Post by pelicanguy on Mar 26, 2007 11:38:40 GMT -5
Kin, court officials wonder whether family could have been saved
12:38 PM CDT on Sunday, March 25, 2007
Houma Courier via 4 WWL New Orleans
HOUMA, La. – Whether they thought his quiet demeanor concealed family loyalty or criminal intent, neither his family nor the justice system was prepared for the destruction David Ray Mitchell would wreak Friday morning.
Violent in love, violent in death, Mitchell’s quarrels with his girlfriend, 20-year-old Frederica Coleman, were well-known to friends, family and police long before the bodies of her and her daughter, Davonya, were found stabbed to death in her apartment and his was fished out of the Intracoastal Waterway.
Any couple fights, but not every man hits. Mitchell’s blows, however, sometimes left family fearing broken bones in Coleman’s face, and he was hauled off to jail for it numerous times.
Frederica Coleman and her daughter Davonya
Even so, she always took him back, often bailing him out of jail. Stop being beaten, stop going to jail, family members urged both.
Mitchell had only been out of jail a few weeks when he climbed to the top of the guard rail on the downtown Houma twin span bridge Friday morning. The police were there, too, simply trying to save a man’s life, but did he realize they didn’t know who he was, didn’t know about the bodies?
At the bridge’s edge, Mitchell said nothing, just leaped. The impact of his body hitting the water 73 feet below created ripples that would only magnify, drawing hundreds of mourners into the streets of Senator Circle when the bodies were found, and leaving those who knew him best and those who tried to protect his family without any explanation.
REVOLVING DOOR
Prisoners are brought to the Terrebonne Parish jail in Ashland through a series of steel fences, the last a cage-like door that encloses the transporting patrol car. The system is built to ensure those intended for jail stay within its walls.
For those like Mitchell, however, whose low-profile offenses keep them behind bars for only a few months at a time, the heavy gates swing open and close with the breezy regularity of a department-store turnstile.
It might be impossible to determine exactly how many times those doors opened for Mitchell. His lengthy record of arrests on minor crimes, missed court dates, captures and jail sentences may be too complicated to count.
David Ray Mitchell
Starting in 1999, he was arrested on battery charges seven times, including five labeled as domestic-violence charges. He had three drug charges – two for cocaine in 2001 and 2003, and one for marijuana in 2003. His most-notable offense was a Christmas day attempt to rob a 60-year-old man at gunpoint in 1999, but problems finding the victim resulted in that case being downgraded to an attempted simple robbery, for which he was sentenced to 15 months in jail.
His longest jail sentence coincides with the largest gap in his record. In 2003, he pleaded guilty to having a stolen vehicle and damaging it. He was sentenced to two years in prison, and his next arrest, another domestic-abuse battery, does not appear until early 2006.
Despite that record, Mitchell was nearly an anonymous figure, nearly nameless and faceless, to the same people who kept him behind bars. The district judge who was the most recent to sentence Mitchell had to refer to his court minutes to find him. Even one of his many court-appointed lawyers, William Yates, couldn’t remember him.
“He did not put up a red flag. … He wasn’t on the radar,” said First Assistant District Attorney Carlos Lazarus.
REPEAT OFFENSES
It is inaccurate, however, to say Mitchell slipped through the cracks of the criminal-justice system. No files were lost, no special treatment was given, and no charges were ever dropped against him – he pleaded guilty nearly every time he was arrested and served the time assigned to him. In fact, the system appears to have worked perfectly – for every crime he committed, he was sentenced appropriately according to the law.
He simply couldn’t stay out of trouble, and the law is not well equipped to handle such a case. Misdemeanor offenses generally are punishable by a maximum of six months in jail, and in only a few cases can that penalty be increased for repeat offenders, such as drunken driving, for example – and, now, domestic abuse.
In a relatively recent revision to state law, repeat spousal abusers can be subject to heightened penalties. Third offenders can be sent to prison for up to five years; fourth offenders can be imprisoned for 10 to 30 years.
