The Louisiana Supreme Court is having second thoughts about its recent decision granting a new trial to a death-row prisoner based on a claim that prosecutors railroaded him.
On Monday, the court will once again hear arguments in the case of Darrell Robinson at the request of Rapides Parish District Attorney Phillip Terrell’s office, which is asking it to reverse a blockbuster Jan. 26 ruling.
Such rehearings are uncommon before the Louisiana Supreme Court, particularly in criminal cases. The last was granted in 2020, court figures show.
The decision in Robinson’s case was also rare. Capital defense attorneys say the court had never before reversed a lower court to grant relief to a death row inmate over violations of Brady v. Maryland, the landmark 1963 U.S. Supreme Court case that enshrined the principle that states must disclose all evidence favorable to the defense.
Four justices voted to toss Robinson’s convictions and death sentence, two voted to uphold them, and one found enough errors to erase his death sentence but not the guilty verdicts. A majority of the seven justices must agree to rehear a case.
A horrific crime
A unanimous jury convicted Robinson in 2001 on four counts of first-degree murder and sentenced him to die for the execution-style slayings of Billy Lambert, 50; his sister, Carol Hooper, 54; her daughter, Maureen Kelley, 37; and Kelley's infant son, Nicholas Kelley.
Robinson and Billy Lambert met at a Veterans Administration treatment center for alcoholism, and Robinson came to live with Lambert and work on his farm near the town of Poland eight days before the murders. A witness said Robinson started drinking again, and Lambert wanted him out. On May 28, 1996, a cousin found the four relatives fatally shot in the head on the living-room floor.
Robinson was seen fleeing the scene in Lambert’s truck and ran cars off the road. Police found Lambert’s knife in his pocket and the dead baby’s blood on the bottom of a shoe and on a shoelace.
Robinson has maintained his innocence, however. He claims he came upon the scene, tromped through it and was miscast as the killer after fleeing in fear. His lawyers point to an alternate suspect, claiming prosecutors, with little solid evidence, hid the ball.
'Cumulative effect'
In a 51-page opinion, Chief Justice John Weimer described failures by the state to turn over evidence that might have helped Robinson at trial, including blood results and leniency provided to a key trial witness.
“Considered separately, each item undermines the strength of the State's case; considered cumulatively they convince us that we can have no confidence that the jury's verdict would not have been affected had the suppressed evidence come to light,” Weimer wrote.
He was joined by Justices Piper Griffin, Jefferson Hughes and James Genovese. Justices Will Crain and Jay McCallum dissented. Justice Scott Crichton wrote that Robinson’s convictions should stand, but not his death sentence.
Louisiana capital prosecutor Hugo Holland has asked the court to reverse itself. In a legal brief, he argues that any withheld evidence wasn't “material” to the outcome. The majority “misinterpreted some of the facts of the case, and thus found materiality where none exists,” he wrote.
Robinson’s attorneys say the court looked plenty close, already. The state “has given no additional information, evidence, or precedent to even come close to revisiting what this Court has already decided in its studied analysis," wrote Matilde Carbia of the Mwalimu Center for Justice, Robinson’s attorney.
A baby's blood
Loyola Law School professor Dane Ciolino called the court’s decision to rehear the case “very remarkable,” saying there didn't appear to be any new information for it to ponder.
“That really is quite an extraordinary grant of rehearing,” Ciolino said. “The judges have agreed to just reevaluate the same evidence that they’ve already considered, in light of basically the same arguments ... It’s just an ask.”
At the heart of the request are drops of the baby’s blood found on Robinson’s shoe, and theories of how they got there. Holland argues that the evidence was much clearer than the court recognized.
“The only logical conclusion to draw is that Darrell Robinson was standing so close to 10-month-old Nicholas Kelley that he ... actually touched the actively-bleeding child,” Holland wrote.
Robinson’s attorneys say Holland is treading over old, discredited ground that misrepresents the evidence. They say the blood transfer evidence, including testimony from a defense expert, was far more equivocal than Holland portrays.
Holland’s “’smoking shoe’ theory is speculative at best and serves to underscore the need for a new trial and the correctness of this Court’s analysis,” Carbia wrote.
The January opinion pointed to a withheld serology report and notes, as well as an alleged deal with a jailhouse informant who testifed against Robinson. The informant, Leroy Goodspeed, scored a deal on a charge in a different parish afterward, though a prosecutor told the jury he "was not given anything. He was not offered anything. He did not ask for anything.”
Holland challenged the court for proof of a quid pro quo, arguing there was none. The court is scheduled to hear the case Monday afternoon.
