State v. Broussard

318 So.3d 319

STATE of Louisiana

v.Donald BROUSSARD

20-547

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Third Circuit.

4-14-2021

M. Bofill Duhé, District Attorney, W. Claire Howington, Assistant District Attorney, 300 Iberia Street, Suite 200, New Iberia, LA 70560, (337) 369-4420, COUNSEL FOR APPLICANT: State of Louisiana

Harry L. Daniels, III, Daniels & Washington, 38167 Post Office Road, Prairieville, LA 70769, (225) 346-6280, COUNSEL FOR DEFENDANT/RESPONDENT: Donald Broussard

Court composed of John D. Saunders, Van H. Kyzar, and Charles G. Fitzgerald, Judges.

KYZAR, Judge.

This matter is before the court on an application for a supervisory writ by the State of Louisiana, seeking review of the trial court's grant of a motion to quash a count in a bill of information charging the defendant, Donald Broussard, with aggravated obstruction of a highway. Exercising this court's discretionary jurisdiction to review the issue on a writ application as opposed to direct appeal, we grant the writ and make it peremptory, reversing the decision of the trial court and remanding the matter for further proceedings consistent herewith.¹

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On March 17, 2017, Defendant was charged by indictment with one count of manslaughter, a violation of La.R.S. 14:31, and one count of aggravated obstruction of a highway, a violation of La.R.S. 14:96. Before the commencement of Defendant's jury trial, the State severed the charge of aggravated obstruction of a highway and proceeded to trial on the manslaughter charge only. On October 18, 2018, the jury returned an 11-1 verdict for the lesser included offense of negligent homicide.

Defendant appealed his conviction, arguing that the evidence was insufficient to find his actions were an immediate and contributory cause of the victim's death and that the sentence imposed was excessive. This court, on rehearing, recognized as an error patent that the non-unanimous jury verdict was unconstitutional pursuant to the United States Supreme Court's holding in Ramos v. Louisiana , 590 U.S. ––––, 140 S.Ct. 1390, 206 L.Ed.2d 583 (2020). State v. Broussard , 19-792 (La.App. 3 Cir. 6/12/20), 299 So.3d 176. Accordingly, this court reversed Defendant's conviction for negligent homicide and remanded the case for a new trial. Id.

On July 6, 2020, the State filed an amended bill of information, charging Defendant with one count of negligent homicide, a violation of La.R.S. 14:32, and one count of aggravated obstruction of a highway, a violation of La.R.S. 14:96. Thereafter, on September 2, 2020, Defendant filed a "Motion to Quash Count 2 of the Bill of Information [In] Violation of the Double Jeopardy Clause." Defendant alleged that during his first trial for manslaughter, the State relied upon the aggravated obstruction of a highway charge as the underlying felony committed by Defendant when the victim was killed. By finding him guilty of the responsive verdict of negligent homicide, Defendant argued, the jury rejected the State's claim that the homicide occurred while Defendant committed aggravated obstruction of a highway. Accordingly, Defendant requested the charge of aggravated obstruction of a highway be quashed on the grounds of double jeopardy. At a hearing held October 12, 2020, the trial judge granted the motion to quash.

On October 15, 2020, the State filed a notice of intent to apply for supervisory writs, a request for stay, a request for return date, and a motion for transcripts. The trial court set the return date for November 12, 2020, ordered the matter stayed until the State's writ application was resolved, and ordered the court reporter to provide the parties with the October 12, 2020 transcript. On November 13, 2020, this court received the State's writ application, which was timely post-marked November 12, 2020.

We set forth the pertinent facts of the case here, as the previous decision of this court on rehearing did not do so, only addressing the constitutionality of the verdict as non-unanimous. On July 8, 2016, the victim, Rakeem Blakes, rear-ended a vehicle being driven by Defendant at a location near Highway 90 and Ambassador Caffery Parkway.² The victim immediately left the scene, causing Defendant to follow him in his car, while calling 911 and relaying the victim's license plate number. The dispatcher advised Defendant to return to the scene of the accident, but he did not do so. Various witnesses testified that both vehicles proceeded through traffic at high rates of speed. A witness testified that the victim looked scared as he was driving and that he looked back over his shoulder. Another witness agreed that the victim looked scared. In Iberia Parish, approximately nine miles away from the original scene, the victim apparently lost control of his vehicle and drove head-on into an eighteen-wheeler. The victim died, and his vehicle caught fire. Defendant stopped at the second scene; various witnesses described him as appearing to be angry.

