State v. Inzunza

• Citation: 316 P.3d 1266,234 Ariz. 78,679 Ariz. Adv. Rep. 4
• Decision Date: 27 January 2014
• Docket Number: No. 2 CA–CR 2012–0273.,2 CA–CR 2012–0273.
• Parties: The STATE of Arizona, Appellee, v. Miguel Francisco INZUNZA, Appellant.
• Court: Court of Appeals of Arizona

234 Ariz. 78

316 P.3d 1266

679 Ariz. Adv. Rep. 4

The STATE of Arizona, Appellee,

v.Miguel Francisco INZUNZA, Appellant.

No. 2 CA–CR 2012–0273.

Court of Appeals of Arizona, Division 2.

Jan. 27, 2014.

Thomas C. Horne, Arizona Attorney General, Joseph T. Maziarz, Section Chief Counsel, Phoenix, By Diane Leigh Hunt, Assistant Attorney General, Tucson, Counsel for Appellee.

Lori J. Lefferts, Pima County Public Defender, By David J. Euchner and Katherine A. Estavillo, Assistant Public Defenders, Tucson, Counsel for Appellant.

Judge ECKERSTROM authored the opinion of the Court, in which Presiding Judge KELLY and Judge ESPINOSA concurred.

OPINION

ECKERSTROM, Judge.

¶ 1 Following a jury trial, appellant Miguel Inzunza was convicted of two counts of sexual abuse and sentenced to consecutive prison terms totaling 4.5 years. On appeal, he contends the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress and in precluding evidence relevant to his defense. He also challenges the out-of-state conviction used to enhance his sentences. We affirm his convictions and sentences but vacate the criminal restitution order that was entered erroneously at sentencing.

Factual and Procedural Background

¶ 2 We view the evidence presented at trial in the light most favorable to upholding the verdicts, drawing all reasonable inferences from the evidence against the defendant. See State v. Ramsey, 211 Ariz. 529, ¶ 2, 124 P.3d 756, 759 (App.2005). At the time of the offenses, the victim was a twenty-six-year-old woman who was moderately intellectually disabled and required twenty-four-hour care.¹ She did not understand most of the events happening around her, and she needed hands-on assistance for many daily tasks such as crossing the street, preparing food, and using the bathroom. Her communication skills were very limited, and the three-word sentences she could formulate were difficult to understand for someone who was unfamiliar with her. She was friendly and outgoing, with no sense of boundaries between strangers and non-strangers. The victim's mother likened her to a two-year-old child.

¶ 3 On the morning of February 20, 2011, the victim was left alone in her mother's apartment. The caregiver who was expected to supervise her that day did not do so, and when the mother returned home from work in the evening she found the victim missing. Law enforcement officers then began a search that lasted several hours.

¶ 4 At approximately 2:00 a.m. the next day, police entered Inzunza's apartment, which was in the same complex, and discovered the victim lying next to him in his bedroom. The victim was partially undressed, and Inzunza was asleep next to her. When officers entered the bedroom, the victim jumped up, moved quickly toward them, and began pulling up her pants. She also said, “My baby, my baby,” and rubbed her belly. The victim had a bruise or “hickey” visible on her neck, and a subsequent examination revealed another on her breast. Tests revealed the presence of Inzunza's DNA ² on the victim's breast, and the victim's DNA was found on Inzunza's penis.

¶ 5 Inzunza's brother and his girlfriend, Gloria R., had been staying at Inzunza's apartment on the date of the incident, and they were sleeping on the living room floor when the police knocked and entered. According to Gloria, the victim had wandered into the apartment earlier in the evening when the door had been open, and she did not speak to anyone once she was there. The victim simply ate a plate of food Inzunza gave her, watched television, listened to music, and then followed Inzunza into his bedroom. Gloria described it as a “weird situation,” and she said the victim seemed mentally disabled, because “all she did was laugh and wave.”

¶ 6 Inzunza was charged with one count of sexual assault and one count of sexual abuse. In his defense, he maintained the evidence was insufficient to show the vaginal penetration necessary to sustain the sexual assault charge, and he claimed his sexual contact with the victim had been consensual. The jury failed to reach a verdict on the sexual assault charge, but it found him guilty of sexual abuse as a lesser-included offense, and it also found him guilty of the other count of sexual abuse. The trial court imposed enhanced sentences based on Inzunza's prior felony conviction from Washington, and this timely appeal followed.

