SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) – The sentencing of a man convicted of multiple crimes in April scheduled for Monday has been delayed after the Caddo Parish District Attorney’s Office filed a ‘Second Felony Habitual Offender Bill of Information” against him.
A 12-member Caddo Parish Jury on April 20 convicted 42-year-old Taniel Cole of attempted manslaughter and four counts of second-degree kidnapping and one count of armed robbery with the use of a firearm.
During his trial, witnesses told a terrifying story of Cole in August 2020 holding nurses hostage at gunpoint in the pediatric ICU on the fourth floor of Ochsner LSU Health St. Mary Medical Center, and then hijacking a car at in a parking lot outside the hospital and forcing its owner at gunpoint to drive him to Farmerville, then Monroe, before she was able to escape, and then leading multiple law-enforcement officers in two-states on a chase that ended in his arrest in Mississippi.
For those convictions, Cole faces up to 20 years in prison for the attempted manslaughter conviction, at least five and up to 40 years for each second-degree kidnapping conviction and 10-to-99 years for the armed robbery/firearm conviction, for a maximum of 279 years in prison.
But Caddo District Attorney Kodie Smith, who prosecuted Cole, decided the sentencing guidelines for the Caddo convictions still weren’t enough, so submitted the Habitual Offender Bill, citing Cole’s January 2003 armed robbery conviction in Jefferson Parish.
For that conviction, Cole was sentenced to 20 years hard labor, thus his Caddo Parish conviction was his second.
The law, Louisiana RS 15:529.1, says if the second felony term is less than life in prison, then the judge can add another term of at least one-third of the longest term (in this case, unclear until the judge decides), but not more than twice the term prescribed for the first conviction (20 years).
Cole will be back in court on May 25 for the issue to be argued. After the judge rules on the bill, Cole will be sentenced.
