Judgment rendered September 30, 2026.
Application for rehearing may be filed
within the delay allowed by Art. 922,
La. C. Cr. P.
No. 57,125-KA
COURT OF APPEAL
SECOND CIRCUIT
STATE OF LOUISIANA
*****
STATE OF LOUISIANA Appellee
versus
JERRY JACKSON Appellant
*****
Appealed from the
First Judicial District Court for the
Parish of Caddo, Louisiana
Trial Court No. 342,447
Honorable Erin Waddell Garrett, Judge
*****
LOUISIANA APPEALS AND Counsel for Appellant WRIT SERVICE
By: Remy V. Starns
Sherry Watters
JAMES E. STEWART, SR. Counsel for Appellee District Attorney
WILLIAM JACOB EDWARDS
Assistant District Attorney
*****
Before PITMAN, MARCOTTE, and ELLENDER, JJ.
PITMAN, C. J.
This case has been before this court on a previous occasion and
Defendant Jerry Jackson’s convictions for manslaughter, a violation of La.
R.S. 14:31, and second degree murder, a violation of La. R.S. 14:30.1, were
reversed and remanded due to a nonunanimous jury verdict. State v.
Jackson, 53,795 (La. App. 2 Cir. 5/26/21), 318 So. 3d 479. A new trial was
ordered pursuant to Ramos v. Louisiana, 590 U.S. 83, 140 S. Ct. 1390,
206 L. Ed. 2d 583 (2020). After a trial was held, Defendant was found
guilty by a unanimous jury of the manslaughter of Kendrick Brown and the
second degree murder of Michael Dillard. Defendant appeals his
convictions and sentences. For the following reasons, the convictions and
sentences are affirmed.
FACTS
At trial, the following evidence was adduced.
Defendant was married to Rhonda Brown and they lived in the
3300 block of Bond Avenue in Shreveport. Rhonda had children from
previous relationships, including 25-year-old Kendrick Brown, who lived in
the neighborhood. Kendrick would come to his mother’s house to eat, and
this was a constant source of friction between him and Defendant. Rhonda
testified that Defendant made threats against her son because he continued
eating meals at her home.
On July 20, 2016, Kendrick went to his mother’s house in the morning
and took food from the freezer. Rhonda had not told Defendant that
Kendrick was coming over. When he arrived, an argument ensued between
the two men. Kendrick left the house and went to the home of his friend,
Michael, who also lived in the neighborhood. He was angry and upset about the way Defendant had treated him and decided to return to his mother’s
house to confront him. Michael, who had no issues with Defendant,
accompanied him to Defendant and Rhonda’s house.
Rhonda testified that she was inside the house when Defendant
grabbed a gun1 from a back room, said he was going to “kill their f…ng
asses” and then went to the front door. She stated that when Defendant
opened the door, she saw her son and another individual outside. She was
heading to the back of the house when she heard two shots being fired. She
returned to the front of the house, went outside and found Kendrick face
down in the street and Michael lying face down in the grass by a tree. She
saw Defendant pick up a handgun from the driveway near Kendrick and put
it near his body. She testified that she told him not to “mess with evidence.”
Defendant got into Rhonda’s red Expedition with “the gun,” which later
testimony proved was a rifle, and drove across the street to another house.
She testified that she went to Kendrick’s father’s house down the block to
make the 911 call to the Shreveport Police Department (“SPD”), wherein
she told them that her husband had shot her son. The 911 tape was played
for the jury.
Rhonda stated that when she returned from Kendrick’s father’s house,
Defendant returned in her car. She did not see the rifle, but she did see
Defendant hand the gun that had been beside Kendrick’s body to the police.
She stated she did not know where Defendant’s rifle was when he drove
away in her car.
1
Both a handgun and a rifle are involved in this case, and it is unclear which one or both was retrieved from the back room. The murder weapon was a small rifle.
2
From the earlier trial, the testimony of Neferteria Wallace, an
unavailable witness, was read to the jury. She lived next door to Defendant
and Rhonda, went to school with Kendrick and was “like family” to
Michael. She testified that she was outside with her children that day when
she saw Kendrick and Michael hanging out in the yard next door being
“chill.” She went inside briefly; when she returned, she saw Defendant with
a “long gun, maybe that you hold with two hands,” shooting at the two men.
