Quintana v. Com.
| Decision Date | 09 September 1982 |
| Docket Number | No. 811845,811845 |
| Parties | Manuel C. QUINTANA v. COMMONWEALTH of Virginia. Record |
| Court | Virginia Supreme Court |
Jose R. Recinto, Jr., Arlington (Benjamin N. A. Kendrick, Domingo L. Ordoveza, Ordoveza & Recinto, Arlington, on brief), for appellant.
Thomas D. Bagwell, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Gerald L. Baliles, Atty. Gen., on brief), for appellee.
Before CARRICO, C. J., COCHRAN, POFF, COMPTON, THOMPSON and STEPHENSON, JJ., and HARRISON, Retired Justice.
This is an automatic review of a death sentence and the underlying conviction of capital murder in the commission of robbery while armed with a deadly weapon.
The victim of the crime, Ofelia Quintero, a 72-year-old native of Cuba, was killed by multiple hammer blows to her head, neck, and back. Numerous articles missing from her Arlington apartment were discovered in a search of a car owned by Manuel C. Quintana. Quintana, a Cuban native who speaks no English, was arrested, charged with capital murder, and, in a bifurcated trial, convicted and sentenced by a jury to death. The trial court confirmed the verdict. Defendant asks us to reverse his conviction or, in the alternative, to commute his sentence to life in prison. 1
One week before trial, defendant asked the trial court to grant him "more time" to search for alibi evidence. He was unable to name any witness or give the court assurance that any could be found. The trial court denied the motion but appointed an investigator and authorized expenditure of state funds to finance an investigation of certain records located in the state of Texas which counsel thought might be material.
As defendant concedes, whether a trial should be postponed lies within the sound discretion of the trial judge. Ungar v. Sarafite, 376 U.S. 575, 589, 84 S.Ct. 841, 849, 11 L.Ed.2d 921 (1964); Shifflett v. Commonwealth, 218 Va. 25, 30, 235 S.E.2d 316, 319 (1977). Defendant contends that denial of his motion was an abuse of discretion. We disagree.
An attorney was appointed to represent defendant at the preliminary hearing held March 23, 1981, two days after his arrest. On April 23, the court appointed two additional attorneys, both versed in the Spanish language. The record shows that, before trial began, defense counsel had interviewed prospective witnesses, examined the Commonwealth's demonstrative evidence, and otherwise investigated and prepared defendant's case with great diligence and professional skill. After working together for nearly six weeks, the three attorneys were unable to identify any evidence not already explored, other than the documentary evidence in Texas. To pursue that lead, the trial court employed an investigator at public expense, an act of judicial grace not constitutionally required. Martin v. Commonwealth, 221 Va. 436, 446, 271 S.E.2d 123, 129-30 (1980).
Defendant has shown no prejudice resulting from what he claims was an abuse of discretion, and we will affirm the trial court's ruling. Rosenberger v. Commonwealth, 159 Va. 953, 957, 166 S.E. 464, 465 (1932).
The property stolen from the victim's apartment was seized pursuant to a search warrant. The search, the seizure, the warrant, and the supporting affidavit were regular in all respects save one. The issuing magistrate failed to certify the affidavit before he filed it with the clerk of the court, and defendant contends that the trial court should have excluded the evidence seized in the search.
The magistrate filed the affidavit timely, and defendant does not challenge the finding of probable cause. Rather, he urges us to announce and apply an exclusionary rule which he believes the statute mandates. The premise of his argument is that an uncertified affidavit is not "the required affidavit". Hence, he concludes, if the statute expressly provides that failure to certify the affidavit does not invalidate a search unless the failure continues for 30 days, the statute necessarily implies that when, as here, the failure continues beyond that time, the search is invalid even if conducted the day the affidavit is filed.
We do not accept the premise, and we reject the conclusion. Having in mind the Fourth Amendment purposes the statute was designed to foster, we believe "the required affidavit" means the affidavit required to support issuance of a search warrant. Under the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement, the content of that affidavit must be sufficient to support a finding of probable cause by a neutral and detached magistrate. The constitution does not require the magistrate to certify an affidavit. The purpose of that requirement in our statute is to insure that the affidavit filed with the clerk for the information of the accused is the same affidavit upon which the finding of probable cause was based. At the suppression hearing, the affiant identified the challenged affidavit as the one he subscribed before the magistrate.
