Castillo v. State, 4561

• Decision Date: 11 July 1980
• Docket Number: No. 4561,4561
• Citation: 614 P.2d 756
• Parties: Peter CASTILLO, Appellant, v. STATE of Alaska, Appellee.
• Court: Alaska Supreme Court

Page 756

614 P.2d 756

Peter CASTILLO, Appellant, v. STATE of Alaska, Appellee.

No. 4561.

Supreme Court of Alaska.

July 11, 1980.

Richard G. Lindsley, Juneau, and Deborah A. Paquette, Asst. Public Defenders, Brian Shortell, Public Defender, Anchorage, for appellant.

William H. Hawley, Asst. Atty. Gen., Anchorage, and Avrum M. Gross, Atty. Gen., Juneau, for appellee.

Before RABINOWITZ, C. J., CONNOR, BURKE and MATTHEWS, JJ., and DIMOND, Senior Justice.

BURKE, Justice.

Peter Castillo was convicted of the attempted murder of Eli Sharclane in violation of AS 11.15.030. ¹ In this appeal he challenges that conviction upon several grounds. We affirm.

Shortly after midnight, on September 25, 1977, Castillo was returning home from a dance when he encountered Sharclane on the Douglas side of the Juneau-Douglas Bridge. Castillo approached Sharclane to talk to him and, when Sharclane ignored Castillo's questions, Castillo struck him in the arm. A brief fight ensued; Sharclane then broke away and ran across the bridge towards Juneau with Castillo chasing him.

In a statement that Castillo now maintains was impermissibly elicited from him by the Juneau police, he stated that Sharclane stopped on the bridge, turned and faced Castillo in a fighting position and that the two once again began to struggle with one another. Castillo stated that he then threw Sharclane off the bridge.

On November 17, 1977, Eli Sharclane's grandfather filed a missing persons report. The Juneau police began an investigation shortly thereafter, and on December 8, 1977, a grand jury was convened to consider the matter. At the close of the state's evidentiary presentation, the grand jury indicted Castillo for second degree murder. Following a jury trial, Castillo was found guilty of attempted murder. This appeal followed.

Failure to Dismiss the Grand Jury Indictment

Castillo first argues that the trial court erred in denying his motion to dismiss the indictment. He contends, among other things, that the indictment should have been dismissed because his confessions and admissions were improperly submitted to the grand jury since there was insufficient independent evidence to establish the corpus delicti of the crime charged. ²

The function of the corpus delicti doctrine ³ was discussed in Armstrong v. State, 502 P.2d 440 (Alaska 1972):

It is a settled principle of American jurisprudence that a criminal conviction must rest on firmer ground than the uncorroborated confession or admission of an accused. To avoid convicting a person solely out of his own admissions, the law requires, for a case to be submissible to the trier of fact, additional independent evidence. Thus, in a homicide case, there must be independent evidence of (1) the fact of death which (2) was caused by criminal agency of another before the question of guilt of this defendant could be submitted to the jury.

Id. at 447 (footnotes omitted). Under the test developed in Armstrong, to justify submission of the defendant's statement to the trier of fact there must be "substantial independent evidence which would tend to establish the trustworthiness of the statements." Id. at 447, quoting Opper v. United States, 348 U.S. 84, 93, 75 S.Ct. 158, 164, 99 L.Ed. 101, 109 (1954). In the instant case, Castillo maintains that the state failed to establish by substantial independent evidence the fact of death caused by the criminal agency of another.

The state, in order to establish the necessary evidence to warrant Castillo's indictment, marshalled the following evidence. A police check indicated that Sharclane had not departed from Juneau since September 24th via any scheduled or nonscheduled airline or by the state ferry system. Similar checks with villages and other communities where Sharclane had ties were also negative, as was a nationwide listing of him as a missing person on the NCIC Computer system. Friends of his, including his girlfriend whom he had expressed a desire to marry, had not seen him since just prior to the incident, nor had his sister, his father, his grandfather, or his aunt. Several witnesses did, however, testify that they had seen or might have seen Sharclane after the night in question. ⁴

Conflicting evidence was presented as to whether Sharclane could swim. Sharclane's sister claimed he could swim even though she had actually never seen him do so. However, a friend of Sharclane's and Sharclane's father testified that he was unable to swim, and that he had always been afraid of the water. Testimony also indicated that on the evening of his disappearance, Sharclane was in the possession of a quart of vodka, and was "well on his way." Moreover, Sgt. Windred, who investigated the scene of the incident, testified that under tide conditions believed to have existed on the night in question there was forty-nine feet between the railing and the water.

