81 Hawai'i 131, State v. Eastman

• Decision Date: 15 March 1996
• Docket Number: No. 18686,18686
• Parties: 81 Hawai'i 131 STATE of Hawai'i, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Thomas EASTMAN, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Hawaii Supreme Court

Page 57

913 P.2d 57

81 Hawai'i 131

STATE of Hawai'i, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Thomas EASTMAN, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 18686.

Supreme Court of Hawai'i.

March 15, 1996.

Appeal from the Second Circuit Court (FC-CR. No. 94-0789).

Edwin L. Kamauoha, Jr., Deputy Public Defender, on the briefs, Honolulu, for defendant-appellant.

Mark R. Simonds, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney, County of Maui, on the briefs, Wailuku, for plaintiff-appellee.

Before MOON, C.J., and KLEIN, LEVINSON, NAKAYAMA and RAMIL, JJ.

NAKAYAMA, Justice.

After a bench trial, defendant-appellant Thomas Eastman (Eastman) was found guilty of abuse of a family or household member in violation of Hawai'i Revised Statutes (HRS) § 709-906(1) (Supp.1994). ¹ On appeal, Eastman contends that the State of Hawai'i (prosecution) presented insufficient evidence to convict him of the offense. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm the family court's judgment.

I. BACKGROUND

Eastman lived together with his wife, Renee Bautista (Bautista), and Bautista's baby at the time of the alleged incident of physical abuse in this case. At Eastman's bench trial, Bautista testified that, prior to the incident, Eastman and Bautista had moved their furniture into their kitchen so that their carpets could be cleaned. By the evening of September 30, 1994, the carpet had been cleaned and Eastman was supposed to move all the furniture out of the kitchen again, but Eastman failed to do so because he was late returning home from work on that particular day. As a result, Bautista became angry at Eastman and told him that she was going to go to a nearby friend's home to wait while he moved the furniture out of the kitchen. Bautista picked up a telephone receiver to call her friend, but Eastman thought Bautista was trying to make a long distance telephone call. Eastman and Bautista had just paid over five hundred dollars for a telephone phone bill, so Eastman became angry and told Bautista she was "not calling long distance, and he yanked the phone out" of the telephone jack. Bautista took the telephone receiver and "conked him over the back of the head with it until [she] saw blood running." Eastman walked out of the house saying that he was going to report Bautista to the police.

Bautista further testified that she feared the police would arrest her and take her away from her baby, so Bautista went with her baby to her friend's nearby home. When Police Officer Thomas Martins (Officer Martins) and Police Officer Walter Whitten ² (Officer Whitten) arrived at the friend's home to speak with Bautista about Eastman's complaint, they noticed that Bautista had a swollen left eyebrow, and at that time Bautista told the officers that Eastman had slapped her. However, when Bautista testified at Eastman's subsequent trial, she proceeded to recant this prior statement, explaining instead that Eastman had not struck her at all, but rather, Bautista had actually struck her left eyebrow repeatedly with her own hand before the officers arrived in order to deceive the officers into believing that Eastman had slapped her on the side of her head. Bautista further testified that she was able to hit herself in the left eyebrow without experiencing pain because she was intoxicated at that time. Thus, when Officer Martins and Officer Whitten arrived to speak with Bautista about Eastman's complaint, she was able to convince them that they should arrest Eastman for physical abuse.

Bautista also testified at trial that she could not tell whether Eastman had been drinking that night, but Bautista admitted that her left eyebrow was swollen on September 30, 1994, when Officer Martins and Officer Whitten arrived at her friend's house, and she acknowledged that police photographs clearly and accurately depicted her swollen left eyebrow as it appeared on that particular evening. The prosecution eventually introduced these police photographs into evidence.

When the prosecution asked Bautista whether she told the police officers that she had been dialing 911 when Eastman pulled the telephone out of the telephone jack, Bautista answered:

No, I said no. I remember that. I did say, no. I wasn't dialing the police. I was dialing my girlfriend's house, and I couldn't figure out why they kept asking me that. They kept asking me that, and I kept saying, no, I was calling my girlfriend. That's how I remember.

Although Bautista said that the police officers "kept pressuring" Bautista to make a written statement in a Victim's Voluntary Statement Form (VVSF), Bautista conceded that the police officers did not tell her what to write; Officer Whitten merely told Bautista to "write it out whatever happened." The prosecution showed Bautista a photocopy of the VVSF with Bautista's signature, and Bautista agreed that it clearly and accurately represented her own prior statements and her own signature which she had written in the VVSF. The prosecution eventually introduced the VVSF into evidence.

