State v. Starks

471 So. 2d 1029
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedJune 25, 1985
Docket84 KA 1494
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 471 So. 2d 1029 (State v. Starks) 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. Starks, 471 So. 2d 1029 (La. Ct. App. 1985).

Opinion

471 So.2d 1029 (1985)

STATE of Louisiana
v.
Willie STARKS.

No. 84 KA 1494.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, First Circuit.

June 25, 1985.

*1030 Ossie Brown, Dist. Atty. by Joe Lotwick, Asst. Dist. Atty., Baton Rouge, for plaintiff-appellee.

David Price, Asst. Public Defender, Public Defenders' Office, Baton Rouge, for defendant-appellant.

Before EDWARDS, SHORTESS and SAVOIE, JJ.

SAVOIE, Judge.

Willie Starks was charged by bill of information with simple burglary, in violation of LSA-R.S. 14:62. Starks was tried by a jury, which convicted him as charged, and he was subsequently sentenced to serve twelve years at hard labor, to run consecutively to any other sentence that he might now be serving. He has appealed, alleging five assignments of error, as follows:

1. The trial court erred when it ruled the state had satisfied defendant's discovery and Brady motions.
2. The trial court erred when it allowed state exhibit S-7 into evidence over defendant's objection.
3. The trial court erred when it allowed state exhibit S-10 into evidence over defendant's objection.
*1031 4. The trial court erred when it allowed state exhibits S-11 and S-12 into evidence over defendant's objection.
5. The trial court erred when it denied defendant's motion for a mistrial.

Assignment of error number three was not briefed and therefore is considered abandoned. Uniform Rules—Courts of Appeal, Rule 2-12.4. Stark's objection to the admission of state exhibit S-12 was not briefed and is therefore considered abandoned.[1]

Starks was charged with the burglary of Caruso's Grocery in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Celeste Caruso, a partial owner and manager of the store, testified at trial, and related that she arrived at the store early one morning and discovered that the front door had been tampered with. Mrs. Caruso did not enter the store, but instead immediately summoned the police. Upon inspection, she determined that a small safe had been broken into, and approximately $170.00 in coins and small bills had been removed. An apartment within the store had been ransacked, and a television set, a revolver, and a number of personal items had been removed.

Corporal Charles Raymond Wallace of the Baton Rouge City Police testified at the trial, relating that he had assisted the investigatory officers at the crime scene, and had dusted several items for fingerprints. Based in part on information furnished by Kenneth Starks, the brother of Starks and an employee of the grocery, the fingerprints obtained by Wallace were identified as those of Willie Starks. Starks was arrested approximately two weeks after the burglary.

ASSIGNMENTS OF ERROR NUMBER ONE AND FIVE

In these assignments of error, Starks argues that the trial court erred in ruling that the state had satisfied his discovery and Brady motions, and by failing to declare a mistrial when the fingerprint evidence was introduced.

Starks filed a motion for discovery in which he requested the state to produce the results or reports of scientific tests or experiments made in connection with or material to this case which were intended for use at trial and in the possession, custody, control or knowledge of the state, and a motion requesting the production of any exculpatory evidence to which he would be entitled. The state responded that it did not have material which would meet Starks' requests. Thereafter, Starks filed a supplemental motion for discovery, specifically requesting further information relative to the fingerprints which had been obtained, as follows:

1. How many fingerprints were lifted from the scene of the burglary?
2. From where were the fingerprints lifted at the scene of the burglary?
3. Which law enforcement officer or district attorney employee lifted the latent fingerprints?
4. How many latent prints matched the defendant's fingerprints?
5. From where at the scene was each latent print, which matched the defendant's fingerprints, lifted?
6. Who made the comparison between the latent prints and the defendant's fingerprints?
7. When and by whom were the set of defendant's fingerprints, which were used for comparison, taken?

The state filed an answer to Starks' supplemental motion, responding that the information was not discoverable. This response was not filed prior to trial, and was admitted as defense exhibit twelve.

The minutes reflect that a hearing was conducted on May 29, 1984, at which time the court determined that the motions for discovery and to produce exculpatory evidence *1032 had been satisfied. The record of that proceeding was not designated by Starks for transcription; although the ruling was assigned as error. Without the benefit of the evidence and testimony presented, the argument of counsel, and the reasons by the trial court, this court will not presume to determine the propriety of the trial court's ruling. Starks subsequently requested a mistrial on this basis, which was denied, and we will review the ruling on this issue.

Martha Hilburn, a latent print examiner for the Louisiana State Police, made the fingerprint identification of Starks and testified at trial with regard to the process. After showing the jury a transparency which illustrated the twelve points of similarity between Starks' known print and a latent print removed from the scene, Ms. Hilburn fingerprinted Starks in open court and compared his prints to the known print; again, the same twelve points of similarity were revealed, and she stated, in her expert opinion, that the prints were identical. Thereafter, in explaining the process that was used to make the original comparison, Ms. Hilburn testified that a known print was not actually compard to the print that was lifted at the crime scene because that print would be reversed in the process of removing it. She testified as follows:

... When a latent print is lifted with a transparency, it is actually picked up. When it's lifted with a rubber lift, it's like it is being peeled off of the surface, and this way it appears in reverse of what the known print would be, and when we are running short of time or have a heavy work load, at times we call on the crime lab to make a negative of this to photograph it and not print a picture, just submit the negative to us. We reverse the negative, and we look at the latent in the way that it should be because it's much quicker to make an identification in that position than it is to do it backwards.

She then testified that, because the fingerprint was removed with a rubber lift, this procedure was used in making the comparison, and indicated that it is the normal procedure for prints removed with the lift.

Defense counsel questioned Ms. Hilburn extensively regarding the fact that the known print was actually compared to a negative, and the negatives were shown to counsel. Starks did not request the opportunity to have the prints compared by an independent examiner.

At the close of the state's case, when the exhibits were presented for admission into evidence, out of the presence of the jury, Starks objected to the admission of the state exhibit consisting of the blowup transparency of the inked and latent prints because the original of the known print was not in evidence.

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Bluebook (online)
471 So. 2d 1029, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-starks-lactapp-1985.