Further evidence, independent of Castillo's statements, was introduced to show the fact of Sharclane's death and the fact that his death was caused by the criminal agency of another. While there was no eyewitness who saw the men fighting on the bridge, or saw Sharclane thrown from the bridge, a Ms. Conidi saw Sharclane running across the bridge on the night in question, and testified that she heard moaning or sobs coming from the bridge shortly after the incident occurred. Brian Cropley saw Sharclane and Castillo fighting on the Douglas side of the bridge, and then saw Castillo chasing Sharclane over the bridge towards Juneau.

Additionally, Castillo's fiancee stated that she had been raped by Sharclane about three years earlier. According to Albert Valentine, a friend of Castillo's, Castillo "didn't like" the fact that this had occurred, and stated about two weeks before the incident that he intended to throw Sharclane off the bridge. Tony Goynas told the jurors that Castillo "might have mentioned" his desire to fight Sharclane because Sharclane had been talking to his "old lady." ⁵

To establish the corpus delicti of murder the state may rely on pre-crime statements of the defendant. Perkins, The Corpus Delicti of Murder, 48 Va.L.Rev. 173, 178 (1962), citing Warszower v. United States, 312 U.S. 342, 61 S.Ct. 603, 85 L.Ed. 876 (1941). According to Professor Perkins, these statements contain none of the inherent weaknesses of confessions or admissions after the fact. Id.

The defense, in an attempt to show that the evidence was insufficient to prove criminal activity on the part of the defendant, relies on testimony showing Sharclane's propensity for violent behavior and that he was generally not well liked in the community. All of this testimony, however, was introduced at trial; it was never brought before the grand jury. Thus, the problem with Castillo's argument is twofold: first, testimony elicited during trial has no bearing upon the issue of whether the state presented to the grand jurors evidence sufficient to establish the corpus delicti of the crime, and second, our corpus delicti doctrine does not require proof that the criminal activity was that of the defendant charged. Armstrong v. State, 502 P.2d at 447. To require proof that the defendant was the killer as an essential element of the corpus delicti was characterized by Wigmore as "absurd." ⁶ Generally, proof of the " 'criminal agency of another' requires evidence which tends to show that the deceased died, not as a result of natural or accidental causes, or by his own hand, but by the hand of another." Perkins, supra at 193 (footnote omitted).

We conclude that the state presented sufficient independent evidence to establish the corpus delicti of the crime charged. ⁷

Castillo's second challenge to the validity of the grand jury indictment is that hearsay testimony was improperly presented to the grand jury. At the time the grand jury was convened, the prosecutor believed the incident on the bridge occurred during the early morning hours of Saturday, September 24th, rather than on Sunday the 25th. Robert Hanson, Sharclane's grandfather, testified before the grand jury that he had seen his grandson at a volleyball game on Saturday, September 24th. This testimony was crucial because, if believed, it established that Sharclane had been seen after the fight in which he was supposedly killed.

Following Mr. Hanson's testimony, Mrs. Mayeda, a resident of Hoonah, was recalled to determine whether Mr. Hanson had really seen Eli on Friday the 23rd or Saturday the 24th, since volleyball tournaments were held on both days. She testified that her children told her husband, who in turn told her, that they were to be in Juneau on Saturday at a volleyball tournament. This testimony was, of course, hearsay. Mrs. Mayeda then stated that to confirm this, she called her husband to check when her children had played in the games because she knew her husband had retained their written permission slips specifying the days they were to be in Juneau. At this point, the district attorney told her to testify only from her own memory. In response, Mrs. Mayeda testified that her own recollection was that she knew her children were going to be in Juneau that Saturday. She was then asked: "Do you know if they were over there on Friday?" She responded, "According to my memory that were was only that Saturday I know of." Castillo contends this left the grand jurors with the impression that Mrs. Mayeda called her husband, and learned that her children were in Juneau on both Friday the 23rd and Saturday the 24th; that this hearsay statement made it possible for the jurors to infer that Mr. Hanson had not seen Sharclane on Saturday the 24th but rather, he had seen him on Friday the 23rd. Had Mr. Hanson's testimony remained uncontroverted, argues Castillo, the indictment for second degree murder would be unjustified because it would establish that the victim did not disappear until the day after the bridge incident.

Hearsay testimony which is not subject to a recognized...