Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

In March 2007, Plaintiff Joseph Trascher filed a petition in the district court seeking an ex parte order to perpetuate his testimony, alleging that he had been diagnosed with asbestosis in August 2006, and that it was unlikely that he would survive more than another six months. Plaintiff also alleged he sustained occupational exposures to asbestos while working as a tack welder at the Avondale Shipyard from 1960 to 1964, and at the Equitable Shipyard from 1965-1974. He requested service on these parties and a number of other parties he identified as expected defendants in his anticipated suit for damages.The district court granted the ex parte order and the videotaped perpetuation deposition was scheduled for April 3, 2007, at Plaintiff's home. The issue on appeal before the Supreme Court concerned the admissibility of the video deposition where the deposition was halted due to the deponent’s failing health and fatigue, and the deponent died before his deposition could be continued and before he could be cross-examined by opposing counsel. After reviewing the record and the applicable law, the Supreme Court found that while most of the video deposition was inadmissible, parts of the deposition were admissible under an exception to the hearsay rule.

The State charged Defendant-Respondent Aubrey Brown by bill of information with one count of simple burglary of a religious building, and one count of simple burglary. The two crimes were apparently unrelated and the State ultimately severed the second count before bringing Defendant to trial. A jury convicted Defendant by a non-unanimous vote. The trial court sentenced Defendant to twelve years imprisonment at hard labor without benefit of probation, parole, or suspension of sentence. On appeal, the First Circuit noted Defendant's conviction stemmed from a proceeding in which a six-person jury offense had been mistakenly tried in a 12-person jury. Accordingly, the court of appeal reversed his conviction and sentence, and remanded the case to the district court for further proceedings. The State appealed. Upon review, the Supreme Court reversed the court of appeal's judgment, finding that Defendant acquiesced to the error by actively participating the selection of the jury without objection at any stage of the proceedings, and thereby waived any relief on appeal on grounds that the panel selected was composed of a greater number of jurors than required by law. Accordingly, the decision of the court of appeal was reversed and the case was remanded for further proceedings.

As a consequence of a June 2006 storm, the stormwater drainage and storage system (including the wastewater treatment facility) at the Lake Charles refinery of Defendant CITGO Petroleum Company (CITGO), was filled beyond available capacity and overflowed, resulting in a major oil spill. Over 21 million gallons of waste, including 17 million gallons of contaminated wastewater and 4.2 million gallons of slop oil, escaped from the two existing wastewater storage tanks into an area around the tanks which was surrounded by levees or dikes. The oil spill, which was described at trial as "major" and "catastrophic," eventually contaminated over 100 miles of shoreline along the Calcasieu River, and required several months to clean up. Fourteen plaintiffs, employees of Ron Williams Construction (RWC) working at the Calcasieu Refining Company (CRC) south of the CITGO refinery, filed suit against CITGO and R&R Construction, Inc. (R&R) alleging various injuries due to their exposure to noxious gases emanating from the spill. CITGO and R&R stipulated that they were liable for the spill and agreed to pay plaintiffs for all their compensatory damages assessed to CITGO and R&R. After a two week bench trial, the district court ruled that plaintiffs had proved their injuries were caused by CITGO's admitted negligence in allowing the spill. The court of appeal affirmed, holding that the district court's finding the spill caused plaintiffs' injuries was not an abuse of discretion. The Supreme Court granted review of this case to determine whether the courts below erred as to the allocation of fault, in awarding damages for fear of future injury, and in awarding punitive damages. In sum, the Court held that Louisiana's conflict of laws statutes did not provide for the application of the punitive damages laws of Texas or Oklahoma under the facts of this case, that plaintiffs proved that their damages were caused by their exposure to toxic chemicals contained in the oil spill, that plaintiffs are entitled to damages for fear of contracting cancer, and that CITGO did not produce at the hearing on summary judgment factual support sufficient to establish that it would be able to satisfy its evidentiary burden of proof at trial. The Court affirmed in part, and reversed in part. The case was remanded for further proceedings.

In what the state termed as "particularly egregious and predatory acts of contractor fraud in New Orleans" following Hurricane Katrina, 63-year-old Defendant-Respondent John Colvin, a former elected state representative in Alabama, entered guilty pleas in November 2009, to six counts of felony theft. The trial court ordered a presentence investigation and in 2010, conducted a sentencing hearing at which the victims on each count or members of their family, testified about their losses. The defense called several witnesses in mitigation. At the close of the hearing, the trial court sentenced respondent on each count to consecutive terms of 10 years imprisonment at hard labor, for a total of 60 years imprisonment at hard labor. On appeal, the Fourth Circuit affirmed Defendant's convictions but vacated his sentences as excessive and remanded the case to the trial court for resentencing. The Supreme Court granted the State's request to review the Fourth Circuit's decision and reversed, finding that given the circumstances in this case, there was no abuse of discretion. Accordingly, the sentences by the trial court were reinstated, and the case was remanded for execution of sentence.

Defendants Glen Dale Nelson and Melvin Goldman were convicted by jury of one count of illegal use of weapons, four counts of armed robbery, and one count of conspiracy to commit armed robbery. Both received substantial sentences as habitual offenders. Defendants appealed their convictions, asserting the trial court's handling of jury selection, specifically its handling of a "reverse-Batson" challenge by the State were all in error. Finding no error by the trial court, the court of appeal affirmed. The Supreme Court granted Defendants' writ applications to review the correctness of the court of appeal's decision. The sole issue was the reverse-Batson issue. In total, seventeen of the eighteen peremptory challenges exercised by Defendants were used to excuse white prospective jurors. The State used seven out of ten peremptory challenges to remove prospective black jurors. With a venire that was approximately thirty-three percent black, the eight jurors provisionally selected at that time were evenly divided along racial lines. The State urged a reverse-Batson objection, arguing that defense counsel had used their peremptory challenges to exclude white prospective jurors. The State further argued that because defense counsel conferred before striking prospective jurors, the court should consider their peremptory usage together for purposes of Batson. Upon review, the Court reversed the decision of the court of appeal, finding the trial court erred both in its application of Batson, and in formulating a remedy for the alleged Batson violation. Therefore, the Court reversed the decision of the court of appeal, vacated the convictions and sentences, and remanded the case to the trial court for a new trial.

