The Louisiana Supreme Court reversed itself Friday in the case of Darrell Robinson, reinstating his four murder convictions and death sentence after tossing them in a blockbuster January ruling.

Friday’s narrow, 4-3 reversal came after a rare rehearing by the state’s highest court in a criminal case, revisiting an even more unusual decision.

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 decision demanding that states disclose all evidence favorable to the defense.

But the relief for Robinson was short-lived. After a contentious rehearing in May, the court on Friday reinstated his 2001 convictions on four counts of first-degree murder, as well as his death sentence.

The ruling marked a win for Rapides Parish District Attorney Phillip Terrell’s office, which argued that the previous court majority had it wrong.

A unanimous jury convicted Robinson 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.

Blood evidence disputed

Robinson maintained his innocence, claiming he came upon the scene, tromped through it and was miscast as the killer after fleeing in fear. And in January, a majority of the court agreed he deserved a new trial, in an opinion by Chief Justice John Weimer.

By Weimer’s account, DNA testing supported Robinson’s theory of an alternate suspect. Weimer pointed to a withheld serology report and notes, as well as an alleged deal with a jailhouse informant who testified against Robinson.

The informant, Leroy Goodspeed, scored a break on a charge in a different parish afterward. A prosecutor told the jury that for his testimony, Goodspeed “was not given anything. He was not offered anything. He did not ask for anything.”

The majority in January found too many failures by the state to uphold the results.

“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.

Change of heart

Capital prosecutor Hugo Holland defended the conviction, arguing there was no evidence of a quid pro quo with Goodspeed, while casting doubt on Weimer’s analysis of the blood evidence.

In reversing the court’s earlier ruling, Justice Jay McCallum dwelt on the suffering of the victims while disputing evidence of a deal with Goodspeed.

“After further review and careful consideration of the record, we find no merit to the claims raised … and we erred in vacating defendant’s conviction and sentence,” he wrote.

McCallum was joined by Justices Will Crain, Scott Crichton, and Jeannette Knoll, who is serving in place of James Genovese, who left the court this year. Genovese had voted with the majority that granted Robinson a new trial.

Crichton had previously agreed to throw out Robinson’s death sentence but not his conviction based on doubts about the evidence.

Weimer dissented Friday, along with Justices Piper Griffin and Jefferson Hughes.

“I remain convinced that defendant is entitled to a new trial because the State failed to disclose that it provided Goodspeed with a substantial reward for his testimony against defendant,” Weimer wrote, “and because the State elicited misleading testimony intended to convince the jury that Goodspeed’s testimony was free of inducement.”

An attorney for Robinson did not immediately respond Friday to requests for comment. Holland praised the ruling.

“It is extremely rare for the Louisiana Supreme Court to reverse itself,” he said. “This new decision reinstating the conviction and sentence is a direct result of dogged determination to fight for justice for our four victims as long and as hard as it takes.”

Terrell, the district attorney, said Saturday that he hadn’t found an instance of the state’s high court flip-flopping over a criminal matter like it did Friday.

“It’s the right thing,” said Terrell, who took office in 2013 and inherited the case in post-conviction. “It’s pretty clear Mr. Robinson did it, committed the crimes.”

He described the claims in the case as “pretty specious,” particularly one that Mike Small, a prominent Alexandria-based defense attorney, provided him ineffective assistance.

“For anybody to think his defense was incompetent was just beyond my comprehension,” Terrell said. “I think the court kind of went down the rabbit hole on the blood splatter evidence, and on the Brady issue.”

McCallum’s opinion, he noted, saw no evidence of a quid pro quo with Goodspeed, the witness. Terrell pointed to testimony from a district attorney’s office investigator who attended interviews with Goodspeed, saying the trial judge found it credible.

He said the duration of the case has left few kin of the four related victims.

“There are only one or two surviving family members. I was contacted by one of them this morning. And they’re pleased,” he said. “But it’s been so long that most of them are gone. They suffered a long time.”

A state law the Louisiana Legislature passed earlier this year allows police to arrest people who come within 25 feet of an on-duty law enforcement officer after they have been ordered to disperse.

Attorneys representing six news organizations challenged the statute in a federal courtroom this week. The legal team from Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit, argued for an injunction to block Louisiana officers from enforcing the new law, which went into effect Aug. 1.

Now the decision rests in the hands of U.S. District Court Judge John deGravelles, who listened to arguments from the plaintiffs’ attorneys as well as defense rebuttals made by attorneys from the Louisiana Attorney General’s Office. The hearing was held Wednesday morning inside the U.S. Middle District of Louisiana courthouse in downtown Baton Rouge.

At issue are the merits of House Bill 173, a measure that state lawmakers gave overwhelming support during this year’s regular session and Gov. Jeff Landry signed into law May 24. State Rep. Bryan Fontenot. R-Thibodeaux. sponsored the bill, which gives officers a 25-foot buffer zone and makes it illegal to encroach on that protective area if an officer orders someone to move.

Fontenot and others who supported the law said it is another weapon to help ensure safety for law enforcement officials if they feel threatened while on duty. But attorneys for Verite News, Gannett, Gray, Nextstar, Scripps and Tegna argued that the buffer law, as written, is too broad and doesn’t provide any framework to restrain officers from abusing the statute.

Plaintiff attorney Grayson Clary indicated that an officer can order someone to disperse for any reason, as arbitrary as not liking the shirt they are wearing. If the person refuses, they could be subjected to arrest and whisked away to jail.

Clary told Judge deGravelles it amounts to a First Amendment violation — one that could have a “chilling effect” on journalists who worry about being arrested if they come too close to officers while covering crime scenes, crashes, parades, sporting events, protests and other newsworthy events. He argued that provisions are already built into state law to protect against obstructionists who interfere with investigations or threaten officer safety.

Clary suggested the new law’s aim could be to stop reporters and other bystanders from filming police conduct, and it gives officers “unbridled discretion” to stop what he said should be a First Amendment right.

“The law seems to be to discourage observation and documentation of police authority in particular,” he said.

Assistant Solicitor General Caitlin Huettemann, of the AG’s office, said that in the nearly five months since the law took effect, no officers have made arrests or even issued a move-along order under the new rule, and the state hasn’t prosecuted anyone for violating the law. She said the 25-foot buffer gives officers time to realize their safety may be at risk and allows them a chance to respond.

Characterizing worries that the law will have a chilling effect as conjecture, she said the plaintiffs had no standing for their complaint because the law hasn’t been enforced, so there is no injurious conduct to litigate. In asking deGravelles to dismiss the lawsuit, Huettemann insisted the case isn’t ripe for judicial review because no officer has abused or even enforced the law. 

“No rights have been or are likely to be affected,” she argued. “These are all claims based on anticipated future action.”

But deGravelles pressed Huetteman on the language in the statute. When the judge asked if officers can give move orders “willy nilly” even if there is no basis for the directives to disperse, she conceded the law does give police unbridled discretion. But she said that doesn’t make the law vague, reiterating her stance that those are hypothetical scenarios not founded in actual incidents. 

Clary maintained his position that the law needs more specificity to narrowly define the situations when officers can employ the buffer zone. He noted that Indiana is the only other state that has a police buffer law, but it is currently enjoined as the focus of two ongoing legal battles in the Hoosier State.

“The problem in this law is there’s nothing in the law that says officers can make people withdraw if they pose a risk to obstruction, public safety or officer safety,” Clary argued. “There’s too much innocent conduct left in. Officers need some way to pick and choose. There needs to be some way to distinguish the good conduct from the bad.”