She stated Michael fell first and held his back, but Kendrick fell and did not
move after being shot in the head. She testified that Defendant was still
shooting while the men were on the ground. She put her children inside her
house; then, on her way to run to the house of Michael’s girlfriend, Rose
McCray, she saw a handgun in the driveway by Kendrick, but she did not
see the “gun” Defendant had used in the shooting. She testified that she also
saw Defendant leave in a red vehicle. When she returned with Rose,
Kendrick’s father was at the scene, and Defendant had also returned. SPD
officers arrived, and she heard Defendant report that Kendrick had
threatened him and tried to kill him. She stated that was untrue because the
victims did not have a gun, and no one had threatened Defendant.
Rose came to the scene with Neferteria and testified that Michael was
still alive when she arrived but that he had been shot in the back and the
head. Kendrick was also still alive when she arrived, but she said he took
his last breath in her presence. She saw Defendant holding a larger gun that
was wrapped in a blue sheet, and she saw him throw it into a vehicle. After
the police arrived, she saw Defendant removing the handgun that was beside
Kendrick’s body and give it to them.
3
The earlier trial testimony of Robert Bolds, who was unavailable to
testify at the 2025 trial because of dementia, was read into the record with
permission of the trial court. His wife, Myrtis Bolds, testified before the
reading of Robert’s testimony and verified that he had Alzheimer’s. She
stated that she was present on the day of the shooting when her husband
came into the house and told her that Defendant, whom Robert knew, had
come up to his truck, told him he was in trouble and then handed him a gun.
Robert’s testimony showed that Defendant was holding the gun by the
handle, and the weapon was pointed at him, so Robert grabbed it and threw
it in his truck. Defendant drove away, and Robert returned to his home and
told his wife what had happened. She encouraged him to call the sheriff and
report the incident. He stated he threw the rifle on his “iron pile” and
immediately went to the sheriff’s office across the street. He showed a
deputy the location of the rifle, and it was removed. The prosecutor asked
him if it was perhaps the SPD officers who had recovered the weapon from
his house, but Robert stated it was sheriff’s deputies.
Dr. James Traylor, a forensic pathologist, testified that both men died
from gunshot wounds to the head that were fired from a distance of more
than two feet. Michael also suffered a wound in his back. SPD Ofc. Daniel
Denby located two spent and one live .22 caliber shells on the scene.
Defendant had given the officer a .40 caliber handgun in a pillowcase.
Crime scene officer Tracy Mondels received the .40 caliber handgun from
Ofc. Denby. Before he left the scene, Ofc. Denby received a call that police
were in possession of a .22 caliber rifle that had been obtained from Robert
by Dep. Michael Vaitkus. Ballistics from the firearms examination
4
indicated that the two casings from the scene were fired from the .22 rifle.
The swabs from the rifle did not contain sufficient DNA for comparison.
The jury found Defendant guilty as charged of the manslaughter of
Kendrick and the second degree murder of Michael. Defendant was
sentenced on February 24, 2025. The trial court considered La. C. Cr. P.
art. 894.1 factors, Defendant’s prior criminal record and the facts that he
showed no remorse and did not act under strong provocation. It found no
mitigating circumstances. In accordance with La. R.S. 14:30.1, Defendant
was sentenced to life without benefit of probation, parole or suspension of
sentence for the second degree murder of Michael. It failed to impose the
sentence at hard labor, but the minutes and the commitment order correctly
note that it was to be served at hard labor. In accordance with La.
R.S. 14:31, Defendant was also sentenced to 40 years at hard labor for the
manslaughter of Kendrick. The sentences were ordered to be served
consecutively. Defendant appeals his convictions and sentences.
DISCUSSION
Defendant’s counsel has filed a brief pursuant to Anders v California,
386 U.S. 738, 87 S. Ct. 1396, 18 L. Ed. 2d 493 (1967), and contends that
this court should review the record for errors patent on the face of the record
under La. Const. art. I, §19. If this court should find any errors patent,
Defendant asks the court to reverse his convictions and sentences.
Defendant was given the opportunity to file a pro se brief but chose not to do
so within the time allotted by the court.
The state informed the court by letter that since no pro se brief was
filed and an Anders brief was, it declined to file a response brief. The letter
5
stated that if, however, Defendant filed a pro se brief, it would respond as
instructed by the court.