The first question in the VVSF asked whether Bautista had been "physically hurt, harmed, or abused," and Bautista had answered by writing in the word, "Yes[.]" Bautista had also stated in the VVSF that immediately prior to the alleged abuse she had "Yelled, Ragged [sic], provided, needed a wacking [sic] He [sic] was upset about me moving & took the stroller so I got in his face[.]" Bautista had further stated in the VVSF that Eastman "slapped me" on the "left side of my head[,]" after which Bautista "grab[bed] for phone Then [sic] hit him w/Receiver [sic] after he pulled the phone out of socket [sic] [.]"

However, when asked on the stand whether her prior statements in the VVSF were true, Bautista answered, "No, it's not true." Bautista admitted that she had willingly lied to the police officers and had made the false statements in the VVSF because on the night of the alleged abuse she "would say or do anything not to go to jail." In contrast, Bautista now wanted to tell the truth about Eastman because she could not "just sit there and let him go to jail when he never did hit me." She also indicated that she and Eastman had reconciled since their altercation, and when the prosecution asked Bautista whether it would be fair to say that she would do anything to keep Eastman from going to jail, Bautista answered, "That would be fair, too. I have a child." However, Bautista also stated that she "would never lie under oath."

Officer Martins testified that on September 30, 1994, he first met Eastman when Eastman entered the Lahaina Police Station and "wanted me to go arrest his wife who he said had struck him over the head with a telephone[.]" However, Eastman's eyes were "red and watery" and Officer Martins detected "liquor on his breath." Furthermore, Eastman gave more than one version of why his wife had attacked him.

According to Officer Whitten's testimony, when he and Officer Martin eventually spoke with Bautista, she "had a knot on her head, and she was very incoherent and constantly crying." Officer Whitten "tried to calm her down" because "she was very hysterical." Bautista told Officer Whitten that Eastman had become angry because she had wanted to leave him, and in his anger Eastman had slapped Bautista on the side of her head. Bautista told Officer Whitten that after Eastman had hit her, she went to her telephone and "was attempting to call 911" when the altercation escalated further and Bautista struck Eastman in the back of his head with the telephone receiver.

Officer Whitten confirmed that he had given Bautista a VVSF and had told her "[t]hat she didn't have to give me this statement, but it would help in my investigation if she would cooperate[,]" after which Bautista "relented and gave this statement of her own free will." In addition to Bautista, Officer Whitten also attested to the authenticity and accuracy of Bautista's statements in the VVSF, as well as the police photographs of Bautista's swollen left eyebrow.

After closing arguments from counsel, the family court found Eastman guilty of abuse of a family or household member in violation of HRS § 709-906(1), ruling in relevant part as follows:

Okay, the Court finds that the testimony of Ms. Bautista today was not credible. The document that she signed, the photographs, I think, attest to the fact of what happened, and I'm very clear in my mind that Mr. Eastman did hit her. So the Court is going to find the Defendant guilty as charged.

Eastman filed this timely appeal.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

SB11 [1-5] "We have long held that evidence adduced in the trial court must be considered in the strongest light for the prosecution when the appellate court passes on the legal sufficiency of such evidence to support a conviction; the same standard applies whether the case was before a judge or a jury. The test on appeal is not whether guilt is established beyond a reasonable doubt, but whether there was substantial evidence to support the conclusion of the trier of fact. Indeed, even if it could be said in a bench trial that the conviction is against the weight of the evidence, as long as there is substantial evidence to support the requisite findings for conviction, the trial court will be affirmed."

" 'Substantial evidence' as to every material element of the offense charged is credible evidence which is of sufficient quality and probative value to enable [a person] of reasonable caution to support a conclusion. And as trier of fact, the trial judge is free to make all reasonable and rational inferences under the facts in evidence, including circumstantial evidence."

State v. Pone, 78 Hawai'i 262, 265, 892 P.2d 455, 458 (1995) (quoting State v. Batson, 73 Haw. 236, 248-49, 831 P.2d 924, 931 (1992), reconsideration denied, 73 Haw. 625, 834 P.2d 1315 (1992)) (brackets in original); see also State v. Reed, 77 Hawai'i 72, 81-82, 881 P.2d 1218, 1227-28 (1994); In re John Doe, Born on January 5, 1976, 76 Hawai'i 85, 92-93, 869 P.2d 1304, 1311-12 (1994); State v....