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State v. Guillory3/11/1998
caine to the Defendant and Tezeno. When asked this question, Bartie invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege. The trial court refused to order the State to grant Bartie immunity, and the State said if Bartie admitted selling crack cocaine, then it would consider filing criminal charges.
The Defendant does not state why Robert Bartie was a crucial defense witness; both the State and defense acknowledged that at one point, Mr. Bartie sold crack cocaine to the Defendant and Tezeno. Moreover, it is not known how this testimony would have helped the Defendant. As such, the trial court did not err in sustaining the objections of the State and in refusing to order the State to grant Mr. Bartie immunity from his admissions.
The Defendant added in a footnote that he was not allowed to show the videotape of his confession when he wanted to do so. The Defendant wanted to cross examine the State's witnesses by going through the videotaped confession and examining the accuracy of assertion made by the Defendant. The State objected to doing so during the presentation of its case-in-chief. The order of presentation of evidence is governed by La. Code Crim.P. art. 765, and the Defendant has cited no authority for varying the order of presenting evidence; the State must present all of its evidence during its case-in-chief before the Defendant may present any evidence he may have. See State v. Thomas, 395 So.2d 802 (La. 1981). Also, neither the trial Judge nor the Defendant may control the manner in which the State chooses to present its evidence. Thus, this argument is without merit.
In summary, the Defendant argues that he was denied his constitutional right to present a defense. However, the Defendant's right to present a defense does not allow him to ignore the provisions of jurisprudence and the Code of Evidence. We find no merit in these arguments.
ARGUMENT NO. 4 Ä ASSIGNMENT OF ERROR NOS. 9, 11, & 13
The fourth argument of the Defendant is that he was improperly prevented from confronting a witness against him. Again, this argument contains several separate issues. The summary of this argument is that the Defendant was not allowed to introduce impeachment evidence.
First, the Defendant complains that he was limited in his impeachment of Mickle Cady. The Defendant could not introduce the record of Cady's pending criminal charges. La.C.E. art. 609.1 limits impeachment to convictions and not arrests or pending charges. The Defendant was able to present to the jury the record of Cady's prior convictions. We find no merit in this argument since during the State's direct examination of Cady, he acknowledged he had been in jail for pending charges of illegal possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, possession of CDS and failure to pay child support .
What the Defendant wanted to present to the jury was that Cady had worked out a "deal" with the State. Both the State and Cady denied that there was any "deal." However, Linda Mitchell, a former girlfriend of Cady, testified that he told her he had a "deal" with the State concerning a court case in which he would have to return to Lake Charles and testify. The Defendant introduced Linda Mitchell's testimony about' Cady's admission to her that he had worked out a "deal" with the police for his testimony against the Defendant. The jury was free to accept or reject, in whole or in part, the testimony of the witnesses. Thus, the Defendant was able to impeach Cady.
The second issue raised by the Defendant is that he was not allowed to establish that Tezeno committed the sexual assault on Robert Dougay. When the police discovered the bodies of the victims, it was apparent that the body
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