State v. JonesState v. Jones
In this prosecution for first degree murder following the death of respondent‘s 22-month-old daughter, Aspen, respondent entered a guilty plea to manslaughter,
First, respondent challenged only his sentence in the court below, not his underlying conviction. In State v. Guzman, 99-1528, p. 6 (La.5/16/00), 769 So.2d 1158, 1162, this Court overruled its prior decision in State v. Godejohn, 425 So.2d 750, 751 (La.1983), and made clear that a guilty plea colloquy is not part of the record for purposes of error patent review. See also State v. Filer, 00-0073 (La.6/30/00), 762 So.2d 1080. A reviewing court may therefore not enforce the requirements of
However, the question on sentence review is not whether another sentence would have been more appropriate but whether the trial court abused its broad sentencing discretion. State v. Cook, 95-2784, p. 3 (La.5/31/96), 674 So.2d 957, 959. In the present case, the evidence showed that in the summer of 1997 respondent returned to Louisiana with his daughter and her mother, moving into the home of respondent‘s parents in Avoyelles Parish after they reconciled, just ahead of the Michigan child protection authorities who had initiated an investigation into alleged abuse involving a head injury to the child. Four months later, the victim died as the result of multiple hemorrhages in her brain. In his statements to the police after his daughter‘s death, and in his testimony at the hearing conducted by the court before imposing sentence, the defendant acknowledged that he had been aware in the days before his daughter‘s death that she was gravely ill, yet did not seek medical intervention because he feared that he would either lose custody of the child or face arrest for the injuries inflicted by the mother. Respondent specifically recalled two incidents over the summer of 1997 in which the mother threw her daughter to the grounds violently and that after the last occasion, he had observed the victim walk around haphazardly as if she were dizzy, stare at her toys with a blank affect, and roll her eyes back into her head. Despite these signs of neurological impairment, neither parent took any action until the afternoon of September 2, 1997, when the victim, who had suffered fresh bruises and cuts around her eyes and abrasions to her legs apparently after spending the morning alone with her mother, began experiencing respiratory distress, a symptom of brain stem injury. At last, the mother called emergency services and the victim, in critical condition, was rushed to the hospital in Bunkie, Louisiana, and then immediately transported by air to the LSU Medical Center in Shreveport. She died the next day.
According to the physicians who treated her in Bunkie and Shreveport, the victim had long passed the point of recovery by the time medical intervention occurred and would have remained helpless and bedridden even if she had somehow survived. At the hearing conducted on respondent‘s pre-trial motions, the parish coroner testified that the number of hemorrhage foci in the victim‘s brain and their differing ages excluded the possibility of accidental injuries. “In all probability,” the coroner testified, “this child was in an abusive state for some time, which very possibly could have had a certain amount of intercranial bleed for some time; and something happened on [September 2, 1997] that rolled it over from a minimal bleed or a moderate bleed to a massive bleed, with the end result being death.”
Cross-examination of respondent at the sentencing hearing ended with the following exchange concerning the days immediately before the victim‘s death:
Q. You knew she should have gone to the hospital.
A. Yes, sir.
Q. You knew that [the mother] was the one who inflicted that damage upon your child?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. [Y]ou were the only one that could have saved that child.... You could have prevented that child from being physically abused to the point of her death; is that correct? A. Yes, sir.
For the trial judge, who had initially determined on the basis of all available information to impose a light sentence because it appeared that respondent “simply was negligent in his parenting of Aspen...,” this exchange became the measure of respondent‘s moral culpability for the “abandonment of his child in her greatest hour of need.” Despite his guilty plea to manslaughter, respondent argued in the court of appeal that for purposes of evaluating the severity of the punishment imposed by the trial court his crime was more appropriately viewed as negligent homicide, a much less serious offense carrying a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment at hard labor.
Accordingly, the decision of the court of appeal is reversed and this case is remanded to the district court for execution of sentence.
JUDGMENT OF COURT OF APPEAL REVERSED; CASE REMANDED.
MURRAY, J. Ad Hoc, dissents and assigns reasons.
CALOGERO, C.J., dissents for the reasons assigned by MURRAY, J. Ad Hoc.
MURRAY, Judge Ad Hoc, Dissenting.
The majority is correct that the record herein provided a rational basis for the trial court‘s determination that Dwain Jones’ decision not to seek medical attention for his daughter, Aspen, contributed to the neurological crisis that ultimately caused her death. He was aware that Aspen had a head injury while the couple was living in Michigan, and he was not satisfied with Amy‘s explanation of how that injury occurred. He also saw Amy throw his baby to the ground on two occasions, and knew that the child was not
However, the trial court also found that Dwain Jones did not contemplate that his failure to act would cause the child serious harm, and that his criminal conduct resulted from circumstances that were unlikely to recur. The record supports both of these findings. In fact, the Avoylles coroner examined Aspen and ordered full-body x-rays, including x-rays of the child‘s head, just two months prior to Aspen‘s death. Based on the examination and x-rays, he found nothing that would warrant intervention or follow-up. Additionally, Dwain‘s mother saw Aspen in the days between the second incident and the morning that the child suffered the blows that resulted in her hospitalization and ultimate death1. Although she had raised three children, she noticed nothing wrong with the child. It, therefore, was not unreasonable for the court to conclude that Dwain did not contemplate the serious consequences that could result from his inaction.
In light of those mitigating circumstances, I believe that sentencing Dwain Jones to twenty years violates the constitutional prohibition against excessive sentences provided by Article 1, Section 20. I do not attempt to minimize the seriousness of Dwain Jones’ crime or ignore the fact that an innocent child is dead because he did not protect her. However, as this Court noted in State v. Sepulvado, 367 So.2d 762 (La.1979), a sentencing judge does not “possess unbridled discretion to impose a sentence within statutory limits, regardless of mitigating facts.” Id. at 770. A trial court‘s sentencing discretion should be exercised to impose sentences that are appropriate to the individual circumstances of the offense as well as to the offender.
The trial court herein assigned reasons for sentencing. In those reasons, it stated that the most important factor in its decision to impose a twenty year sentence was the case of State v. Sepulvado, 655 So.2d 623 (La.App. 2d Cir.1995), which it found to be very similar to Dwain Jones’ situation.
Mrs. Sepulvado, like Dwain Jones, was found to have failed to aid her child in his time of greatest need, and, as a consequence, her child died. Id. at 629. That, however, is the only similarity between the circumstances of the offense or the offender in the two cases. Unlike Dwain Jones, Mrs. Sepulvado, who received a twentyone year sentence for manslaughter in connection with the death of her six-year old son, actually physically abused her child. Although her actions paled in comparison to those of her husband, she admitted hitting her son, pulling his hair and striking him in the head several times. Id. at 625. In addition, she watched her husband, over a three day period,2 tie a rope around her son‘s neck and threaten to hang him, beat him, put his head in the toilet and flush, refuse to feed him, kick him from one room to another, and, finally, put him in a tub of scalding water. Id. at 625-626. The circumstances of the offense and the offender in Sepulvado cannot be equated with Dwain Jones and the circumstances of this case.
Because Dwain Jones did not personally physically abuse his daughter or contemplate that his failure to act to protect her would cause her serious harm, and because his criminal conduct is unlikely to recur, sentencing him to twenty years serves no purpose other than the needless infliction of pain and suffering. I, therefore, agree