Mills v. State
| Docket Number | S-22-0156 |
| Decision Date | 31 July 2023 |
| Citation | 2023 WY 76 |
| Parties | JOHN BYRON MILLS, Appellant (Defendant), v. THE STATE OF WYOMING, Appellee (Plaintiff). |
| Court | Wyoming Supreme Court |
Appeal from the District Court of Campbell County The Honorable James Michael Causey, Judge
Representing Appellant: Joanne S. Zook, Steiner, Fournier and Zook, LLC, Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Representing Appellee: Bridget Hill, Wyoming Attorney General; Jenny L. Craig, Deputy Attorney General; Kristen R Jones, Senior Assistant Attorney General; Kristine D. Rude Assistant Attorney General. Argument by Ms. Rude.
Before FOX, C.J., and KAUTZ, BOOMGAARDEN, GRAY, and FENN, JJ.
[¶1] John Byron Mills was convicted by a jury of ten sex crimes against two sisters, A.S. and T.S. He claims the State suppressed potentially exculpatory evidence, his trial counsel was ineffective, and the State did not present sufficient evidence to support his convictions for sexually assaulting T.S. We affirm.
[¶2] We restate and reorder Mr. Mills' issues as:
[¶3] Mr. Mills became acquainted with A.S. (D.O.B. 1998) and T.S. (D.O.B. 1996) because one of Mr. Mills' friends dated the victims' mother. In 2013, when A.S. was 14 or 15 years old, she and her family were staying at a motel in Gillette. Mr. Mills, who was also staying at the motel, walked into A.S.'s motel room while she was getting ready to go swimming, removed her clothes, and had sexual intercourse with her.
[¶4] In 2014, when A.S. was 15 or 16 years old, Mr. Mills contacted her through Facebook and arranged to meet her in the Gillette Walmart parking lot. He picked her up from the parking lot and drove to a car wash. On the ride there, he fondled her breasts and put his hand down her pants to digitally penetrate her vagina. After parking in a closed carwash bay, he removed her clothes and had sexual intercourse with her. Later that year, Mr. Mills contacted A.S. through Facebook or text message and arranged another meeting. This time, he picked her up from her father's house in Moorcroft and took her to his house in Gillette to drink alcohol and watch Netflix. While there, he fondled her breasts, performed cunnilingus on her, and had sexual intercourse with her.
[¶5] In September 2015, Mr. Mills contacted T.S. through Facebook and they agreed to meet at the Shell Food Mart in Gillette. From the Shell parking lot, they drove around Gillette in Mr. Mill's white truck for a few hours. Upon returning to the Shell, Mr. Mills asked T.S. to have sex with him. When she refused, he held her down in the corner of the truck cab, pulled her pants down, and performed various sexual acts on her, including cunnilingus, digital penetration of her vagina, and intercourse.
[¶6] The State charged Mr. Mills with a total of twenty-two crimes against A.S. and T.S. The jury convicted him of ten of the charges, including three counts of first-degree sexual assault against T.S. for the incident at the Shell Food Mart, five counts of third-degree sexual abuse of a minor against A.S. for the incidents at the motel, car wash, and his house, and two counts of sexual battery for fondling A.S.'s breasts. After the district court sentenced Mr. Mills to 71 to 85 years in prison, he filed a timely notice of appeal. We will provide additional facts, as necessary, in our discussion of the issues below.
[¶7] Mr. Mills claims the State violated his due process rights by failing to produce exculpatory evidence to the defense in accordance with Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), and Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150, 92 S.Ct. 763, 31 L.Ed.2d 104 (1972). We review the question of whether the State violated Mr. Mills' constitutional rights de novo. Kovach v. State, 2013 WY 46, ¶ 19, 299 P.3d 97, 104 (Wyo. 2013) ().
[¶8] In Brady, 373 U.S. at 87, 83 S.Ct. at 1196-97, the United States Supreme Court ruled due process requires the State to disclose potentially exculpatory evidence within its control to the defense. Curby v. State, 2018 WY 117, ¶ 9, 428 P.3d 444, 447 (Wyo. 2018); Davis v. State, 2017 WY 147, ¶ 18, 406 P.3d 1233, 1237 (Wyo. 2017). The Brady rule places "an affirmative duty on the prosecutor to learn of favorable evidence in the State's control and divulge such evidence to the defendant." Lawson, ¶ 21, 242 P.3d at 1000. This rule "ensure[s] that a miscarriage of justice does not occur." United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667, 675, 105 S.Ct. 3375, 3380, 87 L.Ed.2d 481 (1985).
