State v. Walsh

Supreme Court of Louisiana
State v. Walsh, 377 So. 2d 841 (La. 1979)
1979 La. LEXIS 7473
Reasons, Summers

State v. Walsh

Opinion of the Court

ORDER

Motion to reconsider granted.

The stay order issued herein on November 29, 1979 is hereby recalled, vacated and set aside and it is further ordered that bail for Robert Walsh and Claryce Gratten be and the same is hereby fixed at $150,000 each, reserving unto the said Robert Walsh and Clarice Gratten the right to provoke in district court a hearing to reduce the said bonds and present opposition to the affidavits of J. Stan Howard and David C. Gar-mon, which affidavits are the basis on which this order increasing bail is based.

Dissenting Opinion

SUMMERS, Chief Justice

(dissenting).

I dissent. I did not agree to the reduction of these bail bonds initially, and I do not agree to the reduction as modified at this time. It is my opinion that the bonds as fixed by the trial judge should be approved.

The information available at this time indicates that this case involves an international narcotic operation in which these defendants stood to share in a 6 million dollar haul. Furthermore, these defendants have prior criminal records, and, as the State sets forth in brief, reductions of bail bonds by this Court of defendants in a similar narcotic transaction in Livingston Parish resulted in six of the defendants fleeing the jurisdiction of the Court and failing to appear for trial.

This Court’s persistent reductions of bail bonds of defendants in narcotic transactions can only encourage this illicit traffic in our State.

Reference

Full Case Name
STATE of Louisiana v. Robert WALSH STATE of Louisiana v. Clarice GRATTEN
Status
Published