McIntyre v. State

• Citation: 717 N.E.2d 114
• Decision Date: 01 October 1999
• Docket Number: No. 46S00-9606-CR-408.,46S00-9606-CR-408.
• Parties: Robert P. McINTYRE, Appellant (Defendant Below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff Below).
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

717 N.E.2d 114

Robert P. McINTYRE, Appellant (Defendant Below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff Below).

No. 46S00-9606-CR-408.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

October 1, 1999.

Donald W. Pagos, William Janes, Michigan City, Indiana, Attorneys for Appellant.

Jeffrey A. Modisett, Attorney General of Indiana, Arthur Thaddeus Perry, Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, Indiana, Attorneys for Appellee.

SHEPARD, Chief Justice.

A jury found Robert McIntyre guilty but mentally ill of two counts of murder.¹ The trial court accepted the jury's recommendation against death and sentenced McIntyre to life in prison without parole. In this direct appeal, McIntyre raises ten issues. We affirm.

Facts

Marcos Ruiz and Rhonda Calvert were murdered in the home of Leo Ruiz during the early morning hours of April 14, 1994. Leo Ruiz, Marcos' father, had been working that night and had called his home at 1:15 a.m. Marcos answered and, in the course of the conversation, told Leo he was alone. When Leo returned home from work around 4:30 a.m., he found the dead body of Marcos on the living room floor and the body of Rhonda in the bathroom. Duct tape had been used to bind Marcos' hands and to cover Rhonda's mouth. An autopsy revealed that Marcos died from a decapitating incision to the neck while Rhonda died from multiple stab wounds and a partial incision to her neck.

Police first contacted Robert McIntyre around 2:30 p.m. on the day of the murders. A local coffeehouse owner, Jim Santolino, called police and told them a man named Robert had been with Rhonda Calvert the evening before. When police interviewed McIntyre, he acknowledged playing pool with Rhonda at the coffeehouse. He said they had later gone to his apartment to drink a few beers and he claimed he walked Rhonda halfway home shortly after 12:30 a.m.

About 8:30 p.m. the same day, McIntyre called the police department and said he had more information. The police picked up McIntyre at his request and brought him to the station, where McIntyre added that he had had sex with Rhonda the previous night. The police then drove McIntyre home.

On April 18th, a person claiming to be McIntyre's mother, Diane McIntyre, called the LaPorte City Police Department to express concern about McIntyre's possible involvement in the crimes. She said McIntyre had gone to Valparaiso, and she provided a phone number where he could be reached. Detective Lynn Cains called the number and spoke with McIntyre. Detective John Kintzele then met McIntyre in Valparaiso and asked him to come to the Porter County Sheriff's Department. McIntyre signed a waiver of rights form around 7:45 p.m. He continued to assert he had walked Rhonda halfway to her home and then returned to his apartment. He said he had returned home by running through yards and going over fences rather than via the sidewalk. Asked whether it was possible that his fingerprints would be discovered at the Ruiz home, McIntyre responded that he had never been in the house and the police would not find his fingerprints anywhere.

An hour after this interview, Detective Kintzele received a phone call at the crime scene from Detective Clyde Crass informing him that McIntyre wished to talk to Kintzele about blackouts he sometimes experienced. Kintzele returned to listen. McIntyre said that he was uncertain whether he had walked Rhonda all the way home. When Kintzele asked McIntyre if he killed Rhonda and Marcos, McIntyre responded that the killer must have gotten a lot of blood on himself, and since he had found no blood on himself, he felt that he had not committed the crime. He also said his fingerprints might have been on the porch. At that point, Detective Kintzele arrested McIntyre and informed him he was charged with two counts of murder. After transporting McIntyre to the LaPorte City Police Department, they placed him in an office, where he executed another waiver of rights form.

In a taped statement given around midnight, McIntyre told police that, though he only partially recalled the events of the evening of the murder, he remembered running home to his apartment with blood on his hands. He also stated, "When I found out that it was a young girl named Rhonda that's been murdered I pretty much knew that it was me who did it." (R. at 1466.) He continued to equivocate regarding whether he had killed Marcos. Around 3 a.m. McIntyre admitted to killing both Rhonda and Marcos and described the details of the acts.

In a final statement, taken at 9:25 a.m., April 21, 1994, McIntyre again admitted the crimes and described the events in detail. On April 21, 1994, McIntyre also correctly described the general design of the Ruiz home to police though he claimed he did not know Marcos Ruiz.

