Supreme Court of Louisiana, 2003

The court affirmed Tate’s first-degree-murder convictions and death sentence, concluding that the evidence supported his guilt as a principal with specific intent and that the challenged jury-selection rulings and refusal to give a special accomplice instruction were not erroneous.

The Supreme Court of Louisiana granted the State's certiorari writ to decide whether the court of appeal erred in vacating the defendant's forty-year hard labor sentence for armed robbery as unconstitutionally excessive.