State v. Terrovona
| Decision Date | 13 March 1986 |
| Docket Number | No. 50637-0,50637-0 |
| Citation | 716 P.2d 295,105 Wn.2d 632 |
| Parties | STATE of Washington, Respondent, v. James R. TERROVONA, Appellant. En Banc |
| Court | Washington Supreme Court |
Mark Mestel, Everett, for appellant.
Seth Dawson, Snohomish County Prosecutor, and S. Aaron Fine, Deputy, Everett, for respondent.
At issue in this case is the admissibility of much of the State's evidence against the defendant, James R. Terrovona, who is appealing his conviction for the first degree murder of his stepfather, Gene Patton.
At about 8:15 p.m. on February 26, 1984, the decedent, Gene Patton, received a telephone call at his home. He told his girl friend that the phone call was from the defendant. He said that the defendant had apparently run out of gas on 116th in Marysville and wanted his (the decedent's) assistance. The decedent also said that he (the decedent) must be crazy, but left for the avowed purpose of helping the defendant.
At about 8:30 p.m., a passerby found a body lying alongside a car on 116th Street. Shortly after 9:00 p.m. Snohomish County deputies identified the deceased. He had been severely beaten and shot. The subsequent autopsy revealed that the cause of death was gun shots to the head and abdomen. A gasoline can was near the decedent's car. Deputies also observed what appeared to be a fairly recent tire tread impression on the shoulder of the road just in front of At approximately 9:15 p.m., a lieutenant from the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office arrived on the scene and suggested the defendant as a suspect. It was "common knowledge" at the precinct that there was bad blood between the decedent and the defendant and that the defendant had once threatened the decedent. Sometime after 10:00 p.m., this lieutenant learned that the defendant lived at 1305 Casino Road in Everett and drove a 1975 Ford Elite automobile.
the car; they concluded that the tread was not from the decedent's car and took a plaster cast of the impression.
At about 10:30 p.m., police officers informed the decedent's girl friend of his death. She told the officers of the phone call the decedent had received just before he left that night, and what he had said about it.
At approximately 1:00 a.m., several police officers arrived at an apartment building at 1305 Casino Road. A Ford Elite was in the parking lot. A deputy looked at the car's tires and concluded that the right front tire tread closely matched the impression left on the shoulder of 116th. The manager told the deputies where the defendant lived, and four of them went to his apartment; they had no arrest warrant.
As soon as the defendant opened his door, the deputies arrested and handcuffed him and took him into the apartment. Then they quickly checked the apartment for other people or weapons and found nothing. After having been given his Miranda warnings, the defendant indicated that he understood them and made some incriminating statements.
A couple of officers remained in the apartment until another detective obtained a search warrant. Upon his return, detectives seized several items of evidence expressly referred to in the warrant. They also seized grocery store receipts not mentioned in the search warrant.
After defendant's arrest, the police impounded his car without a warrant, but later obtained a warrant to search the car.
The defendant was charged with first degree murder. When the trial began on May 7, the defendant moved to suppress the physical evidence seized from his apartment and the car, and also moved to suppress the custodial statements he had made in the apartment. The court denied these motions, and also declined to suppress testimony of the defendant's parole officer about the defendant's request for a gun permit and his reasons therefor (the defendant had earlier been convicted of social security fraud). The court also denied the defendant's motion to suppress the girl friend's testimony about the phone call the decedent received the evening of his death.
The State presented most of this evidence in its case in chief. When friends of the defendant testified in the defense case that he had spent the evening of February 26 in a tavern, the State introduced the store receipts as rebuttal evidence to show that the defendant was in a grocery store at 10:15 p.m.
The jury found the defendant guilty of first degree murder and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. He appealed his conviction directly to this court and we accepted review.
Seven principal issues are presented.
ISSUE ONE. Did the trial court err in admitting hearsay evidence of the statements the decedent made as he left home to meet his death?
ISSUE TWO. Was the defendant's arrest unlawful because it was made without an arrest warrant?
ISSUE THREE. Was it error to admit evidence seized from the defendant's apartment because the police secured the apartment from within while awaiting a search warrant?
ISSUE FOUR. Did the trial court err in admitting custodial statements made by the defendant into evidence?
ISSUE FIVE. Did the trial court err in admitting evidence concerning the defendant's automobile?
ISSUE SIX. Did the trial court err in admitting the store ISSUE SEVEN. Did the trial court err in admitting evidence showing that the defendant was on federal probation?
receipts in evidence because they were not included within the stated scope of the search warrant?
ISSUE ONE.
CONCLUSION. Under ER 803(a)(3), the decedent's statements to his girl friend were admissible in evidence because they evinced his then state of mind.
