jewelry, two men’s watches rings and bracelets. All of her sheets except one were gone; they were kept in the chest of drawers.

She identified the appellant as her father’s wife’s grandson, and she testified that appellant had never been given permission to go into the house.

On cross examination, Ms. Bell admitted that she did not see who pushed in the air conditioner or broke the locks on her furniture. When asked if she paid a mortgage note on the house, the witness answered “no”. She also admitted that the owners were the grandparents of the appellant who are both deceased, and that to her knowledge, succession proceedings had never been started.

Doris Bryer, the state’s third and final witness, testified that she lives at 2103 Fourth Street, next to 2105 Fourth Street. She returned to her home in November of 2005 and was aware that Ms. Bell had not returned to her home. When asked on direct examination whether she had ever seen anyone enter the 2105 property other than the prior witnesses, she identified the appellant. She said that she met the appellant on a Thursday when “he came to me and knocked on my door, and told |4me that he was living there.” She and her daughter had come to do some cleaning that evening, and as she and her daughter got inside, he knocked on the door and said “I am staying next door.” She responded, “Well, what does that have to do with me?” The witness saw the appellant later that evening; she heard a noise in the alleyway and saw the appellant in the alley with a bicycle.

On that Friday morning, as she came out of her house and climbed into her truck, the appellant went over to “speak” to her “and I saw him put three bags across the street.” The bags that he was carrying “looked like a trash bag, white trash bag.” When asked if she could tell what was in the bags, the witness answered “no,” “they looked full and kind of bulky”. Then he got onto a bicycle and left. The bags were gone by that evening. She did not see who removed them. She [894]*894never saw the appellant break anything, but she did see him remove and then repair the handle on the door.

Under re-cross examination, the witness admitted that she did not keep the 2105 house under constant surveillance and did not actually live continuously at her own house. “I was living in it sometimes. I would spend maybe the weekend, sometimes during the week.... I never stayed the whole week”.

The state presented no other witnesses and rested its case.

ERRORS PATENT

There are no errors patent.

DISCUSSION

The appellant argues that the trial court erred in denying his motion for post verdict judgment of acquittal upon the insufficiency of the evidence to support his conviction and his motion for a new trial pursuant to La.C.Cr. Pro. art. 851(1).

[¿The Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure does not provide for the mechanism of a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. As to the denial of defendant’s motion for new trial, the stated grounds for the motion pursuant to La. C.Cr.P. art. 851(1) and (5) was that the verdict was contrary to the law and evidence and that the ends of justice would be served by the granting of a new trial. In State v. Snyder, 98-1078, p. 37, n. 21 (La.4/14/99), 750 So.2d 832, 859, n. 21, cert, granted, judgment vacated on other grounds, Snyder v. Louisiana, 545 U.S. 1137, 125 S.Ct. 2956, 162 L.Ed.2d 884 (2005), the court stated:

The denial of a motion for new trial based upon La.C.Cr.P. art. 851(1) is not subject to review on appeal. State v. Skelton,

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State v. Sparkman
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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
5 So. 3d 891, 2008 La.App. 4 Cir. 0472, 2009 La. App. LEXIS 191, 2009 WL 213091, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-sparkman-lactapp-2009.