Background
In the early morning hours of November 29, 2019, eighteen-year-old Taylor Kerley drove himself and sixteen-year-old Wade Gregory to the Haughton, Louisiana home of Johnathan Bothwell to purchase marijuana and THC syrup. During the encounter, Bothwell was shot twice and killed, and his mother, Marta Pertuz, was struck in the face with a glass mason jar. Kerley was apprehended the following day after a traffic stop. He told police a third man — an unidentified “black guy” whom Gregory had brought along — entered the house and fired the shots, while Kerley remained outside retrieving a drink from the car. Kerley acknowledged helping remove the vehicle’s license plate before the visit and watching Gregory dispose of the gun magazine in a lake afterward.
Gregory, testifying at trial, told a contradictory story: he and Kerley had agreed to rob Bothwell at gunpoint on the drive over, Gregory stayed in the car as the getaway driver, and Kerley was the only one who entered the house. Pertuz identified Kerley from a photo array the night after the shooting (with 80–90 percent certainty) and again in court, stating she had never seen Gregory inside the home. Cell-phone GPS data placed Kerley’s phone within a 32-foot circle directly over the house at the time of the shooting. Blood found on the van’s passenger side matched Gregory’s DNA, and the firearm was recovered at the scene.
Following a jury trial in February 2024, Kerley was unanimously convicted of second-degree murder, obstruction of justice, and the responsive verdict of second-degree battery. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without benefits on the murder count, with concurrent terms of five years for battery and ten years for obstruction. Kerley also sought a new trial on grounds that a juror had concealed her connection to surveillance footage from the Circle K convenience store referenced during trial. After lengthy post-trial proceedings — including Kerley’s exercise of his Faretta right to self-representation — the trial court denied all post-verdict motions and imposed sentence. Kerley appealed.
The Court’s Holding
The Second Circuit affirmed the convictions and sentences in full. On sufficiency of the evidence, the court applied the Jackson v. Virginia standard and held that a rational jury could have found Kerley guilty of second-degree murder regardless of whether he personally fired the weapon. Under Louisiana’s felony-murder statute, La. R.S. 14:30.1(A)(2), the killing of a human being during the perpetration of armed robbery constitutes second-degree murder without any requirement of intent to kill. Under the principals statute, La. R.S. 14:24, all persons who aid, abet, or participate in a crime are equally culpable. The court found ample evidence — Kerley’s admitted knowledge of the robbery plan, his presence in the house at the time of the shooting, his role in removing the license plate, and his own words (“I didn’t say shit. I just went along with it”) — to establish him as a principal to the murder occurring during an armed robbery.
The court also rejected the argument that the State failed to prove serious bodily injury to Pertuz for purposes of the second-degree battery conviction, deferring to the jury’s credibility assessment of witness testimony. On the motion for new trial, the court held that Kerley failed to demonstrate prejudicial error from Juror 2’s undisclosed Circle K employment. The juror had only stated during deliberations that she knew a surveillance video existed — a fact already before the jury through multiple officers’ testimony — and there was no evidence she had ever viewed the footage or knew its contents. Furthermore, defense counsel had not asked jurors during voir dire about their prior or current employment history, so Kerley could not satisfy the “reasonable diligence” requirement that a new trial motion be based on information that could not have been discovered before trial.
Key Takeaways
- A defendant who participates in a planned armed robbery is guilty of second-degree felony murder under Louisiana law if a co-participant kills the victim, even without any personal intent to kill — and even if the defendant claims he objected to the robbery plan but went along anyway.
- Physical evidence pointing to a co-defendant as the actual shooter does not defeat a felony-murder conviction where the defendant’s own conduct (planning, presence, and active participation in the criminal enterprise) sufficiently established his role as a principal.
- A motion for new trial based on juror concealment requires the defendant to show both prejudice and reasonable diligence, including that counsel specifically questioned jurors on voir dire about the subject matter of the concealed information; general background questions are insufficient to preserve the claim.
- A juror’s knowledge that a piece of surveillance footage exists — particularly when its existence was already disclosed through trial testimony — does not constitute prejudicial outside influence absent evidence the juror viewed the footage or revealed its contents.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces the breadth of Louisiana’s felony-murder and principals doctrines. Defense counsel representing co-defendants in robbery-homicide cases must reckon with the reality that a client who participates in the planning and execution of an armed robbery can face a mandatory life sentence even if a co-defendant pulled the trigger and even if the client raised no weapon. The court’s emphasis on Kerley’s own admissions — particularly his statement that he “just went along with it” and his active role in removing the license plate — illustrates how prosecutors can build a felony-murder case through the defendant’s own words.
The ruling also carries a practical lesson for trial practice: voir dire must be targeted. When surveillance footage from a specific location is a live evidentiary issue, counsel on both sides should ask prospective jurors directly about their connection to that location. The failure to do so forecloses post-verdict relief even when a juror’s undisclosed ties to the evidence come to light during deliberations.