Ortiz v. State

• Citation: 869 A.2d 285
• Decision Date: 25 January 2005
• Docket Number: No. 2003., No. 2003, No. 528, No. 494
• Parties: Juan ORTIZ, Defendant Below, Appellant, v. STATE of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellee.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Delaware

869 A.2d 285

Juan ORTIZ, Defendant Below, Appellant, v. STATE of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellee.

Nos. 494,2003, 528,2003.

Supreme Court of Delaware.

Submitted: October 6, 2004.

Decided: January 25, 2005.

Lloyd A. Schmid, Jr., Esquire, Assistant Public Defender, Dover, Delaware, for appellant.

Kim Ayvazian, Esquire (argued) and John Williams, Esquire, Department of Justice, Georgetown, Delaware, for appellee.

Before STEELE, Chief Justice, HOLLAND, BERGER, JACOBS and HARTNETT,¹ Justices (constituting the Court en Banc). HOLLAND, Justice.

This is the defendant-appellant's, Juan Ortiz, consolidated direct and automatic appeals from his judgments of conviction and death sentence for the murder of Deborah Clay. A Superior Court jury convicted Ortiz of Murder in the First Degree, Possession of a Firearm During the Commission of a Felony and Arson in the Second Degree. Following a penalty hearing, the jury voted eleven to one to recommend a sentence of death. The trial judge sentenced Ortiz to death.

Ortiz has raised six issues on appeal. First, he contends that the failure of the trial judge to inquire into ordinary attitudes, or potential biases or prejudices of potential jurors on issues not directly related to the facts of the case or on the question of the death penalty, unconstitutionally limited his ability to meaningfully exercise his right to challenge prospective jurors. Second, Ortiz alleges that the repetitive display to the jury of the victim's nearly decapitating head wound, by various means and at various times throughout the trial, was a calculated effort on the part of the State to impermissibly inflame the passion of the jury. Third, Ortiz submits that equivocal and irrelevant evidence regarding alleged prior bad acts was admitted in rebuttal at the penalty hearing without appropriate review with no prior notice, in the mistaken view that it addressed aspects of the defense's case in mitigation. Fourth, Ortiz claims that the denial of his motion for a new penalty hearing was an abuse of discretion. Fifth, Ortiz argues that his death sentence violates his constitutional right to a jury determination by proof beyond a reasonable doubt of all facts upon which the enhanced sentence of death was predicated. Sixth, Ortiz submits that his death sentence is disproportionate to sentences imposed in similar cases.

We have reviewed the record and considered Ortiz's claims of reversible error. We have determined that the trial judge properly exercised his discretion: in conducting the voir dire of prospective jurors; in ruling on the evidentiary issues related to the State's photographic exhibits; in permitting the State to present rebuttal evidence of Ortiz's prior bad acts; and in denying Ortiz's motion for a new penalty hearing. We also hold that the Delaware death penalty statute, as applied to Ortiz, is constitutional. Finally, we have concluded that the imposition of Ortiz's death sentence is proportionate to sentences imposed in similar cases. Accordingly, the Superior Court's judgments of conviction and the imposition of Ortiz's death sentence are affirmed.

Facts

Deborah Clay entered into a romantic relationship with Ortiz in 2001. Deborah was forty-one years old in July of that year. In March 2001, Ortiz moved into Deborah's home. At that time, Deborah's fifteen-year-old daughter, Ashley, was living with Deborah.

Ortiz stayed with Deborah and Ashley from March 19, 2001 to May 29, 2001. During that time, Ortiz was under home confinement by the Delaware Department of Corrections. His monitoring device was located in the back bedroom of Deborah's home. Ortiz left for a few months and returned to Deborah's home on June 26, 2001. On July 4, Ashley heard Deborah tell Ortiz he had to move out of her home by that Sunday.

The next evening, July 5, Ashley tried to open the door to her mother's bedroom, but the door was locked. Ortiz was in that bedroom. When he unlocked the door, Ashley noticed Deborah's waterbed was deflated. Ortiz was upset and crying. He told Ashley that he tried to shoot himself but missed and shot the waterbed. Ortiz said that he was going to have Deborah take him to a mental institution.

Later that night, around 11:00 p.m., when Ashley returned home, Ortiz appeared normal. Ashley then called her mother to ask permission to go out with her friends. Deborah did not want Ashley to go out because Deborah feared being alone with Ortiz at her home. Deborah also requested Ashley to tell Ortiz that "he still had to be out by Sunday."

