Opinion
2012 KA 1418
03-22-2013
STATE OF LOUISIANA v. GUICE GIAMBRONE
Walter P. Reed Jason Cuccia Covington, LA Counsel for Appellant, State of Louisiana Kathryn W. Landry Baton Rouge, LA James E. Moorman, III Covington, LA Counsel for Defendant/Appellee, Guice Giambrone
NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION
Appealed from the
Twenty-Second Judicial District Court
In and for the Parish of St. Tammany, State of Louisiana
Trial Court Number 463702-1
Honorable Dennis Waldron, Judge Ad Hoc Presiding
Although the record cover shows the Honorable Richard Swartz as the presiding judge, the Honorable Dennis Waldron was appointed ad hoc to hear this matter after the judges of the Twenty-Second Judicial District Court recused from this matter.
Walter P. Reed
Jason Cuccia
Covington, LA
Counsel for Appellant,
State of Louisiana
Kathryn W. Landry
Baton Rouge, LA
James E. Moorman, III
Covington, LA
Counsel for Defendant/Appellee,
Guice Giambrone
BEFORE: WHIPPLE, C.J., McCLENDON AND HIGGINBOTHAM, JJ.
WHIPPLE , C.J.
The defendant, Guice Giambrone, was charged by bill of information #463702 with one count of first degree injuring of public records (count I), a violation of LSA-R.S. 14:132(A), and with one count of filing or maintaining false public records (count II), a violation of LSA-R.S. 14:133, and pled not guilty on both counts. He was also charged by bill of information #434569 with one count of second degree injuring of public records, a violation of LSA-R.S. 14:132(B). The State nol-prossed count I of bill of information #463702. Following a jury trial, the defendant was found not guilty on the charge of second degree injuring of public records in #434569. However, on count II of bill of information #463702, the defendant was found guilty of the responsive offense of attempted filing or maintaining false public records, a violation of LSA-R.S. 14:27 and LSA-R.S. 14:133. Thereafter, he moved for a postverdict judgment of acquittal, and the motion was granted. The State now appeals, contending the trial court erred in granting a postverdict judgment of acquittal. For the following reasons, we reverse and remand.
William Massimini was also charged by the same bill of information with the same counts. Following a joint trial with the defendant, he was found guilty as charged.
FACTS
Slidell City Court and Juvenile Court Judge James Lamz was elected to the bench in November of 2004. Judge Lamz's predecessor in office, Judge Dragon, had established a drug court. Pursuant to a contract with the Twenty-Second Judicial District Court, Human Services Foundation, Inc. (HSF) administered the drug court. The drug court afforded the judge of the Juvenile Court the option of providing treatment and counseling, rather than detention, to young people with drug problems.
The defendant contracted with HSF to provide outpatient treatment programs for the Twenty-Second Judicial District Court. Judge Lamz communicated with HSF through the defendant. In late December of 2005 or early January of 2006, after speaking with other judges about alternatives to detention for juveniles with drug problems, Judge Lamz asked the defendant if the drug court had a compliance officer. The defendant answered affirmatively, stating the compliance officer was William Massimini. Judge Lamz then asked to see payroll records and activity logs for Massimini from December of 2005 and thereafter, because Judge Lamz had never seen a report from Massimini and was unaware of any work performed by him.
The defendant first presented Judge Lamz with Massimini's purported activity logs for 2005. However, the logs listed clients by number, rather than name, so Judge Lamz could not verify them. According to Judge Lamz, the defendant claimed that client names were not listed in the documents in order to protect their confidentiality. Judge Lamz, however, was aware that only drug court personnel would have access to the records, and he demanded that the defendant identify the clients. The defendant failed to provide any method to match client numbers with client names, but presented Judge Lamz with more detailed documents. When Judge Lamz examined the documents, he noted they reflected Massimini had checked on four clients from drug court on August 29, 2005. Judge Lamz realized that was the day Hurricane Katrina struck Slidell, and that Massimini, a Slidell Police Officer, was on call twenty-four hours that day. He was also aware that three of the four clients listed for that day had previously finished, graduated, or been removed from drug court. Additionally, Judge Lamz noted that some of the 2005 entries were identical to 2004 entries. Payroll records indicated Massimini was paid $1,500.00 per month.