Finding that the statutory purpose was fully served and that the omission of the magistrate's signature in the jurat caused defendant no prejudice, we hold that the trial court properly overruled defendant's motion to suppress.
The Commonwealth produced no eye-witness to the crime, and defendant maintains that the evidence was insufficient to prove that he committed capital murder. We review the evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth.
On March 19, 1981, at approximately 2:30 p.m., the victim's body was found lying face-down in a pool of blood on the floor of her kitchen. Nearby walls and a radiator were splattered with blood. An autopsy revealed 13 discrete lacerations of both sides and back of the head. The skull was exposed and fractured in 11 places. There were five crescent-shaped contusions on the shoulder blades and back and an undeterminable number of bruises on the back of the neck. Any but two of the head wounds could have been fatal. The body was fully clothed, and there was no evidence of sexual abuse. The time of death might have been as early as 8:00 a.m. or as late as 2:30 p.m. Hair and blood samples identified a carpenter's hammer as the murder weapon.
The small apartment, occupied by the victim and her son, Nelson Echemendia, had been ransacked. Numerous items of jewelry, clothing, and other personal goods, including a cord torn from a telephone, were missing. Two days after the crime, the stolen property was discovered in defendant's car.
The apartment showed no signs of forced entry or a struggle. A coffee pot was on the stove, coffee cups and a water jug were on the table, and an extra chair was in the kitchen. Defendant's fingerprints were lifted from the water jug and from a camera. Echemendia testified that the camera had been inside its case when he left for work the morning of the crime and that, prior to that day, defendant had had no occasion to touch the camera.
Echemendia testified that defendant was a social acquaintance he and his mother had met in a Cuban refugee camp in Pennsylvania. Defendant had been a visitor in their apartment, and on one occasion had used Echemendia's hammer, the murder weapon. Defendant was aware that Echemendia was saving money for a trip to Florida. Echemendia had saved approximately $1000, mostly in twenty-dollar bills, which he kept in a wallet in the apartment. He also kept the identification card issued by the Immigration and Naturalization Service in his wallet. The card was among the articles found in defendant's car.
The day before the crime, defendant had been released from jail in Fairfax County with only 15 cents in his pocket. At 2:00 p.m. on the day of the crime, he appeared at a used-car lot wearing a hat similar to one missing from the apartment. He bought a car for $350 and paid the salesman in twenty-dollar bills. Later that day and the next, defendant made cash expenditures of more than $250. At the time of his arrest on March 21, he had $162 on his person.
The Commonwealth introduced as an exhibit a beige, three-piece suit defendant was seen wearing the day of the crime. 2 The suit had "blood splatters on the sleeves" and "on the lower front portion of both legs of the pants." Forensic analysis showed that the blood type was consistent with that of both the defendant and the victim.
Shortly after 1:00 p. m. on the day of the crime, defendant appeared in the office of the clerk of the General District Court of Fairfax County. Carmen Salgado, a deputy clerk fluent in the Spanish tongue, testified that defendant "asked me help him to find his attorney," who had represented him in court the previous day. Salgado "asked him what the nature of the problem was" and "he started telling me his story." Defendant said that he had found an old lady "injured at the bottom of the stairs" with gashes "[o]n the upper part of her body, her head." Defendant explained that he had not called the police because "he was scared and that he ran." Salgado tried, unsuccessfully, to call an attorney at a number defendant had written on a piece of paper. Salgado advised defendant "not to run" and that "[i]f he was innocent, then I would help him." Before defendant left, Salgado noticed "two drops of blood on his shirt." 3
We consider defendant's sufficiency challenge in its several parts.
In answer to a question propounded by the jury, the trial court announced that counsel had agreed that the killing and the robbery had been committed by the same person. Yet, defendant contends on brief that there was no evidence to...
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