Grady v. State

• Decision Date: 10 December 2008
• Docket Number: No. 06-287.,06-287.
• Citation: 2008 WY 144,197 P.3d 722
• Parties: Floyd Dewayne GRADY, Appellant (Defendant), v. The STATE of Wyoming, Appellee (Plaintiff).
• Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

197 P.3d 722

2008 WY 144

Floyd Dewayne GRADY, Appellant (Defendant), v. The STATE of Wyoming, Appellee (Plaintiff).

No. 06-287.

Supreme Court of Wyoming.

December 10, 2008.

Representing Appellant: Diane M. Lozano, Wyoming State Public Defender; Tina N. Kerin, Appellate Counsel; David Westling, Senior Assistant Appellate Counsel; Kirk A. Morgan, Assistant Appellate Counsel. Argument by Ms. Kerin.

Representing Appellee: Bruce A. Salzburg, Wyoming Attorney General; Terry L. Armitage, Deputy Attorney General; D. Michael Pauling, Senior Assistant Attorney General; Leda M. Pojman, Assistant Attorney General. Argument by Ms. Pojman.

Before VOIGT, C.J., and GOLDEN, HILL, KITE, BURKE, JJ.

GOLDEN, Justice.

[¶ 1] A jury convicted Appellant Floyd Wayne Grady of attempted first degree sexual assault and first degree murder, for which he was sentenced to consecutive terms of imprisonment of forty to fifty years and life without the possibility of parole. On appeal, Grady raises issues concerning the exclusion of alternate suspect evidence, the denial of a continuance, lost evidence, and prosecutorial misconduct. We affirm.

ISSUES

[¶ 2] Grady presents these issues for our review:

I. Did the trial court commit reversible, constitutional error when it kept out evidence of alternate suspects in the death of Ms. Watts and subsequently denied a motion for new trial based on those evidentiary rulings?

II. Did the trial court err when it denied Appellant's motion for continuance, which was based upon the late provision of discovery pertaining to a potential alternate suspect in Ms. Watts' death?

III. Did reversible error occur when a potentially exculpatory note was "lost" by the State?

IV. Did the prosecutors commit prosecutorial misconduct?

FACTS

[¶ 3] Tammy Watts worked as a nurse at the Wyoming Honor Farm located in Riverton, Wyoming. On April 15, 2004, and in accordance with her usual practice, Mrs. Watts reported to work a few minutes before 6:00 o'clock that morning. Approximately fifty minutes later, her body was discovered in the dental area of the medical office (a.k.a. nurse's office), which was located in the basement of the Administration Building at the Honor Farm. Mrs. Watts was lying "spread eagle" on the floor in a pool of blood. Her shirt was pulled up over her head, her breasts were exposed, and she was nude from the waist down. Mrs. Watts had been strangled with an electrical cord and had suffered blunt traumatic injuries to her face and head, as well as cerebral contusions. Mrs. Watts' body showed signs of lividity, indicating she was killed shortly after arriving at work that morning.

[¶ 4] Investigators initially considered all inmates and staff of the Honor Farm potential suspects. The investigation into Mrs. Watts' death, however, ultimately focused on Grady. As a result of the investigation, the State charged Grady with premeditated and felony first degree murder,¹ attempted first degree sexual assault² and kidnapping,³ and sought the death penalty.

[¶ 5] The case first went to trial on October 31, 2005, in Fremont County, and resulted in a hung jury.⁴ Thereafter, the district court granted Grady's request for a change in venue and transferred the case to Teton County. Grady's second trial commenced on April 10, 2006. At trial, the State presented evidence which placed Grady in the vicinity of the Administration Building around the time of Mrs. Watts' murder. At approximately 5:45 a.m., Grady was seen outside the building's east entrance and, at approximately 6:10 a.m., in the building's laundry area only a few feet from the medical office. Minutes later, Grady was, once again, observed outside the east entrance, at which time he seemed hurried, sweaty and pale, and had what appeared to be blood on his nose.

[¶ 6] The State also presented extensive forensic evidence linking Grady to Mrs. Watts' murder. Mrs. Watts' blood was found on Grady's state-issued blue nylon jacket, which he was seen wearing shortly after the murder and which was later found in his room. Mrs. Watts' DNA was found on a right-handed leather glove recovered from a drainage ditch not far from the Administration Building, and a mixture of Mrs. Watts' DNA and Grady's DNA was found on an identical left-handed glove retrieved from Grady's room. Biological evidence containing a mixture of Mrs. Watts' DNA and Grady's DNA was also found on the jacket Mrs. Watts was wearing at the time of her murder and on the bloody carpet in the dental room. Additionally, evidence consistent with Grady's DNA was found on Mrs. Watts' breasts. Finally, Grady's fingerprints were found on the dental chair that was located next to Mrs. Watts' body.

