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IMMEDIATE NEWS RELEASE NEWS RELEASE # 24 FROM: CLERK OF SUPREME COURT OF LOUISIANA The Opinions handed down on the 9th day of April, 2003, are as follows:
PER CURIAM:
2002-K -1406
STATE OF LOUISIANA v. KENYON R. WILLIAMS (Parish ofPlaquemines) (Aggravated Battery; Two Counts of Unauthorized Entryof an Inhabited Dwelling)The decision of the court of appeal is therefore reversed,relator's conviction and sentence are vacated, and this case isremanded to the district court for further proceedings consistentwith the views expressed herein.COURT OF APPEAL DECISION REVERSED; CONVICTION AND SENTENCEVACATED; CASE REMANDED.
TRAYLOR, J., dissents and assigns reasons.KNOLL, J., dissents and assigns reasons.
04/09/03

SUPREME COURT OF LOUISIANA

No. 02-K-1406
STATE OF LOUISIANA
v.
KENYON R. WILLIAMS

On Writ of Certiorari to the
Court of Appeal, Fourth Circuit,
Parish of Plaquemines

PER CURIAM:
In this prosecution for multiple felony charges arising out of the invasion of adjoining house trailers belonging to Delwin Ancar and his sister, Rolenda Merrick, by three men looking for drugs and money on a fall night in Plaquemines Parish, the trial court prohibited counsel from cross-examining Ancar about the terms of a plea bargain he had struck with the state in an apparently unrelated cocaine prosecution because "the suggestion that this witness . . . might be gaining something by testifying . . .is purely and entirely speculative and the jury can gauge whether the prospect of leniency tainted his testimony."  We granted relator's application to reverse that ruling.  Even assuming that the trial judge correctly assessed the scope of the plea bargain, exclusion of evidence regarding the disposition of Ancar's cocaine charges nevertheless impaired relator's right to confront and cross-examine the principal witness against him at trial and thereby
deprived jurors of relevant information they needed to assess reliably the
credibility of Ancar's testimony.  
The charges in this case stemmed from an incident on the evening of November 4, 1999, when three men appeared at the doorway of Ancar's trailer in Home Place along Highway 23 in Plaquemines Parish.  In the confrontation that followed, the men pulled Ancar out of the trailer, demanded that he tell them where he had the money and drugs, invaded the trailer also occupied by Ancar's girlfriend, Yvonne Barthelemy, and his niece, Latisha Ancar, and took over $6,000 in cash, an amount which Ancar claimed combined a loan from his mother and money provided by the attorney he had hired in a civil case.
The confrontation then spilled over to the adjoining trailer occupied by Ancar's sister, Rolenda Merrick, and her teenage son, Kendal Merrick, and ended in the shooting of Ancar as the men fled in a late-model Cadillac.  Testimony from the witnesses at the scene identified relator's co-defendants, Coleman and Jackson, as two of the men involved in the incident.  However, the third man had worn a ski mask which completely covered his face, and of all of the witnesses on the scene, only Ancar could identify him.  Ancar had managed to break free from the grasp of Jackson outside of his sister's trailer and he escaped to the neutral ground splitting the highway. He looked back and saw the three men running across Highway 23 for the Cadillac. At that moment, Ancar told jurors, the third perpetrator pulled his ski mask off and Ancar recognized relator, whom he had met on prior occasions. Moments later, as Ancar began running back towards the trailers, a shot rang out from the Cadillac striking him in the chest. Ancar made his way back to his trailer where he collapsed on the floor in front of Barthelemy.  Rolenda Merrick then placed her brother in her truck and drove him to the Port Sulfur Comprehensive
Care Center for treatment of the gunshot wound.  Along the way, Ancar described
the Cadillac used as the getaway vehicle.  He also mentioned that he knew one of the perpetrators but did not identify him by name.  Ancar also neglected to provide that information to the police when they initially interviewed him at Charity Hospital in New Orleans, where he had been transported after emergency treatment at Comprehensive Care.  However, in a photographic lineup conducted at the hospital on the following afternoon, Ancar identified all three men, including relator, although neither he, nor any other witness at the scene, could identify the perpetrator who actually fired from the fleeing Cadillac.
Acting on the description of the getaway vehicle provided by Ancar, the police stopped the Cadillac in Belle Chase, approximately an hour after the incident and some 20 to 30 miles away from the trailers in Home Place.  Relator sat at the wheel; Jackson and Coleman rode as his passengers, although the vehicle was registered in Jackson's name. The police did not find any firearms in the car or a ski mask, or $6,000 in cash.  After Yvonne Barthelemy arrived at the scene of the arrest and identified Coleman and Jackson, the three men were taken to jail.