At the October 12, 2020 hearing on the motion to quash, Defendant argued that at his first trial, the State relied upon the aggravated obstruction of a highway charge to prove manslaughter. He asserted that the jury's return of a verdict of negligent homicide revealed its rejection of the State's argument. Therefore, Defendant stated, "the issue as to aggravated obstruction of a highway ... has already been litigated ... [and] rejected[.]" In response, the State urged that the doctrine of collateral estoppel, as it relates to double jeopardy, requires a high level of certainty that the previous jury based its verdict solely on the issue in dispute and not on any other ground. In the present case, asserted the State, it is not possible to determine on what grounds the jury relied upon in reaching its verdict of guilty of the lesser offense of negligent homicide.

Further contesting the State's argument at hearing, Defendant argued that the temporal and causal elements discussed by the State were of "no moment." The only pertinent issue, Defendant asserted, was whether or not the jury heard evidence of aggravated obstruction of a highway and "foreclosed on it." Defendant asserted that if the State had proved its case of aggravated obstruction of a highway, the jury would have found Defendant guilty of manslaughter as charged. Because the jury heard evidence of aggravated obstruction of a highway and rejected that evidence in returning a lesser verdict, Defendant asked the trial judge to quash count two.

After hearing the above arguments, the trial court issued the following ruling:

BY THE COURT:

The record shows that the State presented predominantly aggravated obstruction of a highway as one of the requisite elements for the crime of vehicular negligence – negligent homicide, okay?

BY MS. HOWINGTON:

Well, the original charge was manslaughter, Your Honor.

BY THE COURT:

In looking at the jury instructions and the jury voir dire and the testimony given here, they seem to be focused on the aggravated obstruction of a highway. It was well litigated, and the jury rejected it.

So I'm going to grant your motion. I find double jeopardy. ....

Motion to quash is granted.

The State contends the trial court erred in granting Defendant's motion to quash. As there are no factual disputes to resolve in this writ application, only the trial court's application of the legal doctrine of collateral estoppel, we review the trial court's ruling de novo . State v. Thibodeaux , 19-609 (La.App. 4 Cir. 12/4/19), 286 So.3d 513.

The supreme court has stated the following regarding collateral estoppel:

The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment, however, also incorporates the doctrine of collateral estoppel. This component of the Double Jeopardy Clause was recognized by the United States Supreme Court in Ashe v. Swenson , 397 U.S. 436, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 25 L.Ed.2d 469 (1970). There, defendant was accused of being part of a group of masked men who robbed six men playing poker. The defendant was subsequently tried for the armed robbery of one of the card players, Donald Knight, and was acquitted after a jury trial. The state then brought petitioner to trial six weeks later, over his objections, for the armed robbery of another of the poker players who was robbed that night. Defendant was convicted at the conclusion of this second trial.

The Supreme Court, applying the doctrine of collateral estoppel it found implicit in the Double Jeopardy Clause, reversed defendant's conviction and held the acquittal in defendant's first trial precluded the state from charging him for the second offense. The Court stated that collateral estoppel "means simply that when an issue of ultimate fact has once been determined by a valid and final judgment, that issue cannot again be litigated between the same parties in any future lawsuit." Id . at 443, 90 S.Ct. at 1194. The Court also noted that, in criminal cases, the rule of collateral estoppel

is not to be applied with the hypertechnical and archaic approach of a 19th century pleading book, but with realism and rationality. Where a previous judgment of acquittal was based upon a general verdict, as is usually the case, this approach requires a court to "examine the record of a prior proceeding, taking into account the pleadings, evidence, charge, and other relevant matter, and conclude whether a rational jury could have grounded its verdict upon an issue other than that which the defendant seeks to foreclose from consideration."

Id. at 444, 90 S.Ct. at 1194 (internal citations omitted). The Court concluded that defendant could not be prosecuted a second time because, to convict defendant, the second jury would have to reach a conclusion directly contrary to that reached by the first jury.

This court has recognized Ashe's principle that collateral estoppel "is anchored in the Fifth Amendment guarantee against double jeopardy. In Louisiana, the application of the doctrine has been limited ‘to those cases where it is required by Ashe v. Swenson ...’ "

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