Louviere returns to court

Defense lawyers hoping to spare Chad Roy Louviere from execution have begun questioning witnesses this week in the preliminary steps of their post-conviction relief filing, as prosecutors seeking to have the death penalty stick challenged key points of their presentation.

Louviere pleaded guilty to first- degree murder for the 1996 shooting of ArgentBank teller Pamela Duplantis during a 25-hour hostage standoff on Grand Caillou Road that included multiple rapes.

There was no plea bargain in the offing. After pleading guilty the former Terrebonne Parish deputy, who was in uniform when he committed the crimes, threw himself on the mercy of a jury that ordered him to death.

Traditional appeals were exhausted. But the lawyers now representing him say those who did at the time did not tell Louviere he had an insanity defense available to him; court papers say they neither sought to see if he was competent to enter a plea that could land him on a lethal injection table.

The first witness to be called in Monday’s hearing before Judge Johnny Walker, bank customer Tameras Durham, testified under questioning by attorney Caroline Tillman that when Louviere entered the bank he appeared “crazy,” and said “his appearance was enough to make me run out of the bank.”

Had he been asked to speak with a metal health professional on behalf of Louviere by his former lawyers, Durham said, he would have.

Assistant District Attorney Carlos Lazarus challenged the value, however, eliciting from Durham the acknowledgment that he is not a mental health professional and was not capable of making a diagnosis.

No decision was made Monday or Tuesday; no decision is expected any time soon. Walker will be hearing testimony over a period of months, ruling on each individual motion contained in briefs that are hundreds of pages long.

A former member of Louviere’s defense team, Julie Ferris, testified about former defense lead attorney David Stone’s alleged failure to fully notify Louviere of his options; Both Lazarus and Assistant District Attorney Ellen Doskey vigorously cross examined Ferris, who has left legal practice and is now in the real estate business.

They were particularly concerned about Ferris testifying to facts that they believed Stone should address, reducing her testimony in their estimation to hearsay.

Walker also refused to allow testimony from Ferris about the use of American Bar Association guidelines in defending capital cases, stating that there is no requirement they be followed. But he did allow her to talk about the training for capital defense lawyers at the end of her testimony. He has not committed to regarding it in his decisions.

Maj. Thomas Cope, now warden of the Terrebonne Parish jail but a lieutenant at the time of the standoff, testified about his boyhood friendship with Louviere and knowledge that Louviere said he was sexually molested by a Gibson clergyman.

Cope entered the bank at Louviere’s request, following the shooting of Duplantis, which Louviere’s current attorneys say was accidental.

“He has always said it was accidental,” Ferris said during her testimony.

Duplantis’ parents were at the hearing and heard Cope relate how Louviere appeared to pay no mind to her body.

“It was like she didn’t exist,” Cope said, as Phyllis Duplantis fought back tears. A District Attorney’s Office staff member offered her blue tissues. Other women who were victims of Louviere at the bank kept a steady stare on the defense table.

Security issues for Louviere have been a source of contention as well. His lawyers want to be able to speak with him in private when he comes to Terrebonne for the hearings; they also want the stun belt he wears removed in the courtroom, a request Walker will not grant.

Walker did suggest that the attorneys talk with the sheriff’s office about arrangements; he also suggested that the attorneys could meet with their client at Angola where he languishes on death row between hearings.

Walker also refused a request from defense lawyers that Louviere be allowed to take notes with a pen.

The judge noted that Louviere took a corrections officer hostage when he was held in Lafayette for trial, which resulted in the hostage-taking of a female inmate according to police reports at the time, and an alleged rape.

The theory behind the post-conviction relief bid is that if any element of the defense that could have resulted in a single juror voting against execution was left out then a new trial could be ordered.

Legal experts say that’s because a vote for execution must be unanimous. Prosecutors have the option of taking a plea in return for life in prison with no parole. But District Attorney Joe Waitz Jr. has said that so long as Louviere’s victims want him to die, he will stay the course.

Chad Louviere is escorted into the Houma-Terrebonne Courthouse in this file photo. Testimony continued Tuesday as Louviere’s attorneys argue for post-conviction relief before District Judge John Walker.

FILE PHOTO