Relator was charged with one count of attempted first degree murder, one count of armed robbery, two counts of aggravated burglary, and two counts of false imprisonment while armed with a dangerous weapon, in violation of La.R.S. 14:27; 14:30; La.R.S. 14:64; La.R.S. 14:60; and La.R.S. 14:46.1, respectively.  The state dismissed the armed robbery charge, and after a three-day jury trial in a consolidated proceeding also involving Jackson and Coleman, relator was found guilty of aggravated battery and two counts of unauthorized entry of an inhabited dwelling. The jury acquitted him on the two counts of false imprisonment.  The co-defendants were also found guilty in differing combinations of verdicts returned
by the jury. The trial court sentenced relator to a total of 13 years imprisonment at
hard labor. On appeal, the Fourth Circuit affirmed the convictions and sentences after rejecting relator's single assignment of error challenging the restrictions placed by the trial court on counsel's cross-examination of Ancar.  State v. Williams, 01-1464 (La. App. 4th Cir. 5/1/01), 818 So.2d 274.
The restrictions at issue arose in the following context.  In his direct testimony, Ancar conceded that in July, 2000, only three months before trial in the present case, he had entered a guilty plea to possession of cocaine and received a suspended sentence and probation. On cross-examination, relator's counsel asked Ancar whether he had been charged initially in that prosecution with two counts of distribution of cocaine. Counsel thereby sought to establish that as a result of a plea bargain the state had dismissed one count of distribution and reduced the other count to simple possession of cocaine.  Ancar had then pleaded guilty under the auspices of La.C.Cr.P. art. 893(D)(2), which will permit him to move for expungement of the conviction if he successfully completes the probationary term imposed by the court.
The state immediately objected to any questions about the nature of Ancar's plea bargain in the narcotics case and asked the court to excuse the jury.  In the argument that followed, the court initially overruled the objection on grounds that the defense "can ask [the witness] whether or not there were any such deals to enter into this and attack his credibility." However, the court then entertained testimony from Ancar, who insisted he plead guilty only because he feared the mandatory five-year minimum sentence if convicted of distribution of cocaine, and from Patrick Hufft, the assistant district attorney responsible for prosecuting the case. Hufft maintained that problems with identifying Ancar as the driver of the car used
in separate distributions to undercover officers at the end of September and the
beginning of October, 1999, as well as Ancar's first offender status, led to the favorable plea bargain. Both Ancar and Hufft steadfastly denied that the plea in the cocaine case had any connection with the proceedings in the present case, and Hufft maintained that the decision to sentence Ancar under La.C.Cr.P. art. 893(D)(2) was the court's alone, at the request of defense counsel during the plea colloquy, without any input from him. Hufft also explained that after the present case was allotted to the same section of court as the cocaine case, he immediately transferred it to another section and scrupulously avoided any contact with the prosecutors in charge of the case.
On the basis of testimony by Ancar and Hufft, the trial court reversed itself and sustained the state's objection.  The court thereby precluded defense counsel from establishing from the witness anything more than his conviction for possession of cocaine. Upon returning the jurors to the courtroom, the trial judge informed them that he had sustained the state's objection and admonished them not to draw "any conclusions or speculate about anything" with regard to defense counsel's question about the arrest for cocaine distribution.
After reviewing the record of the proceedings conducted outside of the jury's presence, the Fourth Circuit agreed on appeal with the trial court that "there was no memorandum of understanding between the State and Ancar concerning his testimony in the present case," and that the terms of the plea bargain therefore "bore no relation to the instant case." State v. Williams, 01-1464 at 6, 818 So.2d at
278. The dissent argued that "there could have been an oral commitment to testify in exchange for a reduced sentence . . . the jury should have been aware of this possible motivation so that it could attach the appropriate amount of weight to it in
deciding on a verdict." Williams, 01-1464 at 1, 818 So.2d at 279 (Plotkin, J.,
dissenting).
Although the trial court was sensitive to a defendant's Sixth Amendment right of confrontation and cross-examination, the court ultimately made the wrong decision when it restricted counsel's questioning of Ancar and thereby impaired relator's ability "to expose to the jury the facts from which [it]...could appropriately draw inferences relating to the reliability of the witness."  Olden v. Kentucky, 488
U.S. 227, 109 S.Ct. 480, 483, 102 L.Ed.2d 513 (1988)(internal quotation marks and citations omitted).  To the extent that exposure of a witness's motivation "is a proper and important function of the constitutionally protected right of cross-examination," State v. Nash, 475 So.2d 752, 755 (La. 1985), this Court has held on numerous occasions that a witness's "hope or knowledge that he will receive leniency from the state is highly relevant to establish his bias or interest." State v. Brady, 381 So.2d 819, 822 (collecting cases); see also State v. Bowie, 00

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