## Facts

- The State of Louisiana charged Noble Robinson, Jr. with second-degree murder for the shooting death of his former girlfriend, Serita Thomas.
- According to the State’s evidence, Thomas was sitting in a parked car with her friend, Patricia Ann Pitre, and Thomas’s young child was also in the vehicle.
- Robinson approached the vehicle with a gun and confronted Thomas at the driver’s side.
- Pitre testified that immediately before Robinson fired, she heard him say to Thomas, “I told you I was going to do it.”
- Robinson shot Thomas in the thigh and then shot her in the head, causing her death.
- After the shooting, Robinson left the scene on a bicycle, rode to the police department, and told the dispatcher that he had shot Thomas.
- At trial, Robinson objected to Pitre’s testimony about the pre-shooting statement on hearsay grounds.
- The prosecutor argued the statement was admissible because it was Robinson’s own statement and was made during the criminal episode (“things said and done” during the act).
- The trial court overruled the hearsay objection and admitted the testimony.
- The jury found Robinson guilty of second-degree murder, and he appealed to the Louisiana Court of Appeal, Third Circuit.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court erred by admitting Pitre’s testimony that, just before the shooting, Robinson said, “I told you I was going to do it,” over a hearsay objection.

## Decision

- The Louisiana Court of Appeal, Third Circuit affirmed Robinson’s conviction.
- The court held that Pitre’s testimony describing Robinson’s statement was properly admitted when offered by the State against Robinson because it was Robinson’s own statement.
- The court also accepted the State’s position that the statement, made immediately before the shooting and directly connected to it, qualified as “things said and done” during the commission of the offense.

## Legal Principles

- A defendant’s out-of-court statement, when offered against the defendant by the prosecution, is admissible as the defendant’s own admission and is not excluded on hearsay grounds.
- Statements made contemporaneously with, and directly connected to, the commission of a crime may be admissible as part of the “things said and done” during the criminal act (often discussed in Louisiana cases under the res gestae/integral-act doctrine).

## Conclusion

The court affirmed Robinson’s second-degree murder conviction, finding no error in allowing the eyewitness to recount Robinson’s contemporaneous pre-shooting statement because it was admissible against him as his own admission and as a statement made during the commission of the offense.


State v. Robinson, 634 So. 2d 1274 (1994)