New Orleans LA. Nov. 16, 2007
Despite having performed the feat before, a Hammond man who defended himself in a St. Tammany Parish courtroom this week could not separate the "armed" from the "robbery."
Robert Latroy White, 40, was convicted Wednesday afternoon of the armed robbery of the Wal-Mart Supercenter near Covington on April 30 and using a knife to threaten a security guard in order to make his escape.
"I have the dubious distinction of defending myself," White said during his opening statement to the 12-member jury. "I felt pressed to defend myself because I know the facts better than anyone else."
In the past five years, White has frequented court to defend himself against felony armed robbery charges, and he has managed to reduce most of those charges to misdemeanors.
He had done so by focusing on minute distinctions among armed robbery, theft and aggravated assault charges.
According to state law, armed robbery "is the taking of anything of value belonging to another . . . by use of force or intimidation, while armed with a dangerous weapon."
"That is his M.O. He shoplifts and then he defends himself with a knife," said Rick Wood, the district attorney office's spokesperson. "But he wants to say that is not an armed robbery."
During his closing arguments to the jury this week, White argued that because he had used his knife after the robbery, the two incidents were separate.
According to court testimony, White was seen taking security tags off electronics and stuffing the items into his pockets.
Jason Pittman, a Wal-Mart security guard, confronted White as he was leaving, but White swung at him with a knife, got into his car and drove off.
The robbery is virtually identical to a July 2005 incident when White wielded a knife at two Kmart security guards in Mandeville after they tried to detain him on suspicion of shoplifting. In that case, by successfully separating the knife attack from the specific act of robbery, White was able to convert the felony charge into two separate misdemeanors: theft and aggravated assault.
White served six months in the parish jail for the 2005 incident. Felony charges tend to carry longer prison sentences, and having a record of past felonies can lead to stricter sentences down the road. On the other hand, misdemeanor sentences generally are lighter, run concurrently and call for incarceration in a parish jail rather than the state prison system.
On Wednesday afternoon, White's luck ran out. The jury took 20 minutes to return with a felony conviction.
White is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 4 by state Judge Larry J. Green. He faces a minimum of 10 years in prison and a maximum of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
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