State v. Arteaga
| Decision Date | 30 June 2016 |
| Docket Number | No. 32564-4-III,32564-4-III |
| Court | Washington Court of Appeals |
| Parties | STATE OF WASHINGTON, Respondent, v. DANIEL RAY ARTEAGA, Appellant. |
SIDDOWAY, J. — Seven months after 34-year-old Kimberly Schmidt was found dead with a gunshot wound to the head from a handgun found at her side, the State charged Daniel Arteaga with first degree murder. Mr. Arteaga, who had no criminal history, had been involved in a six-and-a-half-year affair with Ms. Schmidt. It was undisputed that Ms. Schmidt told Mr. Arteaga about six weeks before her death that she had rekindled the relationship with the father of her 12-year-old daughter and, in the future, wanted to be friends, only, with Mr. Arteaga.
There was evidence that Ms. Schmidt and Mr. Arteaga remained friendly thereafter. The State's theory as to his motive for murdering Ms. Schmidt was that despite his friendly demeanor, he was not willing to be replaced in her life. To augment DNA1 evidence that implicated Mr. Arteaga but was relatively weak, the State offered "motive" evidence under ER 404(b) of domineering, controlling behavior by Mr. Arteaga during the years of his and Ms. Schmidt's relationship.
Mr. Arteaga contends on appeal that the trial court failed to conduct the required analysis before admitting the ER 404(b) evidence and admitted it for an improper purpose. He also contends he received ineffective assistance of counsel when his trial attorney did not move to suppress the DNA evidence and failed to object to testimony from Ms. Schmidt's mother that placed him in a bad light. Finally, he challenges legal financial obligations (LFOs) imposed and domestic violence findings included in his judgment and sentence.
We find no error or abuse of discretion other than the trial court's domestic violence designation of the crime of conviction. We affirm the conviction and remand with directions to strike the domestic violence designation in § 2.1 of the judgment and sentence.
On New Year's Day 2012, Kimberly Schmidt was found lifeless on her bed, her head covered by a blood-soaked pillow. Her mother, Toni Schmidt,2 discovered her. Ahandgun inside a black sock lay near Ms. Schmidt's shoulder. The barrel of the gun protruded from a hole in the toe of the sock.
Toni had earlier telephoned Mr. Arteaga, well known to her as Ms. Schmidt's longtime friend,3 after Ms. Schmidt failed to pick up Toni's granddaughter as planned and could not be reached. Toni even had Mr. Arteaga on the phone when she entered Ms. Schmidt's home, because she was worried about encountering an intruder. When Toni found Ms. Schmidt and told Mr. Arteaga she believed she might be dead, Mr. Arteaga called 911 at Toni's request and then drove to Ms. Schmidt's home.
Upon arriving, Mr. Arteaga approached the crime scene tape and spoke with Detective Michael Drapeau. He spoke to the detective at length, disclosing that while he was married, he had been in a relationship with Ms. Schmidt (a single woman) for over six years, and that the two had ended their romantic relationship in November. He told Detective Drapeau that despite the breakup, he had been with Ms. Schmidt much of the prior day and night. At her request, he had picked up a washing machine she had purchased the prior morning, delivered it to her home, installed it for her, and helped her with a couple of loads of laundry. After he was unable to dispose of her old washingmachine at a recycling center (he arrived after it closed) he returned to her home and remained there, where, according to him, he and Ms. Schmidt "talked, and laughed, and cried" for a couple of hours and even had sexual relations. Verbatim Report of Proceedings (VRP) (Aug. 7, 2012) at 29. Late that night, because Ms. Schmidt was not feeling well, he traveled to a gas station to pick up nighttime cold medicine to help her sleep. He claimed that after giving her the medicine she fell asleep, and she was sleeping when he left her home at around 3:00 a.m.
Mr. Arteaga also told Detective Drapeau that Ms. Schmidt had recently renewed a romantic relationship with Joseph Regalado, the father of her 12-year-old daughter, and that she had originally planned on spending New Year's Eve with Mr. Regalado. According to Mr. Arteaga, she changed her mind at around 11:30 p.m., perhaps because she wasn't feeling well.
On that New Year's Day afternoon, Mr. Arteaga not only spoke with Detective Drapeau at length, he also turned his cell phone over to a police officer, authorized Detective Drapeau to process the phone, and allowed the detective to take pictures of his back and chest, search his truck, take a DNA buccal (cheek) swab, and accompany Mr. Arteaga to his home, where Mr. Arteaga provided the detective with the clothes he had worn the night before.
