## Facts

- Charles Parr was found beaten to death in a closet in Room 15 at the Beacon Manor motel in Bossier City, Louisiana.
- Police focused on the room’s most recent occupants: James Carl Crandell and his girlfriend, Gail Willars, who were traveling with Willars’s eight-year-old son, Zachary.
- Crandell and Willars were arrested in Chicago and returned to Louisiana.
- In a 1991 joint trial, Crandell was convicted of first-degree murder and Willars of second-degree murder; both received life sentences after the penalty phase did not result in death sentences.
- In 2004, a federal court vacated Crandell’s conviction and sentence; he was reindicted, and the charge was later amended to second-degree murder.
- Before the 2007 retrial, the State moved to read into evidence transcripts of 1991 testimony from three witnesses—motel owner Margie Theodos, Willars, and Zachary—asserting they were unavailable.
- The State supported unavailability with (1) evidence Theodos had died, (2) proof of efforts to locate Zachary (including online searches and attempts to execute a material-witness warrant), and (3) a proffer that Willars would invoke the Fifth Amendment due to ongoing collateral proceedings.
- The trial court found all three witnesses unavailable, admitted their prior testimony, and the jury convicted Crandell of second-degree murder; he received a life sentence at hard labor without parole eligibility.

## Issues

1. Whether the State made sufficient good-faith efforts to locate Zachary Willars to deem him unavailable and admit his former testimony.
2. Whether Gail Willars was properly deemed unavailable based on an asserted Fifth Amendment privilege, allowing admission of her former testimony.
3. Whether prior testimony from a trial resulting in a conviction later vacated on federal habeas may be admitted as former testimony consistent with hearsay rules and the Confrontation Clause.

## Decision

- The court affirmed Crandell’s conviction and sentence.
- The court held the State’s efforts to locate Zachary were reasonable and supported a finding of unavailability.
- The court held Willars was unavailable because a valid risk of self-incrimination persisted while her conviction was still subject to collateral review and she unequivocally intended to invoke the Fifth Amendment.
- The court rejected the argument that vacatur of the earlier conviction rendered the prior proceeding unusable for purposes of admitting former testimony.
- The court concluded admission of the former testimony satisfied confrontation requirements because Crandell had a prior opportunity and similar motive to cross-examine the witnesses at the 1991 trial.

## Legal Principles

- Former testimony may be admitted when the witness is unavailable and the opposing party previously had an adequate opportunity and similar motive to cross-examine in an adversarial proceeding under oath.
- A witness may be unavailable due to death, inability to be located despite reasonable good-faith efforts, or a valid assertion of the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.
- The Confrontation Clause permits admission of prior testimonial statements when the declarant is unavailable and the defendant previously had an opportunity to cross-examine.
- Vacatur of a conviction does not, by itself, bar use of prior sworn testimony if the former-testimony requirements and confrontation safeguards were met at the time the testimony was taken.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed the second-degree murder conviction, holding that the trial court properly found key witnesses unavailable and admitted their 1991 trial testimony because Crandell had previously cross-examined them, satisfying both former-testimony rules and Confrontation Clause requirements despite the earlier conviction’s federal habeas vacatur.


State v. Crandell, 987 So. 2d 375 (La. Ct. App. 2d Cir. 2008)