State v. Crandell

The State of Louisiana (plaintiff) charged James Carl Crandell (defendant) and his girlfriend, Gail Willars (defendant), with murder for allegedly beating Charles Parr to death at a Louisiana motel. Crandell and Willars were tried together in 1991. The motel owner, Margie Theodos, testified at the trial. Willars and her son, Zachary, also testified at the trial, and Crandell’s attorney extensively questioned Willars on direct and redirect examination. The jury found Crandell and Willars guilty, but Crandell’s conviction was subsequently vacated in a federal habeas corpus proceeding. The state again charged Crandell with murder based on Parr’s death. The state notified Crandell that it intended to introduce the transcripts of Theodos’s, Willars’s, and Zachary’s testimony from the 1991 trial into evidence at Crandell’s new trial in 2007. The state claimed that the witnesses were unavailable because Theodos had died, Willars had asserted her Fifth Amendment privilege, and Zachary could not be located. The state presented confirmation of Theodos’s death and testimony that Zachary could not be found despite extensive online searches and attempts to serve Zachary with a material-witness warrant. The state also presented Willars’s statement that Willars had a certiorari petition pending before the United States Supreme Court to challenge her conviction and that she would invoke her Fifth Amendment privilege if questioned about the events surrounding Parr’s death. The trial court found that all three witnesses were unavailable and allowed the witnesses’ prior testimony to be read to the jury. The jury found Crandell guilty of second-degree murder. Crandell appealed, challenging the trial court’s determination that Zachary and Willars were unavailable and the admission of Willars’s former testimony.