Mitchell, with his multiple domestic-abuse battery charges, might have seemed a perfect candidate, but officials say those convictions are difficult to make stick. As with drunken driving, when someone decides to plead guilty to domestic abuse, the judge must specifically describe to him the enhanced penalties that will follow a conviction, a process called “Boykinizing” – the name comes from a 1969 Alabama case – that can take up to an hour of court.
If the defendant pleads guilty without the benefit of that lengthy “Boykin” discussion, that conviction cannot be used to enhance his penalty. Mitchell may have only been Boykinized once – his most-recent conviction – if at all, Lazarus said.
The Terrebonne District Attorney’s Office decided last year to make domestic violence more of a priority, officials said. They met with judges to ask for more Boykinizing during domestic-abuse convictions and assigned a special prosecutor to make sure those convictions hold and begin to pile up. Now, Lazarus said, the parish has at least one third-offense case and one fourth-offense case pending.
The entire battle against domestic abuse collapses, however, when the victim will not participate, officials agreed.
“When you have a victim that doesn’t want to cooperate with the criminal-justice system, it makes the prosecution very difficult,” said District Judge David Arceneaux. “Unfortunately, it appears the victim in this case did everything she could to keep him out of jail.”
The court appearances and the jail sentence, officials say, are intended to be part of the escape route. If the victims won’t take advantage of the opportunity to get away, how can officials do anything other than wait for the next blow to fall?
“Sometimes all we can do is react,” said District Attorney Joe Waitz Jr. “It’s a very, very unfortunate situation.”
When he is about to sentence an abuser, Arceneaux said he always asks the victim what she would like done with the man.
“I feel like I have to trust her,” Arcenaux said. “She lives with him. She knows his character and temper better than I do. The problem is figuring out which case you shouldn’t do it in.”
NOBODY KNOWS
The criminal-justice system may have been unable to prevent Mitchell’s suspected final act of domestic violence – he is the only suspect – but even his family had no warning it was coming.
“Nobody knows what happened in that house,” his aunt said. “Shouldn’t nobody judge him because both families are grieving. We’re just sorry this happened.”
“We’re all family – I’m hurting and they’re hurting,” said his mother, Mary Mitchell, noting that she, too, loved Coleman and lost a granddaughter. “I loved them, just like they loved my child.”
Everyone knew of his fights with Coleman, though they were largely unaware of his drug problems, said family members gathered at his mother’s east-Houma home Saturday. But, they insisted, he was “a good child” who fiercely loved his daughter. The three walking together – father, mother and daughter walking all over town – is an image many remember vividly.
“Knowing him as a nephew, he was a good child,” his aunt said. “We don’t know what was going through his mind.”
Everyone tried to get Mitchell and Coleman apart, family members said. Everyone told them they were bad for each other, but they wouldn’t listen: They loved each other. Coleman often went to the jail to get him herself, or sent his younger sister, 19-year-old Cierra Mitchell.
“They were both real happy as soon as he got out of jail,” Cierra said. “The brother I knew was very loving. He cared about his family deeply, which is why this is a big shock.
“He loved that baby to death,” she continued, “but the devil makes you do all kinds of things. … I thought I knew him better than anybody in this world.”
A Louisiana State University student, Cierra had been home Tuesday to pick up a new computer. She saw her brother then gave him a kiss and told him to be good, and headed back to school. He called her Thursday night, and they talked about a job he’d been applying for – he’d called about it four times that day, he said, but heard nothing.
Mitchell told her he was going for a walk because he’d been in the house all day, Cierra said. He told her he loved her, and she told him again to be good.
“That was it. He didn’t seem like anything … “the girl trailed off. “It had to be something more, that nobody knows about. It’s so tragic that it had to go like this. That poor baby, bless her heart.”
