State v. Thomas

904 So. 2d 896, 2005 WL 1278086
Louisiana Court of Appeal·Decided May 31, 2005·No. 04-KA-1341, 04-KA-1342·Published·Cited by 17 cases

Opinion

904 So.2d 896 (2005)

STATE of Louisiana
v.
Elton L. THOMAS, Jr.

Nos. 04-KA-1341, 04-KA-1342.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Fifth Circuit.

May 31, 2005.

*898 Paul D. Connick, Jr., District Attorney, Terry M. Boudreaux, Desirée M. Valenti, Assistant District Attorneys, Gretna, Louisiana, for Plaintiff/Appellee, The State of Louisiana.

Holli Herrle-Castillo, Marrero, Louisiana, for Defendant/Appellant, Elton L. Thomas, Jr.

Panel composed of Judges MARION F. EDWARDS, SUSAN M. CHEHARDY, and CLARENCE E. McMANUS.

SUSAN M. CHEHARDY, Judge.

Elton L. Thomas appeals his convictions of armed robbery and aggravated battery, as well as his life sentence pursuant to a three-felony habitual offender adjudication. *899 We affirm, but remand for correction of a patent error.

This appeal involves two consolidated cases. In one of the cases, the Jefferson Parish District Attorney filed a bill of information charging Elton L. Thomas, Jr., the defendant herein, and Mary Uloho with armed robbery, in violation of La.R.S. 14:64. In a separate bill of information, Elton Thomas and Mary Thomas both were charged with aggravated battery. At arraignment Elton Thomas pleaded not guilty to both charges.

On June 27, 2001, after a hearing, the trial court denied the defendant's motions to suppress the evidence, identification and search warrant.[1] The defendant proceeded to trial before a jury on both charges, but the trial court declared a mistrial on March 27, 2002 because the State amended the armed robbery charge against Uloho to accessory after the fact.[2]

Another jury was selected on April 2, 2002 and the defendant proceeded to trial on both charges. The jury found the defendant guilty as charged the following day.[3] On May 16, 2002, the defendant appeared before the trial judge for sentencing. The defendant was sentenced to eighty years of imprisonment at hard labor without benefit of probation, parole, or suspension of sentence for the armed robbery conviction and to ten years of imprisonment at hard labor for the aggravated battery conviction, to be served concurrently with the armed robbery sentence. The defendant orally moved for an appeal, which the trial court granted.

That same day, the State filed a habitual offender bill of information, which alleged the defendant is a third-felony offender based on the underlying armed robbery conviction and two other convictions. The defendant denied the allegations. After a multiple-bill hearing on July 25, 2002, the trial judge found the defendant to be a third felony offender.[4]

On January 13, 2003, the original sentence was vacated and the defendant was sentenced under La.R.S. 15:529.1 to life imprisonment at hard labor without benefit of parole, probation, or suspension of sentence. Thereafter, the defendant moved for an oral appeal. After a convoluted series of events, this consolidated appeal is now before this Court.[5]

*900 FACTS

At approximately 11:30 a.m. on March 3, 2001, Terry Bean, an armored truck driver for Loomis Fargo, was the victim of an armed robbery at the Albertson's Grocery Store on Barataria Boulevard in Marrero. A short while earlier, the store manager (Jarrod Guichard) and Bean had been in the vault room, where Guichard had given Bean a bag containing $15,000 in cash and $19,000 in checks and deposits. As Bean left the vault room, he saw a black male wearing red sweat pants, who appeared to be shopping for a movie in the store's videotape section. When Bean was approximately three feet away, the man turned, pulled a gun on Bean, and ordered him to put his hands in the air. The man took Bean's gun and the bag of money. He then ordered Bean to lie on the ground, and Bean complied. The man struck Bean in the head with a gun three times and ran out the store.

When Guichard came out of the vault room, he saw Bean on the floor in a daze. Guichard saw some customers pointing toward the exit and ran in that direction. He saw an individual, wearing a red jump suit and what appeared to be a woman's wig, enter a late-model black Lincoln Towncar with a temporary license tag in the back window. The vehicle headed southbound on Barataria Boulevard.

Deputy Christopher Gui of the Jefferson Parish's Sheriff's Office responded to the scene. After interviewing witnesses, Deputy Gui learned that the perpetrator had run out of the store with a black female. He obtained a description of the female, the perpetrator and the vehicle. Thereafter, he turned the investigation over to the responding detectives.

While in Lafitte on an unrelated call, Deputy Brent Coussou heard a broadcast over the police radio describing the suspect and the vehicle involved in the armed robbery. Deputy Coussou saw a Lincoln that matched the description of the suspect's vehicle near the E-Z Serve in Lafitte. Coussou stopped the vehicle, ordered the passenger (later identified as co-defendant Mary Uloho) to place her hands on the ceiling of the car, and ordered the driver to step out. Coussou, with the assistance of another officer, handcuffed the driver, later identified as the defendant. Coussou observed that the defendant was wearing grey coveralls over red sweat pants. The defendant was handcuffed and placed in another officer's unit. Deputy Coussou saw a wig, a red hat and a red sweatshirt in the car. Because Uloho was being cooperative and because he had experienced problems with his handcuffs, Deputy Coussou placed Uloho unhandcuffed in the rear seat of his police car. When a female officer arrived on the scene, Uloho was removed from the unit and handcuffed.

Meanwhile, Detective John Carroll brought Guichard to the scene, where he identified the Lincoln as the one that had fled from Albertson's. Thereafter, Detective Carroll removed the defendant from the police unit and stood next to him while Detective Decker drove by with Bean, who positively identified the defendant as the person who robbed and struck him. Bean also positively identified the defendant in court.

*901 Thereafter, Detective Carroll transported the defendant to the Detective Bureau, where the defendant made a statement after waving his constitutional rights. The defendant gave his name as "Pablo Moses" and stated that he had just met Mary Uloho. The defendant claimed that she had nothing to do with the earlier events and that he was pressured into doing what he did.

That same day, the Lincoln was towed to the Detective Bureau. Detective Decker obtained a search warrant for the Lincoln, which Decker learned had been rented by Uloho. The resulting search yielded a purse containing two handguns, one of which belonged to Bean. Another handgun was recovered from the front seat of the Lincoln. All three weapons were loaded. A red sweatshirt, a black wig, a red hat and a bag containing $19,000 in checks and deposits were also recovered from the Lincoln. The cash was later discovered in Deputy Coussou's car. It was later determined that Uloho had stuffed the bags of cash under the seats while she was unhandcuffed.

Approximately one month later, Detective Decker showed photographic lineups to three witnesses, who positively identified the defendant as the perpetrator. Two of these witnesses, Stanley Williams and Seneca Williams, testified about the robbery in Albertson's and testified they had made positive identifications of the robber after viewing a photographic lineup.

ASSIGNMENT OF ERROR NUMBER ONE

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State v. Thomas, 904 So. 2d 896, 2005 WL 1278086 (La. Ct. App. 2005).

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