Harry T. Lemmon

This case is a direct appeal from Cedric Jacobs's conviction for first-degree murder and death sentence arising from the shooting of Jason Oberling during an armed robbery in a restaurant parking lot. The principal issues on appeal were the prosecutor's allegedly racially motivated use of peremptory challenges during voir dire, claims of prosecutorial misconduct that prevented presentation of exculpatory evidence, and the admission of other crimes evidence in the guilt phase. The Louisiana Supreme Court rejected the Batson challenges, finding that objections to the first three strikes were untimely and that the prosecutor provided race-neutral explanations for the remaining strikes, while also holding that the other claims did not warrant reversal. The court affirmed the conviction and sentence after reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence linking Jacobs to the crime, including ballistic matches, eyewitness accounts, and items found on the defendant.

criminal lawcivil rightsprocedure

This case involved a former state prisoner's tort action against the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections for serious personal injuries sustained while performing renovation work at a correctional facility under DOC instructions. The State sought dismissal on the grounds that the plaintiff had not first exhausted the Corrections Administrative Remedy Procedure (CARP) under La.Rev.Stat. 15:1171-1179, which requires inmates to file claims administratively within thirty days and subjects decisions to limited judicial review. The Supreme Court of Louisiana granted certiorari to address whether CARP violates La. Const. art. V, § 16(A) by divesting district courts of their original jurisdiction over civil matters. The court held that the statute and implementing rules are unconstitutional as applied to inmate tort claims because they transfer original jurisdiction over these civil actions to an executive agency and impermissibly shorten the time for filing suit. The core reasoning centered on the constitutional text vesting district courts with original jurisdiction in all civil matters except workers' compensation and other specifically designated categories.

criminal lawproceduretorts & liability

The case concerned an expropriation action by the City of Baton Rouge and Parish of East Baton Rouge to acquire land owned by Johnca Properties for a road realignment project, in which the City-Parish sought to use expedited "quick taking" procedures under La.Rev.Stat. 48:441-460 via a local services agreement and references to DOTD statutes. The trial court denied the owner's motion to dismiss and allowed the quick taking based on the agreement, but the court of appeal dismissed the suit after finding multiple deficiencies in the petition and attachments that failed to meet the strict statutory requirements for invoking the procedure. The Supreme Court reviewed the relevant statutes, including La.Rev.Stat. 33:1329 and 48:1259, and addressed whether local authorities could utilize the quick taking process and what compliance was necessary.

propertyprocedure

The case involved a class action by New Orleans firefighters challenging Civil Service Commission rules that limited annual leave accrual and carryover under a 'use it or lose it' policy, provided fewer annual leave days than required, and granted less frequent and lower longevity pay increases than mandated by state law. The trial court granted partial summary judgment to the firefighters on liability for back and future pay, which the court of appeal affirmed. The Louisiana Supreme Court held that La. Rev. Stat. 33:1991-1999 set minimum benefits that could not be restricted by Commission rules, as the Legislature's plenary authority over firefighter compensation prevails over the Commission's power to adopt uniform pay scales, requiring the statutes to control where the two conflict. The court therefore upheld the firefighters' entitlement to the full statutory annual leave and longevity pay calculations.

labor & employment

This case involved riverboat gaming operators who sued the Louisiana Department of Revenue and Taxation for a refund of sales and use taxes paid under protest on gaming equipment such as slot machines and surveillance systems installed during vessel construction. The taxpayers claimed an exemption under La. Rev. Stat. 47:305.1A for materials that become component parts of vessels, relying on initial representations from a Department task force that the equipment qualified. Lower courts held that the equipment did not qualify for the exemption but ruled that detrimental reliance and equitable estoppel barred the Department from collecting the taxes. The Supreme Court of Louisiana decided that the taxes were due and that the doctrines of detrimental reliance and estoppel did not apply to prevent collection, even after the Department's change in position. The core reasoning was that the statute and administrative interpretations did not support binding estoppel against the state in this tax context, and the taxpayers were not entitled to relief from the non-punitive taxes owed.

taxesbusiness & regulatory

The case involved a dispute over whether a Louisiana court retained jurisdiction to modify a child support order after the parents and children had all relocated to other states. The Louisiana Supreme Court held that the original court lost continuing exclusive jurisdiction to modify the order under the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act once all parties moved away, though it retained authority to enforce the existing order. The court reasoned that UIFSA aims to prevent multiple conflicting orders by requiring modification petitions to be filed in a state with personal jurisdiction over the respondent where the statutory conditions for registration and modification are satisfied, placing the burden on the party seeking modification.