Police investigators found McIntyre's thumbprint on the duct tape which was covering Rhonda's mouth.

I. McIntyre's Past Acts

The State called Detective Kintzele as a witness in its case-in-chief. He recounted statements McIntyre volunteered before being arrested. Over McIntyre's objection, Kintzele stated:

He told me that he had had very many encounters with law enforcement before. He stated that there were offenses where he had committed battery against woman [sic], he had hit woman [sic] ... a burglary, there was an offense called car prowling....

I asked him what the longest period he had ever spent in jail was, and he stated when he was around 13 years old he was convicted of felony rape, that he had used a screwdriver, he indicated about that big (indicating), approximately three inches, as a weapon to rape a 12 year old boy.

(R. at 1342.) The State's theory of admissibility was that McIntyre had volunteered the information. The prosecutor argued, "if a defendant can volunteer that he murdered somebody and we can get that admitted, why can't we get what information the Defendant indicated about himself that he volunteered?" (R. at 1339.) More or less agreeing, the judge admitted the statement.

McIntyre claims the evidence was submitted to show his propensity to act in a criminal manner. The State counters by arguing McIntyre's insanity defense opened the door to all evidence relevant to his sanity, including criminal acts.

Whenever the State attempts to introduce evidence of a defendant's prior misconduct, the trial court must consider whether that evidence is offered to prove something other than the defendant's bad character or propensity to commit the charged crime. Ind.Evidence Rule 404(b); Ross v. State, 676 N.E.2d 339 (Ind.1996). If it is, the judge must decide whether its probative value outweighs its prejudicial effect. Evid.R. 403; Ross, 676 N.E.2d at 346. We review trial court evidentiary rulings for abuse of discretion. Id.

Here, our review is complicated slightly by the fact that the trial judge apparently admitted the statements regarding McIntyre's prior bad acts on the theory urged by the prosecutor, that McIntyre had volunteered the information to Detective Kintzele, while the State urges on appeal the testimony was properly admitted as relevant to McIntyre's sanity. (Appellee's Br. at 4-6.) Under either theory, the trial court erred.

The trial judge's apparent belief that evidence of McIntyre's past acts was admissible because, "[i]t's all a part of the statement that he gave to the police when he came in," (R. at 1340), was error under Rule 404(b). While a defendant may waive the protections of Rule 404(b) by offering evidence of his own character at trial, Evid.R. 404(a)(1), he does not waive the protections of Rule 404(b) by volunteering his previous bad acts at some point before trial.

The State's attempt to salvage the trial court's ruling by referring us to the common law insanity exception is a stronger rationale for admitting Kintzele's testimony. Under common law, an insanity defense opened a wide door for any evidence that might throw light on the issue of a defendant's sanity, including past criminal behavior. Anderson v. State, 615 N.E.2d 91, 92-93 (Ind.1993). The State urges that this rule applies to the present facts.

The extent to which our common law decisions on this point survive the Indiana Rules of Evidence is a nice issue, but one that does not save the ruling at issue here. Kintzele's testimony was inadmissible under Rule 404(b), and it was irrelevant to the issue of McIntyre's sanity at the time it was offered.²

Several aspects of the trial record lead us to this conclusion. First, at the moment the statement was admitted, the focus of the trial was on proving McIntyre actually committed the killings, not on his sanity. The State did not call Kintzele on the issue of sanity. Instead, Kintzele's testimony generally described McIntyre's pre-arrest interview on April 18, 1994, at which McIntyre volunteered his reasons for being in LaPorte and the facts of his relationship with Rhonda Calvert. At most, this evidence provided jurors with a chronology of the events that eventually lead to McIntyre's arrest and confession.

Second, Kintzele's testimony was not admitted to rebut McIntyre's insanity defense inasmuch as McIntyre had not yet provided any evidence about his sanity when the statement was admitted. Third, it appears that nobody present at the trial thought the testimony was being offered on the sanity issue. The prosecutor argued the statement was admissible because it was volunteered by McIntyre, and the judge apparently agreed. (See R. at 1339-41.) It is difficult to see how the jury could have been expected to apply such facts to the issue of sanity when even the lawyers present seemed unaware of any such evidentiary nexus at the time the statement was offered.

Accordingly, Kintzele's testimony regarding the defendant's past acts did not conform with the requirements of Rule 404(b) nor did it shed light on the sanity issue at the time it was offered. This conclusion does not necessarily help McIntyre.

When a trial court erroneously admits evidence, we apply the harmless error...