A statement made out of court that is offered in court to prove the truth of the matter stated is inadmissible hearsay evidence unless it falls within one of the exceptions to the hearsay rule. 1 One exception to the hearsay rule allows evidence of a declarant's state of mind. This is ER 803(a)(3) which reads:
Then Existing Mental, Emotional, or Physical Condition. A statement of the declarant's then existing state of mind, emotion, sensation, or physical condition (such as intent, plan, motive, design, mental feeling, pain, and bodily health), but not including a statement of memory or belief to prove the fact remembered or believed unless it relates to the execution, revocation, identification, or terms of declarant's will.
This rule is in accord with previous Washington law providing that statements of a declarant's then existing state of mind are admissible in evidence if there is need for their use and if there is substantial probability of their trustworthiness. 2
Fed.R.Evid. 803(3) is the same as ER 803(a)(3). Under both rules, hearsay evidence is admissible if it bears on the declarant's state of mind and if that state of mind is an issue in the case. 3 Under the federal rule, the state of mind exception has also been held to authorize admission of evidence of a party's intentions as circumstantial evidence that he acted according to those intentions. This extension of the state of mind exception is known as the "Hillmon doctrine." 4
Long before the present evidentiary rules were adopted, the United States Supreme Court examined the state of mind rule in Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Hillmon, 145 U.S. 285, 12 S.Ct. 909, 36 L.Ed. 706 (1892). The issue in Hillmon was the identity of a body found at a campsite. The plaintiffs in that case contended that the body was that of a Mr. Hillmon. The defendants contended the body was that of a Mr. Walters and sought to introduce letters Walters had written stating that he intended to go to the area of the campsite with Hillmon. The Supreme Court found the letters admissible for two purposes:
The letters in question were competent, ... as evidence that, ... [Walters] had the intention of going, and of going with Hillmon, which made it more probable both that he did go and that he went with Hillmon, than if there had been no proof of such intention.
Hillmon, at 295-96, 12 S.Ct. at 912-13.
Although Hillmon was a civil case, the Court cited with approval a number of criminal cases in support of its decision.
One such case was Hunter v. State, 40 N.J.L. 495 (1878). In that case, Hunter was indicted for the murder of Armstrong. At issue was the admissibility of Armstrong's letters and statements, conveyed to his wife and son on the date of his death, to the effect that he was going on a business trip with Hunter. The Court quoted as follows from Hunter, at 538:
In the ordinary course of things, it was the usual information that a man about leaving home would communicate, for the convenience of his family, ... At the time it was given, such declarations could ... mean harm to no one; ... If it is legitimate to show by a man's own declarations that he left his home to be gone a week, or for a certain destination, which seems incontestable, why may it not be proved in the same way that a designated person was to bear him company? ... If it was in the ordinary train of events for this man to leave word or to state where he was going, it seems to me it was equally so for him to say with whom he was going.
Hillmon, at 299, 12 S.Ct. at 914. A similar fact pattern, and much the same analysis, is found in State v. Vestal, 278 N.C. 561, 180 S.E.2d 755 (1971).
Under Hillmon, therefore, a declarant's statement of future intent is admissible to prove: (1) that the declarant went to the place indicated by his or her statement of intention, and (2) that the declarant went there with the other named party. 5
Most courts have expanded the "Hillmon doctrine" to admit hearsay statements of intent that implicate a third party's conduct. 6 This expansion is commonly used in murder trials, where courts admit a decedent's hearsay statements that implicate the defendant in the murder. 7 Courts use such evidence despite conflicting guidance in the comments to Fed.R.Evid. 803(3). That rule itself makes no reference to...
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State v. Carlson, No. 30419-8-II (WA 5/10/2006)
...are admissible as circumstantial evidence that the declarant acted in conformity with the stated intent. State v. Terrovona, 105 Wn.2d 632, 642, 716 P.2d 295 (1986). We hold there must be a close correlation between the victim's statement of future intent and the victim's Terrovona involved......
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State v. Reid, 23642-7-II.
...are sufficient to warrant a person of reasonable caution in a belief that an offense has been committed." State v. Terrovona, 105 Wash.2d 632, 643, 716 P.2d 295 (1986); State v. Braun, 11 Wash.App. 882, 884-85, 526 P.2d 1230 (1974). The arresting officer needs more than a "bare suspicion of......
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State v. Muhammad
...Id. (citing Warden, Md. Penitentiary v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 298-99, 87 S. Ct. 1642, 18 L. Ed. 2d 782 (1967) ; State v. Terrovona, 105 Wash.2d 632, 644, 716 P.2d 295 (1986) ). Exigent circumstances arise when " ‘obtaining a warrant is not practical because the delay inherent in securing a ......
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State v. Cardenas
...Warden Md., Penitentiary v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 298-99, 87 S.Ct. 1642, 1645-46, 18 L.Ed.2d 782 (1967); State v. Terrovona, 105 Wash.2d 632, 644, 716 P.2d 295 (1986) (citing Dorman v. United States, 435 F.2d 385, 392-93 In this case, Cardenas challenges the trial court's conclusion that ex......