Link to story of the murder suicide on Friday:
www.wwltv.com/local/lafourche/stories/wwl032307tpdoublekill.c01e0f0.html
12:38 PM CDT on Sunday, March 25, 2007
Houma Courier via 4 WWL New Orleans
HOUMA, La. – Whether they thought his quiet demeanor concealed family loyalty or criminal intent, neither his family nor the justice system was prepared for the destruction David Ray Mitchell would wreak Friday morning.
Violent in love, violent in death, Mitchell’s quarrels with his girlfriend, 20-year-old Frederica Coleman, were well-known to friends, family and police long before the bodies of her and her daughter, Davonya, were found stabbed to death in her apartment and his was fished out of the Intracoastal Waterway.
Any couple fights, but not every man hits. Mitchell’s blows, however, sometimes left family fearing broken bones in Coleman’s face, and he was hauled off to jail for it numerous times.
Frederica Coleman and her daughter Davonya
Even so, she always took him back, often bailing him out of jail. Stop being beaten, stop going to jail, family members urged both.
Mitchell had only been out of jail a few weeks when he climbed to the top of the guard rail on the downtown Houma twin span bridge Friday morning. The police were there, too, simply trying to save a man’s life, but did he realize they didn’t know who he was, didn’t know about the bodies?
At the bridge’s edge, Mitchell said nothing, just leaped. The impact of his body hitting the water 73 feet below created ripples that would only magnify, drawing hundreds of mourners into the streets of Senator Circle when the bodies were found, and leaving those who knew him best and those who tried to protect his family without any explanation.
REVOLVING DOOR
Prisoners are brought to the Terrebonne Parish jail in Ashland through a series of steel fences, the last a cage-like door that encloses the transporting patrol car. The system is built to ensure those intended for jail stay within its walls.
For those like Mitchell, however, whose low-profile offenses keep them behind bars for only a few months at a time, the heavy gates swing open and close with the breezy regularity of a department-store turnstile.
It might be impossible to determine exactly how many times those doors opened for Mitchell. His lengthy record of arrests on minor crimes, missed court dates, captures and jail sentences may be too complicated to count.
David Ray Mitchell
Starting in 1999, he was arrested on battery charges seven times, including five labeled as domestic-violence charges. He had three drug charges – two for cocaine in 2001 and 2003, and one for marijuana in 2003. His most-notable offense was a Christmas day attempt to rob a 60-year-old man at gunpoint in 1999, but problems finding the victim resulted in that case being downgraded to an attempted simple robbery, for which he was sentenced to 15 months in jail.
His longest jail sentence coincides with the largest gap in his record. In 2003, he pleaded guilty to having a stolen vehicle and damaging it. He was sentenced to two years in prison, and his next arrest, another domestic-abuse battery, does not appear until early 2006.
Despite that record, Mitchell was nearly an anonymous figure, nearly nameless and faceless, to the same people who kept him behind bars. The district judge who was the most recent to sentence Mitchell had to refer to his court minutes to find him. Even one of his many court-appointed lawyers, William Yates, couldn’t remember him.
“He did not put up a red flag. … He wasn’t on the radar,” said First Assistant District Attorney Carlos Lazarus.
REPEAT OFFENSES
It is inaccurate, however, to say Mitchell slipped through the cracks of the criminal-justice system. No files were lost, no special treatment was given, and no charges were ever dropped against him – he pleaded guilty nearly every time he was arrested and served the time assigned to him. In fact, the system appears to have worked perfectly – for every crime he committed, he was sentenced appropriately according to the law.
He simply couldn’t stay out of trouble, and the law is not well equipped to handle such a case. Misdemeanor offenses generally are punishable by a maximum of six months in jail, and in only a few cases can that penalty be increased for repeat offenders, such as drunken driving, for example – and, now, domestic abuse.
In a relatively recent revision to state law, repeat spousal abusers can be subject to heightened penalties. Third offenders can be sent to prison for up to five years; fourth offenders can be imprisoned for 10 to 30 years.