The Supreme Court granted consolidated writ applications to address the majority opinion of the court of appeal which held the medical malpractice cap enunciated in La.R.S. 40:1299.42(B) was unconstitutional "to the extent it includes nurse practitioners within its ambit.” The Court reiterated its holding in "Butler v. Flint Goodrich Hospital of Dillard University," (508 U.S. 909 (1993)), which found the cap constitutional. Finding the cap to be applicable to all qualified healthcare providers under the Medical Malpractice Act, including nurse practitioners, the Louisiana Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the court of appeal in this respect. Additionally, the Court addressed two other assignments of error asserted by the Louisiana Patients' Compensation Fund and affirmed those portions of the court of appeal judgment. The effect of the Court's holding was to reinstate the trial court judgment in full.

The Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve a dispute as to the proper application of La. Const. art. I, sec. 17 as applied to this case. Specifically, the Court granted certiorari to determine whether a defendant loses the right to waive a trial by jury when the initial trial date was set within forty-five days of a pretrial proceeding and the district court indicated to the defendant a waiver was permissible. Defendant Gerald Chinn was charged by bill of information with three counts of attempted first degree murder and one count of aggravated criminal damage to property. Following a series of preliminary motions, a status conference was convened, and at that time, the State requested that the trial be set for a date forty-three days away. Defense counsel agreed to the trial date with the caveat that her client be allowed to waive his right to trial by jury. Following a brief colloquy with the defendant, the district court accepted the defendant’s jury-trial waiver, but the State objected. Finding that the court of appeal erred in ruling the defendant should not be allowed to waive his right to trial by jury under the unique facts of this case, the Supreme Court reversed the appellate court's decision and reinstated the ruling of the district court permitting the defendant to waive his right to trial by jury.

Defendant Terrance Carter was indicted in 2006 for the first degree murder of Corinthian Houston. After initially pleading not guilty, Defendant changed his plea to a dual plea of not guilty or not guilty by reason of insanity. The district court denied his motion to suppress his statements following a hearing conducted in 2008. After finding aggravating circumstances of aggravated kidnapping, second degree kidnapping, aggravated arson, and a victim under the age of 12 years, the jury returned with a unanimous recommendation that Defendant be sentenced to death. Defendant appealed his conviction and sentence of death, asserting twenty-five assignments of error and three supplemental assignments of error. The Supreme Court addressed the "most significant" of the alleged errors. After a thorough review of the law and the evidence, the Supreme Court affirmed Defendant's first-degree murder conviction and the imposition of the death sentence.

The Supreme Court granted certiorari to determine whether the court of appeal erred in finding that the amendments to the state sex offender registration statutes did not apply to Defendant Jimmy Smith, because application of those amended statutes would violate the prohibition set forth in the ex post facto clause of the state and federal constitutions. Defendant was convicted of two sex offenses prior to the enactment of the amendments to the sex offender registration statutes but before his initial registration period had expired. The amendments at issue increased the duration an offender is obligated to register and created a new requirement for sex offender designation codes on drivers' licenses and identification cards. The court of appeal found the 1999 amendment to former La. Rev. Stat. 15:542.1(H) (providing for a lifetime requirement to register for multiple offenders, did not apply to persons convicted of a sex offense prior to July 1997) and that the restriction code to be placed on an offender's driver's license or identification card requirements added by the legislature in 2006 did not apply to Defendant in this case. Upon review, the Supreme Court found that the 1999 amendment to former La. Rev. Stat. 15:542.1 applied to Defendant as a multiple sexual offender. Furthermore, the Court found no violation of the ex post facto clause in the application of the sex offender registration statutes to Defendant. The Court reversed the ruling of the court of appeal, and reinstated the district court's judgment denying Defendant's petition for injunctive and declaratory relief and ordering him to register as a lifetime sex offender.

The Supreme Court granted certiorari in this case to determine whether the district court erred in sua sponte declaring that the jury waiver procedure described in the Louisiana Constitution (Article 1, section 17A) was unconstitutional for "depriving [Defendant] of his due process guaranteed under the 5th and 14th Amendments to the United States Constitution." Defendant Timothy Bazile was indicted for second degree murder. His trial was set for October, 2011. At a September hearing, Defendant indicated he wished to waive his right to a jury trial, and the State objected. The State argued that Defendant's waiver was less than forty-five days from the trial date, and pressed to continue with a jury trial. The district court expressed doubt as to whether the federal constitution allowed the State to tell a defendant he couldn't have a jury trial "even on the day it's set for trial." Defense ultimately asked for a continuance, and a bench trial was reset for a few days later than the original trial date. The court found that La. Const. art. I, sec. 17(A) "effectively allowed the state to 'force' a defendant into deciding whether to be tried by a judge or jury. However, 'the decision to have a bench trial or jury trial rests with the defendant." The State appealed the district court's decision. Upon review, the Supreme Court concluded that because the constitutionality of the jury waiver procedure was never raised by Defendant, the Court found that the district court erred in declaring the jury waiver procedure unconstitutional.