family lawprocedure

In State v. Poland, the defendant was convicted of manslaughter after the prosecutor introduced his grand jury testimony as substantive evidence during the state's case-in-chief at trial. The defendant had testified before the grand jury after being informed he was a target, waiving his rights with counsel present, and recounting his self-defense claim regarding the shooting of his cousin. The Louisiana Supreme Court reversed the conviction, holding that use of a defendant's grand jury testimony as direct evidence of guilt in a later prosecution violates the secrecy requirements of La. Code Crim. Proc. arts. 433 and 434, which mandate confidentiality of witness testimony and grand jury proceedings with no applicable exception here. The court reasoned that the constitutional and statutory framework protecting grand jury secrecy prohibits such disclosure even when the defendant voluntarily testified, distinguishing this from limited uses like impeachment.

criminal lawprocedure

This Louisiana criminal case involved defendant Gerard Bell's conviction for armed robbery of a bar, where the prosecution introduced evidence of his participation in a similar armed robbery two months earlier. The trial court admitted the other-crimes evidence to prove identity, but the court of appeal and supreme court agreed this was error because the incidents were not sufficiently distinctive. The supreme court nevertheless affirmed the conviction, holding that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt given the testimony of two co-perpetrators who directly implicated Bell as the getaway driver, along with corroborating physical evidence. The court reasoned that the jury's 10-2 verdict reflected a credibility assessment of the witnesses despite their potential motives, and that the evidence of guilt was otherwise overwhelming.

criminal lawprocedure

The case concerned whether a plaintiff's prior $100,000 settlement with a tortfeasor's liability insurer must be included when calculating if his remaining claim against his own UM insurer exceeds the $50,000 threshold for a jury trial under La. Code Civ. Proc. art. 1732(1). After the plaintiff sued Allstate for its $10,000 policy limits, the trial court struck the defendant's jury request, and the Fifth Circuit affirmed, holding that the statutory phrase "individual petitioner's cause of action" refers only to the amount sought from the lone remaining defendant. The Louisiana Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve a split with the Fourth Circuit, which had included pre-trial settlements in the calculation. The court examined the 1989 legislative change from "amount in dispute" to "cause of action" and concluded that prior settlements with other parties are not factored in when determining the monetary threshold against the defendant in the current suit.

procedure

The case concerned a dispute in a workers' compensation action between an injured employee and his former attorney over entitlement to attorney fees. After the trial court awarded the employee supplemental earnings benefits, medical expenses, penalties, and $15,000 in attorney fees under La. Rev. Stat. 23:1201F due to the insurers' untimely payments, the attorney sought to collect both those statutory fees (paid by the insurers) and an additional contractual contingency fee from the employee's recovery. The lower courts denied the attorney's request for the contractual fee on top of the statutory award. The Louisiana Supreme Court granted certiorari to address whether an attorney may recover both the penalty-based statutory fees and the contractual contingency fee, or whether one must be credited against the other.

labor & employment

This case involved plaintiff Cheryl Ann Brown Sommer bringing claims against the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, the Mississippi River Bridge Authority, and various individual and corporate defendants. The Louisiana Supreme Court denied the writ application seeking review of a lower court decision. Three justices dissented from the denial and indicated they would have granted the writ to consider the matter further. No substantive reasoning or analysis of the underlying claims was provided in the court's order.

torts & liabilityprocedure

This case involved a challenge by the Louisiana Municipal Association to portions of a 1999 statute that excluded tangible personal property purchased for lease or rent from local sales and use taxes. The Association sought to declare those provisions unconstitutional under La. Const. art. III, § 2(A)(2), which bars legislation on tax exemptions, exclusions, deductions, or credits during regular sessions in odd-numbered years. The state argued the restriction applied only to state taxes, while the plaintiffs contended it covered local taxes as well. The court reviewed the text and history of the 1993 constitutional amendment that added the prohibition and distinguished it from provisions on levying new taxes, along with related constitutional grants of legislative power over local tax exemptions.

taxes

The case was a direct appeal from a first-degree murder conviction and death sentence in Louisiana, arising from the rape and stabbing of a 67-year-old victim in her home. The defendant raised three principal issues: the trial court's denial of challenges for cause to prospective jurors during death-qualification voir dire, claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, and the admission of victim impact testimony in the penalty phase. The court examined the standards for juror impartiality under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments, the limits on victim impact evidence under Payne v. Tennessee, and related procedural requirements, applying them to the trial record to assess whether the rulings and evidence presentation were proper.

