Opinion
2018 KA 1295
04-10-2019
STATE OF LOUISIANA v. RONDA MARIE GIROIR
Ellen Daigle Doskey Assistant District Attorney Houma, Louisiana Attorney for Plaintiff State of Louisiana Prentice L. White Baton Rouge, Louisiana Attorney for Defendant/Appellant Ronda Marie Giroir
NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION
APPEALED FROM THE 32nd JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT
TERREBONNE PARISH, LOUISIANA
DOCKET NUMBER 702,301 HONORABLE GEORGE J. LARKE JR., JUDGE Ellen Daigle Doskey
Assistant District Attorney
Houma, Louisiana Attorney for Plaintiff
State of Louisiana Prentice L. White
Baton Rouge, Louisiana Attorney for Defendant/Appellant
Ronda Marie Giroir BEFORE: McDONALD, CRAIN, and HOLDRIDGE, JJ. McDONALD, J.
The State charged defendant, Ronda Marie Giroir, by felony bill of information with one count of attempted second degree murder, a violation of LSA-R.S. 14:27 and LSA-R.S. 14:30.1. She pled not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity. After the trial court found her competent to stand trial, the jury found the defendant guilty as charged. The trial court sentenced her to 30 years imprisonment at hard labor, without benefit of probation, parole, or suspension of sentence. The defendant now appeals, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence. We affirm the conviction and sentence.
STATEMENT OF FACTS
On Friday, June 19, 2015, Dane Giroir, the victim, and his wife, the defendant, attended her 25th high school reunion at Vino, a bar in Houma, Louisiana. At the time, the defendant was taking prescription medications for anxiety and to help her stop smoking. Mr. Giroir described the defendant as being more irritable after she stopped smoking and began medications in early 2015. He characterized the months before the June 19th incident as "like walking on egg shells," because of the defendant's irritability and extreme reactions "over nothing." On June 19th, Mr. Giroir saw the defendant take her medications in the morning but did not see her take them again that day.
Mr. Giroir and the defendant arrived at Vino around 7:00 p.m. and drank "a good bit." Later during the evening, some of Mr. Giroir's friends also came to Vino. When Mr. Giroir saw the defendant dancing with a female friend, he passed by and stated, "Hey, why don't you bring her home with me[?]" At trial, he explained that the statement was intended as a joke, not as a serious proposal.
In response, the defendant became extremely angry, spun Mr. Giroir around, called him a "piece of s---," and began asking his friends if they wanted to "f---" her. Mitchell Trahan, one of Mr. Giroir's friends, thought the defendant's inquiry was strange and characterized her as "hammered" (i.e., intoxicated). Jai Pellegrin, one of Mr. Giroir's acquaintances, testified that it was clear during the argument that the defendant was angry at Mr. Giroir and not vice versa; he stated that Mr. Giroir was not yelling and the argument was not physical in nature. Embarrassed by the defendant's behavior, Mr. Giroir informed her that he was going home. The couple left Vino around 12:30 or 1:00 a.m. in the morning and continued to argue on the way home.
Once they returned to their apartment, the defendant pushed Mr. Giroir and said that he was not going to "hit [her] like that again," even though Mr. Giroir testified at trial that he did not understand this comment because he had never once hit her. The defendant then punched Mr. Giroir in the face; he pushed her aside and went to the bathroom. When he came out of the bathroom, the defendant was standing on his side of the bed with her .45 caliber revolver pointed at him. She pulled the trigger twice, but the gun did not fire. Mr. Giroir packed a bag with clothes and left the apartment. Upon reaching his vehicle, Mr. Giroir realized he had forgotten his phone and wallet and returned to the apartment to find them.