Motion to Suppress

¶ 7 Inzunza first contends the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress that was based on the police officers' warrantless entry into his apartment. In reviewing this issue, we consider only the evidence presented at the suppression hearing, which we view in the light most favorable to upholding the court's ruling. State v. Butler, 232 Ariz. 84, ¶ 8, 302 P.3d 609, 612 (2013). We review the court's ruling for an abuse of discretion, to the extent it involves a discretionary issue, State v. Moody, 208 Ariz. 424, ¶ 62, 94 P.3d 1119, 1140 (2004), and we consequently defer to any factual findings that are supported by the record. See State v. Davolt, 207 Ariz. 191, ¶ 21, 84 P.3d 456 (2004); State v. Rosengren, 199 Ariz. 112, ¶¶ 9, 14 P.3d 303, 307 (App.2000). But we review de novo the court's legal conclusions drawn from the facts, as well as any constitutional issues. See Moody, 208 Ariz. 424, ¶ 62, 94 P.3d at 1140.

¶ 8 In his motion, Inzunza sought to suppress all evidence resulting from the warrantless entry under both the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article II, § 8 of the Arizona Constitution. The state maintained the search was justified by the emergency aid exception to the warrant requirement. The trial court agreed and denied the motion on this ground. On appeal, Inzunza again contends the entry and search violated his federal and state constitutional rights.

¶ 9 The record shows that police officers responded to the report that the victim was missing just before 7:00 p.m. They were informed that she was a vulnerable adult with capabilities similar to a three-year-old child. The officers then went door to door in the apartment complex seeking information about her. One witness reported having seen a Hispanic man leading the victim around the complex. At 1:49 a.m., another witness reported seeing the victim earlier in Inzunza's apartment.

¶ 10 Within five minutes of receiving this tip, officers gathered outside Inzunza's apartment and knocked loudly on the door for several minutes. When they looked through the window, they saw two people—a man and a woman—lying on the living room floor. The officers could tell the people were breathing, but they were unresponsive to the officers' repeated knocks and yells. Earlier in the evening, detectives had knocked on Inzunza's door as part of their canvassing effort, but no one had responded. Concerned for the well-being of the individuals inside, and believing that the victim might be in the apartment, the officers picked the lock on the door and entered.

¶ 11 While one officer checked on the two people lying on the floor, another officer went into the adjoining room of the one-bedroom apartment, where he immediately found the victim and Inzunza. The man and woman in the living room—Inzunza's brother and Gloria R.—subsequently were identified and found to be highly intoxicated.

¶ 12 Warrantless entries into and searches of homes are presumptively unreasonable and unconstitutional unless an exigent circumstance or “other clear necessity” justifies the action. State v. Cañez, 202 Ariz. 133, ¶ 52, 42 P.3d 564, 582 (2002). The emergency aid exception permits a warrantless entry into a dwelling when law enforcement officers “reasonably believe there is someone within in need of immediate aid or assistance.” State v. Fisher, 141 Ariz. 227, 237, 686 P.2d 750, 760 (1984). The exception applies, in other words, when (1) police have reasonable grounds to believe there is an emergency that requires their immediate assistance to protect life or property and (2) there is a reasonable basis to associate the emergency with the place to be searched.³Id.

¶ 13 Courts routinely apply the emergency aid exception to searches for missing persons. E.g., People v. Wharton, 53 Cal.3d 522, 280 Cal.Rptr. 631, 809 P.2d 290, 299–300, 324 (1991) (upholding warrantless entry into apartment to locate missing occupant); People v. Mitchell, 39 N.Y.2d 173, 383 N.Y.S.2d 246, 347 N.E.2d 607, 608–10 (1976) (affirming warrantless entry into hotel room to search for missing chambermaid), abrogated on other grounds by Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 402, 404–05, 126 S.Ct. 1943, 164 L.Ed.2d 650 (2006). The exception also has been applied when officers reasonably believed immediate medical assistance might be required for a person visible in a dwelling. In State v. Russell, 118 Or.App. 652, 848 P.2d 657, 658–59 (1993), for example, the appellate court upheld a warrantless entry when a mother could not be awakened either by her young children, who were locked inside the home with her, or by the repeated efforts of a relative and a police officer, and the circumstances thus suggested she might either be asleep or “unconscious ... because of a drug overdose.” As our own supreme court has explained, “ [B]ecause we do not want to deter police officers from engaging in searches for persons in distress, the exclusionary rule has no place here.” Fisher, 141 Ariz. at 240, 686 P.2d at 763.

¶ 14 In light of the circumstances here, which are equally if not more indicative of an emergency than those in Russell, we conclude the trial court did not abuse its discretion or otherwise err in denying Inzunza's motion to suppress. See Fisher, 141 Ariz. at 238, 686 P.2d at 761 (ruling will be upheld “absent clear and manifest error”). The combined circumstances of the missing-person report, the information obtained by police officers concerning the victim's vulnerable status and probable location, and their observations outside Inzunza's apartment, all justified both the...