Mitchell, with his multiple domestic-abuse battery charges, might have seemed a perfect candidate, but officials say those convictions are difficult to make stick. As with drunken driving, when someone decides to plead guilty to domestic abuse, the judge must specifically describe to him the enhanced penalties that will follow a conviction, a process called “Boykinizing” – the name comes from a 1969 Alabama case – that can take up to an hour of court.
If the defendant pleads guilty without the benefit of that lengthy “Boykin” discussion, that conviction cannot be used to enhance his penalty. Mitchell may have only been Boykinized once – his most-recent conviction – if at all, Lazarus said.
The Terrebonne District Attorney’s Office decided last year to make domestic violence more of a priority, officials said. They met with judges to ask for more Boykinizing during domestic-abuse convictions and assigned a special prosecutor to make sure those convictions hold and begin to pile up. Now, Lazarus said, the parish has at least one third-offense case and one fourth-offense case pending.
The entire battle against domestic abuse collapses, however, when the victim will not participate, officials agreed.
“When you have a victim that doesn’t want to cooperate with the criminal-justice system, it makes the prosecution very difficult,” said District Judge David Arceneaux. “Unfortunately, it appears the victim in this case did everything she could to keep him out of jail.”
The court appearances and the jail sentence, officials say, are intended to be part of the escape route. If the victims won’t take advantage of the opportunity to get away, how can officials do anything other than wait for the next blow to fall?
“Sometimes all we can do is react,” said District Attorney Joe Waitz Jr. “It’s a very, very unfortunate situation.”
When he is about to sentence an abuser, Arceneaux said he always asks the victim what she would like done with the man.
“I feel like I have to trust her,” Arcenaux said. “She lives with him. She knows his character and temper better than I do. The problem is figuring out which case you shouldn’t do it in.”
NOBODY KNOWS
The criminal-justice system may have been unable to prevent Mitchell’s suspected final act of domestic violence – he is the only suspect – but even his family had no warning it was coming.
“Nobody knows what happened in that house,” his aunt said. “Shouldn’t nobody judge him because both families are grieving. We’re just sorry this happened.”
“We’re all family – I’m hurting and they’re hurting,” said his mother, Mary Mitchell, noting that she, too, loved Coleman and lost a granddaughter. “I loved them, just like they loved my child.”
Everyone knew of his fights with Coleman, though they were largely unaware of his drug problems, said family members gathered at his mother’s east-Houma home Saturday. But, they insisted, he was “a good child” who fiercely loved his daughter. The three walking together – father, mother and daughter walking all over town – is an image many remember vividly.
“Knowing him as a nephew, he was a good child,” his aunt said. “We don’t know what was going through his mind.”
Everyone tried to get Mitchell and Coleman apart, family members said. Everyone told them they were bad for each other, but they wouldn’t listen: They loved each other. Coleman often went to the jail to get him herself, or sent his younger sister, 19-year-old Cierra Mitchell.
“They were both real happy as soon as he got out of jail,” Cierra said. “The brother I knew was very loving. He cared about his family deeply, which is why this is a big shock.
“He loved that baby to death,” she continued, “but the devil makes you do all kinds of things. … I thought I knew him better than anybody in this world.”
A Louisiana State University student, Cierra had been home Tuesday to pick up a new computer. She saw her brother then gave him a kiss and told him to be good, and headed back to school. He called her Thursday night, and they talked about a job he’d been applying for – he’d called about it four times that day, he said, but heard nothing.
Mitchell told her he was going for a walk because he’d been in the house all day, Cierra said. He told her he loved her, and she told him again to be good.
“That was it. He didn’t seem like anything … “the girl trailed off. “It had to be something more, that nobody knows about. It’s so tragic that it had to go like this. That poor baby, bless her heart.”
Link to story of the murder suicide on Friday:
www.wwltv.com/local/lafourche/stories/wwl032307tpdoublekill.c01e0f0.html