Mr. Giroir and the defendant crossed each other on the threshold of their apartment as he was entering and she was leaving; shortly afterwards, Mr. Giroir heard a loud boom. In a taped statement played at trial, Mr. Giroir indicated that the defendant had shot the tire out of one of their vehicles and then told him, "Now you can't go anywhere." When Mr. Giroir started to leave the apartment a second time, the defendant met him again, brandishing a snub nose .357 caliber handgun she kept in her car. Mr. Giroir asked the defendant, "Ronda, what the f--- are you going to do, shoot me?" She then pulled the trigger and shot him in the chest. At this point, the defendant called 911 and told the operator that she had shot her husband; after being transferred to the Sheriff's office, she stated she shot him because he was "being an a--hole." She also told the operator that her husband had hit and threatened her. At trial, Mr. Giroir denied hitting or threatening the defendant.
At trial, Mr. Giroir did not recall this particular exchange but noted that he was in the hospital and on strong pain medication when he gave this taped statement. Detective Laura Guise testified that the tire on a Ford Focus at the scene appeared to have been shot, and the crime lab report indicated the bullet jacket from beneath the Ford Focus and the bullet removed from Mr. Giroir's body during surgery both came from the defendant's snub nose .357 handgun.
Dr. Eric Jukes, a Terrebonne Parish deputy coroner and the State's expert witness in general surgery and trauma, testified that the victim was very lucky, because the bullet traveled a mere millimeter from the main pulmonary trunk, which would have been a fatal injury.
Dr. Mary Eschete, an expert in internal medicine and infectious diseases, evaluated the defendant to assess her mental condition at the time of the evaluation as well as at the time of the offense. During that evaluation, the defendant told Dr. Eschete that she took several Xanax and was drinking on the night in question. Dr. Eschete was unable to determine whether the defendant was sane at that time.
SUFFICIENCY OF THE EVIDENCE
In her sole assignment of error, the defendant claims the evidence was insufficient to support her conviction of attempted second degree murder and instead supports only a conviction of attempted manslaughter.
A conviction based on insufficient evidence cannot stand as it violates Due Process. See U.S. Const. amend. XIV; LSA-Const. art. I, §2. In evaluating the sufficiency of the evidence to support a conviction, a reviewing court must determine whether, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 2789, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). See LSA-C.Cr.P. art. 821B; State v. Ordodi, 06-0207 (La. 11/29/06), 946 So.2d 654, 660; State v. Mussall, 523 So.2d 1305, 1308-09 (La. 1988). The Jackson standard of review, incorporated in LSA-C.Cr.P. art. 821, is an objective standard for testing the overall evidence, both direct and circumstantial, for reasonable doubt. When analyzing circumstantial evidence, LSA-R.S. 15:438 provides that the factfinder must be satisfied the overall evidence excludes every reasonable hypothesis of innocence. See State v. Jefferson, 18-0037 (La. App. 1 Cir. 6/1/18), 2018 WL 2454474 *1.
When a conviction is based on both direct and circumstantial evidence, the reviewing court must resolve any conflict in the direct evidence by viewing that evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution. When the direct evidence is thus viewed, the facts established by the direct evidence and the facts reasonably inferred from the circumstantial evidence must be sufficient for a rational juror to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was guilty of every essential element of the crime. State v. Forrest, 16-1678 (La. App. 1 Cir. 9/21/17), 231 So.3d 865, 870, writ denied, 17-1683 (La. 6/15/18), 257 So.3d 687.
Second degree murder is the killing of a human being when the offender has a specific intent to kill or to inflict great bodily harm. LSA-R.S. 14:30.1A(1). Specific criminal intent is that state of mind that exists when the circumstances indicate the offender actively desired the prescribed criminal consequences to follow his act or failure to act. LSA-R.S. 14:10(1). Because it is a state of mind, specific intent need not be proven as a fact but may be inferred from the circumstances and the defendant's actions. State v. Mickelson, 12-2539 (La. 9/3/14), 149 So.3d 178, 182-83. For example, specific intent to kill may be inferred from a defendant's act of pointing a gun and firing at a person. State v. James, 17-1253 (La. App. 1 Cir. 2/27/18), 243 So.3d 717, 721, writ denied, 18-0419 (La. 1/8/19), 259 So.3d 1024.