The defendant testified at trial. He denied having any ownership interest in HSF. He also denied having any hiring authority with the company. He indicated that Ellen Calvert was in charge of the drug court program for HSF and that he first learned that Massimini was the compliance officer for Slidell City Court in November of 2004. He denied having any personal or financial relationship with Massimini.
The defendant claimed that because Judge Lamz and Calvert "weren't getting along," Judge Garcia asked him to be the liaison to get Judge Lamz what he wanted. The defendant stated that after Judge Lamz asked for documentation that the juvenile drug court clients were being contacted by a compliance officer, he asked Calvert to gather the information. The defendant claimed that Calvert made arrangements for him to pick up a document from "Mr. Dickson," the district supervisor of the case manager and compliance officer, and that he then delivered the document to Judge Lamz. The defendant stated that Judge Lamz was not satisfied with the document and wanted a more detailed document. The defendant claimed he told Calvert that Judge Lamz wanted more detailed documents and thereafter, he received additional documents from Dickson as attachments to e-mail. The defendant claimed he put the attachments into a new file, but noticed the information was not chronological, so he "cut and pasted" the information to make it chronological. The defendant claimed he then presented the document to Judge Lamz. He denied creating, materially altering, or knowingly presenting a document which contained false information to Judge Lamz.
DISCUSSION
In its sole assignment of error, the State contends that the trial court erred in granting the motion for a postverdict judgment of acquittal. Specifically, the State argues that the motion was improperly granted because: (1) whether or not the defendant knew the documents at issue were false was a factual issue for the jury and (2) there was sufficient evidence to support a determination the defendant knew the documents were false.
A postverdict judgment of acquittal shall be granted only if the court finds that the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the State, does not reasonably permit a finding of guilty. LSA-C.Cr.P. art. 821(B).
Following his conviction, the defendant moved for a postverdict judgment of acquittal. At the hearing on the motion, the defendant argued there was no direct evidence that he had altered anything intentionally, that he created any document, or that he knew that the documents he presented to Judge Lamz contained false information. He claimed that on the evidence presented, the hypothesis that he made an oversight when organizing the documents or that he was negligent in not noticing the discrepancy in the dates could not be excluded. The State responded that the jury had heard and rejected the defendant's hypotheses of innocence and found him guilty of attempted filing of false public records. The trial court noted that the defendant had been found guilty of a lesser offense and questioned the proof of the defendant's "guilty knowledge as to the falsity, alteration or false statement." The State replied that the jury had rejected the defendant's claim that he had inadvertently changed the documents, finding instead that based on the circumstances, he must have had some knowledge of the falsity of those documents when he presented them to Judge Lamz. After noting that the defendant had been found "not guilty of in any way injuring of public record," the trial court concluded that "[i]f any of the actions that the [defendant] took were in good faith, and resulted in error, or were the result of oversight or negligence, then no crime occurred." Thereafter, the court granted the defendant's motion for postverdict judgment of acquittal.
The standard of review for sufficiency of the evidence to uphold a conviction is whether, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could conclude the State proved the essential elements of the crime and the defendant's identity as the perpetrator of that crime beyond a reasonable doubt. In conducting this review, we also must be expressly mindful of Louisiana's circumstantial evidence test, which states in part, "assuming every fact to be proved that the evidence tends to prove," in order to convict, every reasonable hypothesis of innocence is excluded. State v. Wright, 98-0601 (La. App. 1st Cir. 2/19/99), 730 So. 2d 485, 486, writs denied, 99-0802 (La. 10/29/99), 748 So. 2d 1157 & 2000-0895 (La. 11/17/00), 773 So. 2d 732 (quoting LSA-R.S. 15:438).
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. Wright, 730 So. 2d at 487.
