Sanchez v. State
| Decision Date | 14 July 1977 |
| Docket Number | No. 4696,4696 |
| Citation | 567 P.2d 270 |
| Parties | Joe Blaz SANCHEZ, Appellant (Defendant below), v. The STATE of Wyoming, Appellee (Plaintiff below). |
| Court | Wyoming Supreme Court |
Terry W. Mackey and Walter C. Urbigkit, Jr., of Urbigkit, Mackey & Whitehead, Cheyenne, for appellant.
V. Frank Mendicino, Atty. Gen., Gerald A. Stack, Deputy Atty. Gen., Frank R. Chapman, Asst. Atty. Gen., and E. James Burke, legal intern, Cheyenne, for appellee.
John E. Stanfield, Hugh B. McFadden, Jr., John B. Scott, Kathleen H. Fedore, and Janice I. Olson, Laramie, Amicus Curiae Committee for Wyoming Trial Lawyers Ass'n, filed brief of Amicus Curiae.
Before GUTHRIE, C. J., and McCLINTOCK, RAPER, THOMAS and ROSE, JJ.
On February 14, 1975, at about 5:50 a. m., appellant-Joe Blaz Sanchez, a stranger to Jill Heath, knocked on her door in Cheyenne, Wyoming. She answered and appellant asked to speak to her husband or boyfriend, but she said they weren't there. Sanchez then asked to use the phone, but Mrs. Heath refused and tried to shut the door, whereupon appellant pushed the door open and entered. Mrs. Heath ran to the phone and began dialing, but Sanchez grabbed the phone and said "Don't do that." Mrs. Heath tried to use the phone several more times, but appellant took the phone away from her saying, "I have got a gun, but I don't want to hurt you." Sanchez then grabbed Mrs. Heath and threw her on the couch, touched her on the outside of her robe and said, "Let's see what you are all about" and, "I am going to ball you." Appellant stood up and placed his hands on the front of his pants, whereupon Mrs. Heath got up to turn on the lights. Appellant grabbed her again and threw her on the couch. Mrs. Heath's baby started crying, at which time she moved to the baby's bedroom and then ran out of the house to her neighbors. She identified Sanchez as the man who entered her home, observing that he wore a white T-shirt and Levis. Mrs. Heath's neighbors and the investigating At about 6 a. m., on the same morning, Sanchez knocked on the apartment door of Donna Burt, at 1712 Evans in Cheyenne. She answered the door, recognized appellant, and after getting some clothes on, let him in. They conversed awhile and then appellant said he wanted to "get down and have intercourse." Miss Burt refused. She testified that she saw a gun, and that after several refusals to go to bed with appellant, he put his finger on her head and said, "If you don't go to bed with me, I will take this gun and I will put it up to your head and you will." She testified that she was nervous and scared, and that after several more refusals appellant pulled her into the bedroom, but she got away and ran to the kitchen for a drink of water. Sanchez caught up with her, however, and forcibly pulled her back into the bedroom again and proceeded to take her underwear and his pants off, whereupon he had intercourse with her. Upon completion, he put his pants on and went to the door, saying that if she called the police, his friends would get her. She showered, started crying and called a friend, whose mother called the police and took Miss Burt to the hospital. The attending physician testified that his examination of Miss Burt disclosed no evidence of cuts, bruises, etc., but showed nonmotile sperm, indicating intercourse within the last 72 hours. Her friend testified that Miss Burt looked like she had been crying and was hysterical. Sanchez admitted to being at Miss Burt's apartment that morning.
police officers testified that she was very frightened, nervous, crying and upset, and that she said a man had tried to rape her. Appellant admitted being at Mrs. Heath's apartment, but denied touching her and said he did not have or own a gun.
Criminal complaints and warrants were issued charging appellant with rape and attempt to commit rape. The statutes under which the appellant was charged are:
§ 6-63. Rape; degrees of rape defined. (A) Whoever unlawfully has carnal knowledge of a woman or female child forcibly and against her will is guilty of first-degree rape, and shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary for any term not less than one (1) year, or during life." (W.S.1957, 1975 Cum.Supp.)
