State v. Anaya
| Decision Date | 08 April 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 2 CA-CR 2018-0280,2 CA-CR 2018-0280 |
| Parties | THE STATE OF ARIZONA, Appellee, v. JESS WILLIAM ANAYA, Appellant. |
| Court | Arizona Court of Appeals |
THIS DECISION DOES NOT CREATE LEGAL PRECEDENT AND MAY NOT BE CITED EXCEPT AS AUTHORIZED BY APPLICABLE RULES.
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
See Ariz. R. Sup. Ct. 111(c)(1); Ariz. R. Crim. P. 31.19(e).
Appeal from the Superior Court in Gila County
The Honorable Timothy M. Wright, Judge
AFFIRMED
Mark Brnovich, Arizona Attorney General
Joseph T. Maziarz, Chief Counsel
By Tanja K. Kelly, Assistant Attorney General, Tucson
Counsel for Appellee
Emily Danies, Tucson
Counsel for Appellant
Chief Judge Vásquez authored the decision of the Court, in which Presiding Judge Staring and Judge Brearcliffe concurred.
¶1 After a jury trial, Jess Anaya was convicted of first-degree murder and child abuse. The trial court sentenced him to concurrent prison terms, the longest of which is natural life in prison. On appeal, Anaya argues the court erred by admitting "irrelevant and prejudicial" evidence and hearsay testimony, giving a flight instruction, and denying his request for a Willits1 instruction. Anaya also argues that he was denied a fair trial because of "multiple instances of prosecutorial misconduct," and he maintains the court erred in denying his motion made pursuant to Rule 20, Ariz. R. Crim. P. For the following reasons, we affirm.
¶2 We view the facts and all reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most favorable to affirming Anaya's convictions. See State v. Molina, 211 Ariz. 130, ¶ 2 (App. 2005). Early one morning in August 2017, Anaya, his girlfriend K.C., and K.C.'s twenty-two-month-old son R.C. left their house to drive K.C. to work. Afterward, Anaya drove R.C. to his mother L.S.'s house to play with his three children. Anaya and R.C. remained at L.S.'s house until around noon when they left to pick up K.C. for lunch. During the lunch hour, Anaya, K.C., and R.C. returned to their house, where K.C. and R.C. watched a movie. R.C. was "happy" and did not have any "marks" or "bruising" on his body. Shortly before 1:00 p.m., Anaya, with R.C.—who was noticeably "tired" and "cranky"—drove K.C. back to work. At that time, Anaya also sent a text message to L.S. stating,
¶3 After returning home with R.C., Anaya and his cousin made plans to go to a marijuana dispensary, but Anaya informed his cousin they would have to wait for R.C., who was "cranky," to nap. About an hour and a half later, while L.S. and her granddaughter were alone at L.S.'s house sleeping, Anaya came "running in" with R.C. in his arms saying, "[R.C.]had fallen off the wall [in L.S.'s yard] and he did[ not] know what to do." Anaya asked L.S. to "check [R.C.]," and L.S. saw that R.C. was "lifeless" and "limp" with "his eyes . . . rolling up into the back of his head." L.S. called 9-1-1 and told the dispatcher R.C. "fell off a wall." L.S. then called K.C. and told her "[R.C.] had gotten hurt."
¶4 When the paramedics arrived, Anaya was holding R.C. in one arm; R.C. was "limp" and appeared to be "unconscious or . . . dead." Anaya and L.S. told the paramedics that R.C. had "f[allen] from the wall and hit his head" in L.S.'s front yard. But there was no "dirt" or "debris" on R.C. nor were there "footprints" or "any sign of disturbance in the gravel or dirt" where R.C. purportedly had fallen. After assessing R.C.'s injuries, the paramedics determined his "respiratory rate was very, very low," started "ventilations with a bag valve mask device," and proceeded to transport R.C. to the Cobre Valley Regional Medical Center's helipad to transport him to Phoenix Children's Hospital. At the helipad, the air paramedics immediately observed R.C. was unable "to continue breathing on his own" and determined he required a "rapid sequence induction" which involved placing him in a medically induced coma to secure his airway with a breathing tube. During this process, the air paramedics observed "bruising across [R.C.'s] neck."
¶5 When R.C. arrived at Phoenix Children's Hospital, his eyes were "fixed and dilated" which indicated "severe brain injury." He underwent a CT scan, which revealed R.C. had suffered a "lack of oxygen . . . for a significant amount of time," and blood on the tracheal tube indicated there was bleeding in his airway. A physical examination revealed bruising on his chest, buttocks, forehead, behind his ears, and around his neck. A pediatric neurosurgeon determined he had suffered a "non-survivable injury." The following day, a pediatric intensive care physician concluded that R.C. had suffered "brain death." His "brain had swollen and . . . had pushed itself down through the opening of the base of the skull," which "cut[] off all blood supply to the brain." The physician pronounced R.C. dead.