Any person who, having a specific intent to commit a crime, does or omits an act for the purpose of and tending directly toward the accomplishing of his object is guilty of an attempt to commit the offense intended; and it shall be immaterial whether, under the circumstances, he would have actually accomplished his purpose. LSA-R.S. 14:27A.
The gravamen of attempted second degree murder is the specific intent to kill and the commission of an overt act tending toward the accomplishment of that goal. Although the statute for the completed crime of second degree murder allows for a conviction based on "specific intent to kill or to inflict great bodily harm," attempted second degree murder requires specific intent to kill. See LSA-R.S. 14:30.1A(1) and 14:27A (emphasis added); State v. Martin, 11-1843 (La. App. 1 Cir. 5/2/12), 92 So.3d 1027, 1031.
Manslaughter is a homicide which would be either first or second degree murder, but the offense is committed in sudden passion or heat of blood immediately caused by provocation sufficient to deprive an average person of his self-control and cool reflection. Provocation shall not reduce a homicide to manslaughter if the jury finds that the offender's blood had actually cooled, or that an average person's blood would have cooled, at the time the offense was committed. LSA-R.S. 14:31A(1). "Sudden passion" and "heat of blood" are not elements of the offense of manslaughter; rather, they are mitigating factors in the nature of a defense. If a defendant establishes those factors by a preponderance of the evidence, a murder verdict is not appropriate. State v. Eby, 17-1456 (La. App. 1 Cir. 4/6/16), 248 So.3d 420, 424-25. Provocation and time for cooling are questions for the jury to determine using an average-person standard, a person with ordinary self-control. State v. Pinestraw, 16-0553 (La. App. 1 Cir. 10/31/16), 2016 WL 6427714 *3. If a person unreasonably permits his impulse and passion to obscure his judgment, he will be fully responsible for the consequences of his act. Id.
Voluntary intoxication is a defense to a prosecution for second degree murder only if the circumstances indicate that it has precluded the presence of specific criminal intent. See LSA-R.S. 14:15(2). When the defense of voluntary intoxication is raised by the evidence, the State must overcome that defense by evidence that proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the mental element was present despite the alleged intoxication. See State v. Bland, 15-1662 (La. App. 1 Cir. 4/20/16), 194 So.3d 679, 683.
The defendant claims that the shooting was a result of the "heat of passion and provocation" from her rage over the victim's statement that he wanted to have a "threesome" with her and the woman at Vino and by his alleged beating of her when they returned to their apartment. Consequently, when her rage was combined with her consumption of medications and alcohol, she claims she did not possess the requisite specific intent to kill. Therefore, she claims the evidence was sufficient only to support a conviction of attempted manslaughter, not attempted second degree murder. After a thorough review of the record, we find that the evidence supports the guilty verdict.
After considering all of the evidence presented in the light most favorable to the State, we conclude that it was reasonable for the jurors to conclude that the defendant's rage and level of intoxication did not preclude the presence of specific intent. Regarding intoxication, the defendant told Dr. Eschete that she had taken several Xanax that evening, in addition to drinking. The victim stated that the defendant drank Coors Light and shots of Fireball while at Vino, and that he had seen the defendant take her medication that morning, but he did not see her take it that evening. He added that he could not tell whether she was drunk and that he had, on previous occasions, seen her "way worse" than she was that night. Mr. Trahan testified that the defendant was "hammered" at Vino, as opposed to Mr. Pellegrin who surmised that she probably had some drinks that night, but that she was not "wasted."