The attempt statute, to be found at § 6-64, W.S.1957, provides:
§ 6-64. Attempt to commit rape. Whoever perpetrates an assault or assault and battery upon any female with intent to commit the crime of rape, shall, upon conviction, be imprisoned in the penitentiary for not less than one year nor more than fifty years."
Following his preliminary hearing, where he was bound over to district court, defendant-appellant underwent a number of psychiatric examinations under authority of § 7-242.3, W.S.1957, 1975 Cum.Supp. On June 6, 1975, he appeared for arraignment and pled not guilty, not guilty by reason of insanity at the time of the alleged offenses and not triable by reason of present insanity. After further medical examinations, the parties stipulated that the cases be consolidated for trial. Prior to the trial, the attorney for Sanchez filed a "Motion for Trial on All Elements of Crime," wherein request was made for a single trial of all elements of the alleged offenses, including mental responsibility. It was urged that §§ 7-242.1 through 7-242.6, W.S.1957, 1975 Cum.Supp., unconstitutionally deprived Sanchez of a fair trial, due process, the right to confront witnesses and the right to effective assistance of counsel. The motion was denied, and the cases came on for trial on March 8, 1976.
At trial, the prosecution presented all of its evidence, except for testimony relating to mental responsibility, during the first procedural phase. At the close of this phase, the jury returned special verdicts finding that Sanchez unlawfully touched Jill Heath, in an attempt to have sexual intercourse with her, and that he did have sexual intercourse with Donna Burt. During the second phase of the trial, appellant's medical expert testified that appellant suffered
from an "explosive personality disorder" and a "reactive type of agitated depression; " that the latter was a mental illness; and that appellant lacked substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct at the time of the alleged offenses. The State's medical expert also found the mental illness but was unable to relate it to appellant's capacity at the time of the alleged offenses. At the end of the second phase, the jury returned verdicts of guilty to both charges and found appellant mentally responsible at the time of the offenses. Motions were made for judgment of acquittal and for a new trial, but these motions were denied. Sanchez was sentenced to serve three to six years on the attempt-to-commit-rape charge, and to a concurrent sentence of five to ten years on the rape charge, with provisions for treatment at the Wyoming State Hospital.
There are other questions, but the principal issues presented to us for decision are whether the bifurcated trial procedure for the adjudication of guilt and insanity under § 7-242.5(a), W.S.1957, 1975 Cum.Supp., is violative of a criminal defendant's right to due process, and whether the statutory procedure as applied in this case violated this appellant's right to due process.
We will hold that the procedure set forth in § 7-242.5(a), supra, violates Article 1, Section 6, of the Wyoming Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution; and we will further hold that this procedure was unconstitutionally applied to this appellant.
On appeal, appellant contends that the bifurcated procedure contained in § 7-242.5(a), supra, which attempts to separate the issue of whether the defendant committed "the acts charged in the alleged criminal offense" from the issues of guilt and mental responsibility, results in less than a full presentation of the elements of a criminal offense, and that this, in turn, gives rise to a presumption of criminal intent. Appellant further contends that the procedure, as applied in this case, allowed the prosecution to present all of its evidence in the first procedural phase, while at the same time it restricted appellant's ability to fully cross-examine State witnesses or effectively rebut the State's evidence. On the other hand, appellee argues that the procedure does not give rise to a presumption of intent, since guilt is not determined during the first procedural phase. The State further argues that appellant's right to cross-examine witnesses was adequately safeguarded by a protective ruling of the trial court, and that appellant failed to object to testimony presented during the first phase.
CONSTITUTIONALITY OF § 7-242.5(a)
We will first determine whether § 7-242.5(a), supra, is unconstitutional on its face. Section 7-242.5(a), supra, provides:
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