Negligent homicide in hunting death upheld

NEW ORLEANS -- Louisiana's Supreme Court has reinstated the negligent homicide conviction of a man who shot his friend to death in an Avoyelles Parish deer hunting accident.

According to Tuesday's decision, Jake DeSoto killed his friend Kain Roy in November 2004. Roy apparently had stepped away from his stand and DeSoto, thinking he saw a deer, fired a shot that hit Roy in the back of the neck.

A jury unanimously found DeSoto guilty. A state appeal court later reversed the verdict. But the Supreme Court ruled 6-1 Tuesday that the negligent homicide verdict was proper because DeSoto failed to clearly identify his target before shooting. The high court also reinstated DeSoto's sentence: five years in prison with two years suspended.