¶6 Anaya was indicted for one count of intentionally or knowingly committing child abuse likely to produce death or serious injury and one count of first-degree murder, and he was convicted and sentenced as described above. This appeal followed. We have jurisdiction pursuant to A.R.S. §§ 12-120.21(A)(1), 13-4031, and 13-4033(A)(1).
¶7 Anaya argues the trial court erred in admitting "irrelevant and prejudicial" text messages and photographic evidence at trial. "We review a trial court's ruling on the admissibility of evidence for an abuse of discretion." See State v. Buccheri-Bianca, 233 Ariz. 324, ¶ 7 (App. 2013); see also State v. Rushing, 243 Ariz. 212, ¶ 24 (2017) ().
¶8 Generally, to be admissible, evidence must be relevant. Ariz. R. Evid. 402. Evidence is relevant if it has "any tendency to make a fact more or less probable than it would be without the evidence" and "the fact is of consequence in determining the action." Ariz. R. Evid. 401; see State ex rel. Thomas v. Duncan, 216 Ariz. 260, ¶ 13 (App. 2007); cf. Hawkins v. Allstate Ins. Co., 152 Ariz. 490, 496 (1987) (). However, even relevant evidence may be excluded "if its probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger of . . . unfair prejudice, confusing the issues, misleading the jury, undue delay, wasting time, or needlessly presenting cumulative evidence." Ariz. R. Evid. 403; see State v. Hardy, 230 Ariz. 281, ¶ 40 (2012); see also State v. Butler, 230 Ariz. 465, ¶ 33 (App. 2012) .
¶9 Anaya contends the trial court erred by admitting text messages about going to a marijuana dispensary that he had sent while caring for R.C. on the day of the incident. He asserts that because "there [was] no evidence to show that [he] was using marijuana or was under the influence" that day, the text messages "do not add anything to the case." We disagree.
¶10 Shortly after Anaya drove K.C. back to work after lunch, and notified L.S. that he was putting R.C. down for a nap, he sent a text message to his cousin that included a marijuana dispensary "menu" listing different types of marijuana. His cousin replied, asking if they were going to go to the dispensary "before happy hour's over" because the marijuana would be "five [dollars] off." Anaya responded, "y[e]s" then told her to "wait a little bit so [R.C.] can nap" because "he's freaking cranky."
¶11 In objecting to the admission of the text messages at trial, Anaya argued they were "not relevant," "extremely prejudicial," and had "nothing to do with the case." The state responded that the text messageswere relevant to show Anaya had been "distracted from [caring for R.C.] by his preoccupation with using marijuana" and showed he was "impatien[t] and frustrat[ed] with [R.C.], because he would[ not] take his nap." The state explained that the jury would "want some possible reasons as to why" R.C. had died and that the state was "entitled to show a motive." The trial court concluded that the state could introduce the text messages and determined the fact that Anaya had "looked up a menu at a medical marijuana dispensary" was not "particularly prejudicial" because there was no "crime in that." The text messages were later admitted during trial.
¶12 The text messages were admissible for two reasons. First, the exchange between Anaya and his cousin constituted probative evidence from which the jury could reasonably infer that Anaya had been preoccupied and frustrated while watching R.C. because he would not take a nap. Ariz. R. Evid. 401, 402; see also State v. Hunter, 136 Ariz. 45, 50 (1983) (). Second, as the trial court correctly noted, discussing the marijuana dispensary menu to show Anaya's frustration and distraction while caring for R.C., and nothing else, was not unfairly prejudicial. See Hardy, 230 Ariz. 281, ¶ 40. Accordingly, we cannot say the court abused its discretion in concluding that the probative value of the text messages was not outweighed by a danger of unfair prejudice. See State v. Rivers, 190 Ariz. 56, 60 (App. 1997) ().
¶13 Anaya also argues the trial court erred in admitting photographs of Phoenix Children's Hospital and a Native Air Helicopter. He maintains the photographs were "irrelevant" and "highly prejudicial" because neither photograph had a tendency to make a fact of consequence more or less probable.
¶14 At trial, the state argued a photograph of Phoenix Children's Hospital was relevant and admissible because it was the location of where "[R.C.] was taken," "where he died," and "where all [of] this...
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