Deborah's son, Brock Prichett, who was twenty-seven years old, owned a 6mm rifle and a 12-gauge bolt-action shotgun. Deborah and Ortiz stored those guns for Brock at Robert Cox's house. Brock requested possession of his guns a few days before July 6. On July 5, 2001, Ortiz obtained the guns from Cox around 7:00 a.m. When Brock asked Ortiz about his guns later that same evening, however, Ortiz told Brock that he was not able to get in touch with Cox.

The next day, July 6, 2001, Ashley found Ortiz at home around noon. He told Ashley that he and her mother had not spoken the night before and that "all hell was going to break loose when [Deborah] got home...." That same afternoon, Deborah had called her friend, Amy Rust, around 2:00 or 2:30 p.m. from Mike Ratledge's house. Deborah called Rust later at 3:15 p.m. from her own home and told Rust she was about to get into the shower. She requested that Rust pick her up because she was late for work.

Tonya Russell, a neighbor of Deborah's, testified that on the afternoon of July 6, she saw Ortiz leave Deborah's residence, get into his truck, and go back inside the home. According to Russell, Ortiz was inside the residence for approximately three minutes and then left very quickly. Russell noticed smoke coming from Deborah's home about fifteen to twenty minutes after Ortiz left. Russell knocked on Deborah's bedroom window and the back door. After hearing no response, Tonya called 911 at 3:32 p.m. When Amy Rust arrived at Deborah's home, it was on fire. Firefighters and fire trucks were already on the scene.

As the firefighters were extinguishing the fire, they discovered the body of a female in the bathroom. The body appeared to have been decapitated. The female body was Deborah Clay's. An autopsy revealed that Deborah had been shot in the lower right abdomen and also had sustained a fatal shot to the right side of her head above her ear.

The Delaware State Police also responded to the scene of the fire at Deborah's home. On top of the washing machine, in an alcove adjacent to the bathroom, the police discovered three pillows that were duct-taped together. The pillows had a hole in them that corresponded to a hole found in the paneling between the hall and the shower. Inside the pillows, police found half of a Sabot slug and also located two shotgun wads in the bathroom. The police found a hole in the shower stall that was about 22 inches from the top of the tub. It was estimated that Deborah was standing about 25 inches away from the wall when she was shot while standing in the shower.

The Chief Deputy Fire Marshall concluded that the fire at Deborah's home had been started intentionally by an open flame. He also determined that two fires had been set: one in the center bedroom and one in the rear bedroom. The police found a burned 12-gauge shotgun in one of the bedrooms.

The police located Ortiz near Millsboro and took him into custody without incident. Among other things, police found an orange Philadelphia Flyers cigarette lighter. Ortiz told the police that the weapon he used to shoot Deborah was in her trailer. Ortiz stated that he was angry with Deborah and fired the shotgun at her from behind the wall while she was in the shower. Ortiz claimed that he thought the gun was "on safe." He then stated that he went to the bathroom, saw Deborah holding her side, and dropped the gun which went off when he dropped it. He ran from the house and traveled to the home near Millsboro, where he was eventually arrested.

Supplemental Voir Dire Properly Denied

Pursuant to Superior Court Criminal Rule 24(a), Ortiz submitted a request for the trial judge to utilize a Supplemental Juror Questionnaire.² According to Ortiz's pretrial motion, the twenty-four questions contained in his proposed Supplemental Juror Questionnaire were drawn from a similar questionnaire that was used in a Federal District Court death penalty prosecution in Georgia.³ The Superior Court denied Ortiz's request and ruled as follows:

Well, I think that the 40 some or so questions that we have discussed up to this point that the jurors will be asked are fully adequate to ferret out any possible bias on the part of any juror. I am not going to have them fill out this form.

Frankly, I think some of the questions in this form are none of the Court's business. Such as do you have an active role in the church. That is just to mention one. I think it is unduly burdensome on the jurors who are performing a simple civic duty of rendering a fair and impartial verdict to ask them to fill out forms like this. I am not going to do it in this case.

On appeal, Ortiz argues that the trial judge's decision not to use his proposed Supplemental Juror Questionnaire violated his right to an impartial jury under the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 7 of the Delaware Constitution. Ortiz simply referred to Article I, Section 7 of the Delaware Constitution in his Opening Brief summarily, after the legal analysis of his alleged Sixth Amendment violation. Ortiz made no legal argument and cited no case or other authority in support of his conclusory declarative assertion that his rights under Article I, Section 7 in the Delaware Constitution had been violated. Therefore, that alleged violation of the Delaware Constitution will not be addressed because it was not fully and fairly presented to this Court as an issue on...