[¶ 7] In addition, the State's evidence revealed, among other things: Grady was never treated in the dental office; Grady was at the medical office ten times in the previous two weeks, including the day before the murder, and on several occasions Grady was waiting for Mrs. Watts outside the medical office when she arrived at work; Grady wrote several notes to Mrs. Watts, some of which were sexual in nature; Grady was upset with the nursing staff the day before the murder; there was mud on the floor in Grady's room, as well as inmate Christopher Wohletz's adjoining room and their shared bathroom, which was not there the night before Mrs. Watts' murder; and Grady had recently shaved his goatee and pubic hair.

[¶ 8] At the conclusion of trial, the jury found Grady guilty on the charged offenses. The jury declined to impose the death penalty on the murder counts and, instead, opted for a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The district court subsequently sentenced Grady to forty to fifty years on the attempted first degree sexual assault conviction and ordered that the life sentence be served consecutively to that sentence. This appeal followed.

[¶ 9] Additional facts will be set forth in our discussion of the issues raised by Grady.

DISCUSSION

A. Exclusion of Alternate Suspect Evidence⁵

[¶ 10] Prior to Grady's second trial, the State filed a motion to exclude evidence of alternate suspects in the murder of Mrs. Watts until Grady produced an adequate evidentiary basis supporting its admission. The State noted that Grady had indirectly accused inmates Dale Goss, Thomas Bedsaul, Scott Young and Joe Sanchez of murdering Mrs. Watts during his first trial, and that it anticipated Grady would employ the same defense strategy in the second trial. The State asserted that alternate suspect evidence was not admissible unless it established a probative nexus between the alleged suspects and Mrs. Watts' murder. The district court denied the State's motion but ruled it would require Grady to establish at trial a proper foundation for the admission of any proffered alternate suspect evidence under the standard articulated in United States v. McVeigh, 153 F.3d 1166 (10th Cir.1998). The district court stated:

As a motion in limine, I'm going to deny the State's motion. I don't perceive that the parties are that far apart in what they understand the law to be here. In fact,— well, they don't disagree as to what the law is, it's just how the Court applies it, I guess, is the central issue. But the quotation from the McVay [sic] case, I think, is appropriate and sets forth the standard.

In fact, the State cited it in their motion, and they [sic] not only cited it, they [sic] highlighted it. Although there is no doubt that the defendant has the right to attempt to establish his innocence by showing that someone else did the crime, the defendant still must show that is [sic] proffered evidence on the alleged alternative perpetrator is sufficient on its own or in combination with other evidence in the record to show a nexus between the crime charged and the assertive [sic] alternative perpetrator. It is not sufficient for a defendant merely to offer up unsupported speculation that another person may have done the crime. Such speculative claiming intensifies the grave risk of jury confusion, and it invites the jury to render its findings based on [emotion or] prejudice.

* * * *

Again, the way I would anticipate it would happen is that if and when [the] defense starts on a line of questioning along those lines, I'll hear an objection. And we'll resolve it when I hear the objection. And that probably will include a request for an offer of proof, otherwise,— in other words, there has to be a foundation before you get to the point, and if there's no foundation, then it's not coming in.

[¶ 11] At trial, and as expected, Grady denied killing Mrs. Watts and sought to introduce evidence that one of the aforementioned inmates, as well as Taylor Kubiak or Cory Warpness, committed the crime. The State objected and, in accordance with its earlier ruling, the district court declined to admit the alternate suspect evidence absent an offer of proof establishing the required nexus between the crime and the alleged alternate suspect. Thereafter, Grady provided an offer of proof which listed the following evidence:

(1) Inmate Dale Goss: Testimony from Sergeant Davis and Tilton Davis (Wyoming State Crime Lab) that Goss' shoes contained an unknown red substance, and that there was an unknown red substance on the carpet in the medical office. Testimony from Jim Nethercott, a caseworker at the Honor Farm, that Goss suffers from violent blackouts during which he commits crimes. Grady noted that previous testimony indicated Goss was in the vicinity at the time of the murder and that he was mentioned as a possible suspect by several people.

(2) Inmate Taylor Kubiak: Testimony by Sergeant Davis that Kubiak's DNA was never tested to see if he was a possible contributor to the unidentified DNA found on Mrs. Watts' breasts and the dental office's carpet. Testimony from Kubiak or his caseworker that Kubiak wrote a note in "May or June" that contained lewd, sexual content and was "derogatory to women." Grady noted...