Defendant’s appellate counsel filed a motion to withdraw from
representation after this court considers whether any errors patent exist and
alleged that she could find no nonfrivolous issues to raise on appeal. See
Anders v. California, supra; State v. Jyles, 96-2669 (La. 12/12/97),
704 So. 2d 241; and State v. Mouton, 95-0981 (La. 4/28/95), 653 So. 2d
1176. See also State v. McHenry, 52,993 (La. App. 2 Cir. 11/20/19),
285 So. 3d 507.
Anders v. California, supra, and the subsequent Supreme Court
decisions relying on it, Penson v. Ohio, 488 U.S. 75, 109 S. Ct. 346, 102 L.
Ed. 2d 300 (1988); and McCoy v. Ct. of Appeals of Wisconsin, Dist. 1,
486 U.S. 429, 108 S. Ct. 1895, 100 L. Ed. 2d 440 (1988); offer little
instruction on the content of a brief that appointed counsel representing an
indigent defendant on appeal must file to provide the reviewing court “with
a basis for determining whether appointed counsel have fully performed
their duty to support their clients’ appeals to the best of their ability” and to
assist the reviewing court “in making the critical determination whether the
appeal is indeed so frivolous that counsel should be permitted to withdraw.”
State v. Mouton, supra, citing McCoy, supra. In Mouton, supra, the
Louisiana Supreme Court stated:
In the absence of that explicit direction, this Court has
sanctioned the procedures outlined by the Fourth Circuit Court
of Appeal in State v. Benjamin, 573 So.2d 528 (La. App. 4th
Cir.1990), see State v. Robinson, 590 So.2d 1185 (La.1992),
and directed other circuit courts of appeal in Louisiana to
follow them. See, e.g., State v. Royals, 600 So.2d 653 (La.
1992).
6
The appellate attorney’s brief conforms to the procedures set forth in
Anders v. California, supra; Jyles, supra; and Benjamin, supra; and contains
the procedural history of the case and the evidence presented at trial along
with a reviewable assessment for both Defendant and the appellate court of
whether the appeal is even worth pursuing. Mouton, supra. It also contains
a verification that counsel mailed copies of the appellate brief and the
motion to withdraw to Defendant.
This court has conducted a review of the record for purposes of
identifying any errors patent and has found no departure from procedures
which adequately protect Defendant’s constitutional right to a meaningful
appeal in Louisiana. Defendant was given the opportunity to file a
supplemental pro se brief and did not do so. He was charged by a properly
filed original grand jury indictment, which was signed by the foreman and
returned in open court. The indictment was amended by the district attorney
at the beginning of the second trial to properly reflect the lesser charge of
manslaughter for double jeopardy purposes. Defendant was represented by
counsel at all important stages of the proceedings. He made no peremptory
challenges at voir dire; and if any voir dire errors existed, they were not
preserved because not all peremptory challenges were used. Defendant did
not object during opening statements, and there were few defense objections
during trial. He was informed of his right not to testify, and there were no
objections to the jury instructions, the verdict form or closing argument.
The jury was polled and the decisions to convict on both counts were
unanimous. Post-trial motions were general and were denied.
Sentencing by the trial court was thorough; and the sentences imposed
were proper, except for the failure of the trial court to impose the sentence
7
for second degree murder to be served at hard labor. Despite the failure to
orally impose hard labor at sentencing, the minutes and commitment order
correctly state that the term is to be served at hard labor. Defense counsel
did not object to the sentences or file a motion to reconsider.
La. C. Cr. P. art. 882(A) provides that an illegal sentence may be
corrected at any time by the court that imposed the sentence or by an
appellate court on review. Because the minutes of the trial court correctly
reflect that the sentence for second degree murder is to be served at hard
labor, there is no error patent in the sentencing of this crime.
CONCLUSION
This court, having conducted a review for errors patent in this record,
and for the foregoing reasons, affirms the convictions and sentences of
Defendant Jerry Jackson. Further, appellate counsel’s motion to withdraw is
granted.
CONVICTIONS AND SENTENCES AFFIRMED. APPELLATE
COUNSEL’S MOTION TO WITHDRAW IS GRANTED.
8