criminal lawprocedure

This judicial discipline case involved charges against Louisiana district judge Preston Aucoin for his practice of ordering 'instanter trials' immediately after arraignment in criminal non-support cases, without providing defendants notice or time to prepare a defense or call witnesses. The Judiciary Commission found that the judge had engaged in this procedure in one case reversed on appeal for due process violations and continued it in seventeen additional cases, constituting a pattern of egregious legal error that disregarded basic principles of notice and the right to present a defense. The Louisiana Supreme Court agreed that this conduct violated the Code of Judicial Conduct and the state constitution, as it denied fundamental rights and ignored an appellate ruling, and imposed the recommended sanction of public censure.

criminal lawprocedurecivil rights

This case was a workers' compensation action in which plaintiff Jack Edwards claimed permanent total disability from an occupational disease caused by daily workplace exposure to the neurotoxin styrene while employed at defendant Sawyer Industrial Plastics without protective equipment. The workers' compensation officer found that Edwards had proved causation and disability by a preponderance of the evidence and awarded benefits plus penalties and fees, but the court of appeal reversed, holding the evidence insufficient on causation. The Louisiana Supreme Court reviewed the lay testimony of Edwards and coworkers describing similar symptoms, along with expert medical and toxicological evidence linking the conditions to styrene exposure, and held that the record supported the officer's findings without manifest error. The court therefore reversed the court of appeal on the issues of causation and disability while remanding only for a ruling on expert witness fees.

labor & employmentenvironment

This case involved a dispute between former spouses Lynn Musso Junca and Harold J. Junca, Jr. The Louisiana Supreme Court denied the writ application, thereby declining to review the lower court's ruling. One justice noted that he would have granted the writ, but the court provided no further explanation for its decision.

family law

The case concerned a constitutional challenge to La. Rev. Stat. 14:98.1, which makes it a crime for a person under age 21 to operate a vehicle with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.02 percent or more. An 18-year-old defendant charged under the statute moved to quash the bill of information, arguing that the law violated the state constitution's equal protection guarantee by arbitrarily discriminating on the basis of age. The trial court twice declared the statute unconstitutional and granted the motion. On direct appeal, the Louisiana Supreme Court reviewed the classification in light of its prior decision in Manuel v. State, statistical evidence on alcohol-related crashes among young drivers, and the statute's purpose of enhancing traffic safety under a federal mandate for zero-tolerance laws.

criminal lawcivil rights

The case Ekere v. Dupont Chemical Plant reached the Supreme Court of Louisiana on a writ application filed by Ini Okon Ekere against the chemical company. The court issued a brief order denying the writ, which leaves any lower court decision in place without further review. One justice noted they were not on the panel, while another indicated they would have granted the writ. No substantive facts or legal analysis appear in the court's order.

procedure

This case concerned an employee injured in a car accident while driving his personal vehicle during work, who sought additional uninsured/underinsured motorist (UM) benefits from his employer's commercial auto insurer after other policies paid their limits. The trial court granted summary judgment for the employee, and the court of appeal affirmed by interpreting an exception within a UM exclusion endorsement as creating coverage for employees in private passenger autos. The Louisiana Supreme Court reversed, holding that an exception to an exclusion cannot expand the policy's definition of who qualifies as an insured, and that the employee did not meet the policy's insured criteria under either the UM or liability provisions to trigger mandatory UM coverage under state law.

torts & liabilitybusiness & regulatory

This case involved a lawsuit by the family of a deceased patient against a private hospital, alleging violations of the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) and Louisiana's anti-dumping statute for transferring the patient without stabilization, along with related medical malpractice claims. The Louisiana Supreme Court addressed whether these claims, when joined together, must first be submitted to a pre-suit medical review panel under the Louisiana Medical Malpractice Act before a court action could proceed. The court held that the EMTALA and anti-dumping claims are distinct from malpractice claims and are not subject to the panel requirement due to federal preemption of conflicting state procedures, while any separate malpractice allegations must go through the panel first. The decision turned on the procedural distinction between the federal statutory cause of action, which imposes strict liability for improper transfers, and traditional negligence-based malpractice claims.

healthcareprocedurefederal power