Louisiana Supreme Court upholds Daniel Blank’s first conviction

NEW ORLEANS – More than seven years after serial killer Daniel Blank’s first conviction and death sentence, the Louisiana Supreme Court has upheld both, 5-2.
Blank was condemned in September 1999 for beating and stabbing Lillian Philippe, 72, to death while robbing her home in Gonzales in 1997 to get money for his gambling habit. He was later convicted and sentenced to die for another murder in the River Parishes, and given life sentences after pleading guilty to three more. A sixth case was never tried.
Chief Justice Pascal Calogero and Justice Catherine Kimball said he should get a new trial because the trial judge would not let his lawyers show the jury videotape of his polygraph interrogation by an FBI agent, or cross-examine the agent, David Sparks.
The majority said District John Peytavin should have allowed both the videotape and the cross-examination, but that his error in refusing to do so was harmless.
Blank’s attorneys said they would convince jurors to discount the entire confession by showing that the agent coerced his confession to another murder.
But nothing in that interview showed coercion, said the 63-page majority opinion by Justice Jeffrey Victory.
The 2-page dissent, written by Kimball, noted that Blank confessed shortly after Sparks’ interrogation. Excluding that part of the questioning from evidence meant the jury did not “get a feel for the entire tenor and context of his confession, which was relevant to its determination of the voluntariness and reliability of his words,” she wrote.
Blank’s attorneys contended that police and the judge made a total of 72 errors, any of which should be grounds for reversing the conviction. The majority said it found no merit in any of them.
In addition to Philippe’s murder, Blank was condemned for killing Joan Brock of LaPlace in her back yard, and given life sentences after pleading guilty to killing Barbara Bourgeois, 58, of Paulina, and Sam and Louella Arcuri, ages 76 and 69, of LaPlace.
He is charged with but was never tried for the death of Victor Rossi, 41, in St. Amant.