We recognize that the evidence of the defendant's intoxication on the night of the shooting is not insignificant. But, as the trier of fact, the jury was free to make credibility determinations and, within the bounds of rationality, accept or reject the testimony of any witness. State v. Hayes, 16-0441 (La. App. 1 Cir. 9/19/16), 204 So.3d 201, 207. And where there is conflicting testimony about factual matters, the resolution of which depends upon a determination of the credibility of the witnesses, the matter is one of the weight given the evidence, not its sufficiency. The trier of fact's determination of the weight to be given evidence is not subject to appellate review. Id. Additionally, contrary to the defendant's claim that her intoxication precluded the formation of specific intent, the State presented evidence showing she had the ability to reason and make decisions. See State v. Chouest, 16-1294 (La. App. 1 Cir. 4/12/17), 2017 WL 1378232 *5; Bland, 194 So.3d at 683. The defendant's actions following the shooting are indicative of her immediate knowledge that she had committed a criminal act, because upon shooting the victim, she called 911 and stated she had shot him. Further, she shot the victim at close range in their apartment, thereby indicating specific intent to kill or inflict great bodily harm. See Hayes, 204 So.3d at 207. Thus, the overall evidence was sufficient to allow the jury to reject the claim of intoxication and find that the State negated that defense by proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Regarding the defendant's rage defense, we also conclude that any rational trier of fact, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, could have found that the defendant did not prove the mitigating factors required to support manslaughter by a preponderance of the evidence. First, the jury had ample evidence from which to conclude the victim did not beat the defendant. We note the victim testified at trial that he had never beaten nor threatened the defendant and did not know why the defendant told the 911 operator that he had done so. Further, the victim testified that, once they were back at their apartment, it was the defendant who punched him so hard that he believed if she had hit him again, she would have rendered him unconscious. The victim stated that he only placed his hands on her shoulders and pushed her to the side while he was trying to go to the restroom in the hope of defusing the situation. Erin Marie Scott, the defendant's daughter, who lived at the apartment with the defendant and victim, testified that she had never seen her stepfather physically or verbally abuse her mother.
Next, any rational trier of fact could have concluded that the victim's joke at Vino was insufficient provocation for shooting him or that the defendant's blood had ample time to cool. That is, after the Vino incident, the couple returned to their apartment, continued to argue, and the defendant attempted to fire two shots at the victim with a gun. Rather than stopping there, though, the defendant left the apartment, went out to her car and retrieved a second gun; shot the tire of one of their vehicles; returned to their apartment; and then shot the victim in the chest. After hearing this sequence of events, the jury reasonably concluded that, the victim did not beat the defendant, and by the time the defendant shot the victim, an average person's blood would have cooled from the provocation caused by the victim's joke at Vino. See Pinestraw, 2016 WL 6427714 *4.
The verdict rendered against the defendant indicates the jury rejected the defendant's theory of innocence based on rage and intoxication, and instead found her to have acted with the specific intent to kill her husband. The record clearly supports the jury's findings. When a case involves circumstantial evidence and the jury reasonably rejects the hypothesis of innocence presented by the defense - in this case, that the defendant did not have specific intent to kill the victim - that hypothesis falls, and the defendant is guilty unless there is another hypothesis that raises a reasonable doubt. State v. Dyson, 16-1571 (La. App. 1 Cir. 6/2/17), 222 So.3d 220, 228, writ denied, 17-1399 (La. 6/15/18), 257 So.3d 685. No such hypothesis exists in the instant case. An appellate court will not reweigh the evidence to overturn a factfinder's determination of guilt. We are constitutionally precluded from acting as a "thirteenth juror" in assessing what weight to give evidence in criminal cases. State v. Ford, 17- 0471 (La. App. 1 Cir. 9/27/17), 232 So.3d 576, 586. Further, in reviewing the evidence, we cannot say that the jury's determination that the defendant was sober enough to form specific intent and that her blood should have cooled by the time she shot the victim was irrational under the facts and circumstances presented to them. See Ordodi, 946 So.2d at 662. An appellate court errs by substituting its appreciation of the evidence and credibility of witnesses for that of the factfinder and thereby overturning a verdict on the basis of an exculpatory hypothesis of innocence presented to, and rationally rejected by, the jury. State v. Calloway, 07-2306 (La. 1/21/09), 1 So.3d 417, 418 (per curiam). This assignment of error is without merit.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the defendant's conviction and sentence.
AFFIRMED.