Louisiana v. Williams
Annotate this CaseThe issue before the Supreme Court concerned whether the trial court erred in granting Defendant's motion to quash his indictment. In 2009, police found the victim, Ramon House, lying on the sidewalk, shot in the chest and ankle. He would later die from blood loss at the hospital shortly afterward. An eyewitness reported that Defendant Joshua Dion Williams, then age 19, and Defendant's friend, a juvenile, both shot the victim during a dispute over narcotics. In 2009, a grand jury indicted Defendant for second degree murder. In early 2010, Defendant filed a motion to quash the indictment, in which he contended that La.C.Cr.P. art. 404(B), (which provides that the judicial administrator of the 19th JDC shall perform the function of jury commission in East Baton Rouge Parish), is a special or local law prohibited by La. Const. art. III, sec. 12. Upon review, the Supreme Court found that the manner of selection of the grand jury was not "illegal. . . .In fact, the selection process comported exactly with La.C.Cr.P. art. 404(B), which is presumed to be constitutional. Defendant's complaint, then, [was] not that the manner of selection of the grand jury was illegal in that it violated Article 404(B), it [was] that Article 404(B), itself, [was] unconstitutional. . . . a person can challenge the constitutionality of a statute only if the statute seriously affects his rights, and, here, the Defendant has not made, or attempted to make, any showing that the Article does so."
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