An autopsy confirmed the cause of Ms. Schmidt's death was the gunshot wound to her head. It identified the manner of death as homicide. A sample of Ms. Schmidt'sblood taken during the autopsy was sent to the Washington State Patrol's toxicology lab and revealed no alcohol or illegal drugs. It did reveal the presence of diphenhydramine—commonly found in over-the-counter medications such as Tylenol or Tylenol PM—in a high concentration: 0.43 mg/L, well above the normal therapeutic level of 0.05 mg/L. Diphenhydramine causes drowsiness or sleepiness, and slows reaction time.
The state patrol's forensic lab performed analyses on the black sock found on the handgun as well as a similar sock that Toni found in Ms. Schmidt's dirty laundry. The analyst compared the DNA discovered on the socks to reference samples from Mr. Arteaga, Mr. Regalado, Ms. Schmidt, and Toni.
Three sets of DNA were discovered on the sock found over the gun. Ms. Schmidt's DNA and an unidentified minor contributor's DNA were discovered on the side of the sock touching the gun. On the opposite, exposed side of the sock, the analyst detected a mixture of DNA consistent with the combined profiles for Ms. Schmidt and Mr. Arteaga. It was 270 times more likely that the observed DNA profile was a mixture of Ms. Schmidt's and Mr. Arteaga's DNA than that it originated from Ms. Schmidt and an unknown individual selected at random from the U.S. population. Mr. Regalado was excluded as a possible contributor to that mixture.
The test performed on the second sock, the one discovered in the laundry, indicated that Ms. Schmidt was the major contributor. There was also a low levelcontributor to the DNA on this sock, but Mr. Arteaga, Mr. Regalado, and Toni were all excluded as the low level contributor.
On August 7, 2012, the State interviewed Mr. Arteaga a second time. This time, Deputy Drapeau read Mr. Arteaga his Miranda4 rights. In the roughly 40-minute interview, which was videotaped, Mr. Arteaga repeated much of what he told Detective Drapeau on New Year's Day. Additional disclosures by Mr. Arteaga were that Ms. Schmidt had a PayPal account which was linked to an eBay account that he and she shared, although he stated that "99 percent" of the sales through the eBay account were his. VRP at 49. Mr. Arteaga also stated he provided Ms. Schmidt with the .25 caliber Jennings semiautomatic handgun used to kill her. He told detectives she had wanted a handgun for self-protection and that she ordinarily kept it in a small safe at her bedside.
Late in the interview, Detective Drapeau told Mr. Arteaga that "there's a lot of things that I know now from a forensic standpoint . . . that I didn't know before." VRP at 67. He said he knew Mr. Arteaga must have been in the room with Ms. Schmidt when she was bleeding, and that Mr. Arteaga must either have shot Ms. Schmidt or seen her shoot herself. Mr. Arteaga continuously denied both accusations, insisting that Ms. Schmidt was alive and sleeping when he left. Mr. Arteaga was arrested that day and was charged with premeditated first degree murder two days later.
Before trial, and having learned the State intended to offer evidence that Mr. Arteaga was controlling and domineering in his relationship with Ms. Schmidt, the defense moved in limine to exclude any reference to uncharged criminal incidents and other prior bad acts. The State argued the evidence was admissible to show motive, intent, or res gestae. After taking testimony outside the presence of the jury about what the trial court characterized as the "controlling issues" (discussed in more detail below), it excluded evidence about one incident but ruled that other incidents had been shown to have occurred and would be admitted as "very relevant toward proving the defendant's intent, if you will, premeditation, et cetera, et cetera, motivation." Report of Proceedings (RP) at 265.
At trial, Toni testified that while sorting through Ms. Schmidt's financial affairs after her death, she discovered that an eBay account her daughter maintained with Mr. Arteaga had been emptied of funds "[t]wo days after her death," and that "Mr. Arteaga paid himself the funds that were in the account, her account." RP at 325. Defense counsel did not object.
The jury found Mr. Arteaga guilty of first degree murder while armed with a firearm. The court sentenced him to 360 months and imposed LFOs. Mr. Arteaga appeals.
Mr. Arteaga makes six assignments of error. The first two claim he receivedineffective assistance of counsel when his trial lawyer (1) failed to move to suppress the DNA evidence, and (2) failed to object to evidence about his withdrawal of eBay proceeds from the Paypal account. The third is to the trial court's partial denial of his motion to exclude the ER 404(b) evidence. The fourth is to the court's imposition of LFOs without making an individualized inquiry into his ability to pay. The fifth and sixth are to the court's finding and designation of the crime of conviction as a domestic violence crime.
We address the assignments of error in the order stated.
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