In State ex rel. Elaire v. Blackburn, 424 So. 2d 246, 251 (La. 1982), cert. denied, 461 U.S. 959, 103 S. Ct. 2432, 77 L. Ed. 2d 1318 (1983), the Louisiana Supreme Court recognized the legitimacy of a "compromise verdict," i.e., a legislatively approved responsive verdict that does not fit the evidence, but that (for whatever reason) the jurors deem to be fair, as long as the evidence is sufficient to sustain a conviction for the charged offense. If the defendant timely objects to an instruction on a responsive verdict on the basis that the evidence does not support that responsive verdict, the court overrules the objection, and the jury returns a verdict of guilty of the responsive offense, the reviewing court must examine the record to determine if the responsive verdict is supported by the evidence and may reverse the conviction if the evidence does not support the verdict. However, if the defendant does not enter an objection (at a time when the trial judge can correct the error), then the reviewing court may affirm the conviction if the evidence would have supported a conviction of the greater offense, whether or not the evidence supports the conviction of the legislatively responsive offense returned by the jury. See State ex rel. Elaire, 424 So. 2d at 251.
There was no objection to the instruction on attempted filing or maintaining of false public records. Accordingly, the issue before the trial court on the motion for postverdict judgment of acquittal was whether or not the evidence was sufficient to support a conviction for filing or maintaining false public records.
Louisiana Revised Statute 14:133 provides, in pertinent part:
A. Filing false public records is the filing or depositing for record in any public office or with any public official, or the maintaining as required by law, regulation, or rule, with knowledge of its falsity, of any of the following:
(1) Any forged document.
(2) Any wrongfully altered document.
(3) Any document containing a false statement or false representation of a material fact.
Louisiana Revised Statute 14:133 does not require that the record filed be "public," but that it must be filed or deposited, with knowledge of its falsity, "in any public office or with any public officer." State v. Salat, 95-0072 (La. App. 1st Cir. 4/4/96), 672 So. 2d 333, 337, writ denied, 96-1116 (La. 10/4/96), 679 So. 2d 1378. (Emphasis in original).
In the instant case, any rational trier of fact, viewing the evidence presented in this case in the light most favorable to the State, could find that the evidence proved beyond a reasonable doubt, and to the exclusion of every reasonable hypothesis of innocence, all of the elements of filing or maintaining false public records and the defendant's identity as the perpetrator of that offense. The trial court did not view the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, but instead inferred that the jury's return of a not-guilty verdict on the charge of second degree injuring of public records indicated it had found the defendant had no knowledge of the falsity of the records at issue. Were that the case, the jury would have also found the defendant not guilty of attempted filing or maintaining of false public records. When a case involves circumstantial evidence and the fact finder reasonably rejects the hypothesis of innocence presented by the defendant's own testimony, that hypothesis falls, and the defendant is guilty unless there is another hypothesis which raises a reasonable doubt. State v. Captville, 448 So. 2d 676, 680 (La. 1984). We find no such hypothesis exists in the instant case. The verdict returned by the jury indicates it rejected the defendant's theories of innocence, and found the defendant had knowledge of the falsity of the documents he presented to Judge Lamz. Further, in reviewing the evidence, we are unable to say that the jury's determination was irrational under the facts and circumstances presented to it. See State v. Ordodi, 2006-0207 (La. 11/29/06), 946 So. 2d 654, 662. As noted by the State, a court errs by substituting its appreciation of the evidence and credibility of witnesses for that of the fact finder and thereby overturning a verdict on the basis of an exculpatory hypothesis of innocence presented to, and rationally rejected by, the jury. See State v. Calloway, 2007-2306 (La. 1/21/09), 1 So. 3d 417, 418 (per curiam). Accordingly, we find the trial court erred in granting the defendant's motion for a postverdict judgment of acquittal.
This assignment of error has merit.
DECREE
For the foregoing reasons, the postverdict judgment of acquittal granted by the trial court is hereby reversed. This matter is remanded to the trial court for reinstatement of the jury's verdict of guilty of attempted filing or maintaining false public records and for sentencing in accordance with law.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.