[¶9] In Giglio, the Supreme Court extended the Brady disclosure requirement to evidence which would undermine the reliability of a witness on a matter important to the defendant's guilt or innocence, i.e., impeachment evidence. Id., 405 U.S. at 154, 92 S.Ct. at 766. See also, Bagley, 473 U.S. at 676, 105 S.Ct. at 3380 ("[i]mpeachment evidence . . . as well as exculpatory evidence, falls within the Brady rule"); Chauncey v. State, 2006 WY 18, ¶ 13, 127 P.3d 18, 21-22 (Wyo. 2006) (recognizing Giglio's extension of Brady); Davis v. State, 2002 WY 88, ¶ 18, 47 P.3d 981, 986 (Wyo. 2002) () (citations and quotation marks omitted). To establish a Brady violation, the defendant must prove the State "suppressed evidence, the evidence was favorable to the defense, and the evidence was material because it is reasonably probable that, had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, the result of the proceeding would have been different." Pearson v. State, 2017 WY 19, ¶ 36, 389 P.3d 794, 801-02 (Wyo. 2017) (citing Worley v. State, 2017 WY 3, ¶ 14, 386 P.3d 765, 770 (Wyo. 2017)). Because Giglio simply extended Brady, we analyze a claim that the State suppressed impeachment evidence by using the Brady test. See United States v. Card, 46 Fed.Appx. 941, 947 (10th Cir. 2002) .
[¶10] Mr. Mills was convicted under Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 6-2-316(a)(iv) (LexisNexis 2021) of five counts of third-degree sexual abuse of a minor, A.S. That provision prohibits an "actor" who is 17 "years of age or older" from "knowingly tak[ing] immodest, immoral or indecent liberties with a victim who is less than seventeen (17) years of age and . . . at least four (4) years younger than the actor." Id. Mr. Mills claims the State suppressed evidence which would have exonerated him of third-degree sexual abuse of a minor by showing he did not have sexual contact with A.S. until she was over 17 years old. He argues that, although law enforcement was aware he and A.S. had communicated via Facebook and text message, it failed to secure the messages and provide them to him in discovery. He claims those messages would have "likely established a timeline different than [the timeline] the State presented to convict [him] of sexual abuse of a minor." Mr. Mills also claims messages between him and each victim would have undermined the victims' credibility.
[¶11] To satisfy the first element of a Brady violation, the defendant must show the State suppressed potentially exculpatory evidence. "Before a Brady violation occurs, the government, through the prosecutor or its agents, must have 'suppressed' the information by not disclosing it to the defendant." Dockter v. State, 2019 WY 31, ¶ 18, 436 P.3d 890, 895 (Wyo. 2019) (citing Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, 437-38, 115 S.Ct. 1551, 1567-68, 131 L.Ed.2d 490 (1995)). "The essence of Brady is the discovery of information after the trial, which was known to the prosecution but unknown to the defense during the trial." Thomas v. State, 2006 WY 34, ¶ 16, 131 P.3d 348, 353 (Wyo. 2006) (citing United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 103, 96 S.Ct. 2392, 2397, 49 L.Ed.2d 342 (1976)) (emphasis omitted).
[¶12] Mr. Mills was a party to the messages he claims would have been favorable to his defense. The State does not suppress evidence in violation of Brady if "'the defendant is aware of the essential facts enabling him to take advantage of any exculpatory evidence.'" Raley v. Ylst, 470 F.3d 792, 804 (9th Cir. 2006) (quoting United States v. Brown, 582 F.2d 197, 200 (2d Cir. 1978)). In other words, "[e]vidence is not suppressed within the meaning of Brady if it is . . . known and available to the defense prior to trial." Hooks v. Workman, 689 F.3d 1148, 1179-80 (10th Cir. 2012) (citation omitted).
[¶13] In Byerly v. State, 2019 WY 130, ¶ 57, 455 P.3d 232, 248 (Wyo. 2019), the defendant claimed the State should have produced text messages between him and the victim. We rejected his claim in part because we "fail[ed] to see how" the text messages "could have been unknown and a surprise to Mr. Byerly since he was a party to them." Id. See also, Kovach, ¶¶ 40-43, 299 P.3d at 110-11 (). The same is true here. Because Mr. Mills...
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