State v. Aten
| Decision Date | 27 November 1996 |
| Docket Number | No. 63348-7,63348-7 |
| Citation | 927 P.2d 210,130 Wn.2d 640 |
| Court | Washington Supreme Court |
| Parties | The STATE of Washington, Petitioner, v. Vicki Jo ATEN, Respondent. |
John Hayden, Port Angeles, for Respondent.
The State of Washington seeks review of a decision of the Court of Appeals, Division Two, which reversed Respondent Vicki Jo Aten's conviction in the Clallam County Superior Court for second degree manslaughter. We granted review. We affirm the Court of Appeals.
The questions presented in this case are (1) whether there was sufficient evidence establishing the corpus delicti, independent of Respondent's own statements, to allow admission of her statements at trial; (2) whether the trial court erred in admitting the statement Respondent made to police officers while she was a patient being treated for grief and depression; 1 (3) whether the trial court erred in admitting the statement Respondent made to police officers taken without an attorney after she made an equivocal request to have an attorney present; (4) whether there was sufficient evidence to find Respondent guilty of second degree manslaughter; and (5) whether the trial court erred in imposing an exceptional sentence above the standard range.
Shortly before 10:00 p.m. on January 30, 1991, Respondent Aten arrived at Ms. Rose Gonzales' home to baby-sit Ms. Gonzales' four young children, including four-month-- On February 25, 1991 in the Clallam County Superior Court the State charged Respondent Vicki Jo Aten with second degree manslaughter 5 incident to the death of four-month-old Sandra Michelle Biber.
Sandra Michelle Biber. 2 Sandra was asleep when Respondent arrived, but Respondent woke her up, held her, then put her back down. 3 At about 10:15 p.m., Ms. Gonzales left for work, leaving her four children with Respondent Aten. 4 The infant Sandra was dead the next morning
On August 5, 1991 the court, the Honorable Gary W. Velie, conducted a CrR 3.5 hearing to determine admissibility of Respondent's February 10, 1991 statement to police officers about events surrounding the infant's death. The court concluded the statement was admissible. The Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law and Ruling for the CrR 3.5 hearing was not filed until December 18, 1992. 6 The trial began before the Honorable James D. Roper on December 2, 1991 in the Clallam County Superior Court. Respondent waived her right to a jury trial. 7
At trial, Ms. Gonzales testified that Respondent baby-sat for her during the period October 1990 to January 1991. She said her four-month-old infant Sandra's health was fine on January 30, 1991. 8 She said the infant did not cry when Respondent awakened her that night. Two days earlier, on January 28, Ms. Gonzales had taken Sandra to On January 31, 1991, at about 7:22 a.m., James D. Piatt, a paramedic, and his partner, Phil Riehle, were dispatched to Ms. Gonzales' residence. 11 He testified at trial that he arrived to find Respondent Aten holding Sandra, who was dead. 12 He said Respondent was extremely upset. 13 He examined Sandra and asked Respondent about the infant's prior history. She told him Sandra had been having breathing problems and recently was taken to see a doctor. He understood from her that the doctor examined the baby for the breathing problems. Respondent said she was up all night with the baby from 10:00 until 4:06 in the morning. The Sheriff's Department was then notified about Sandra's death.
see Dr. John D. Wegmann, M.D. She said the baby had a runny nose and had begun teething. 9 Dr. Wegmann testified he examined Sandra and diagnosed her as having a simple viral upper respiratory infection. He said he felt it was a mild illness and he did not prescribe medication. 10 Sandra primarily had nasal congestion, but her lungs and ears were clear, and she was not feverish
Sergeant Monte Martin, Clallam County Sheriff's Department, testified he arrived at the Gonzales residence a little before 8:00 a.m on January 31, 1991. He said Respondent was extremely distraught and quite upset. He asked her what happened. She told him she arrived at the Gonzales home at about 10:00 o'clock the night before, awakened the baby and then had trouble putting her back to sleep. She said the baby finally fell asleep at about four o'clock. Respondent said she awoke at about 7:22 a.m. and discovered the baby was dead.
Detective Jeff Boyd also went to the Gonzales residence Dr. Richard Schiefelbein, M.D., a pathologist, performed an autopsy on Sandra on January 31, 1991. He testified he found no evidence indicating the infant had been ill. He concluded she died from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) or acute respiratory failure. 17 He explained that acute respiratory failure means a person stops breathing and cannot start breathing again. He said it was possible manual interference or suffocation could set in motion a process leading to respiratory failure in an infant. 18 He acknowledged that once the process was begun, it was still possible to see signs of movement or hear sounds from an infant. 19 He stated that death by manual interference or suffocation was not necessarily detectable in an autopsy. And he could not determine from any autopsy whether the cause of death might have been manual interference or SIDS. 20
on the morning of January 31, 1991. He testified Respondent Aten was "very agitated." 14 He questioned her. She told him Sandra cried all night. She said before four o'clock that morning she gave Sandra a teaspoon of cough syrup diluted with water. She said Sandra finally fell asleep but when she (Respondent) awoke at about 7:15, she found the baby dead on the couch where she had put her down to sleep. Respondent said she immediately called 911. She told Detective Boyd that Sandra had a bad cough, a runny nose, and seemed very congested the night before. 15 She also told him Sandra had trouble breathing that night. 16
On cross examination, Dr. Schiefelbein stated that quite often babies who died from SIDS had been observed in the On redirect examination, the State asked Dr. Schiefelbein this convoluted hypothetical question:
preceding weeks to have a respiratory infection. But he said it was merely an association and he would not say such babies were at a higher risk of death from SIDS. Dr. Schiefelbein said he could not conclude a logical and reasonable inference that Sandra died from any human action. 21
If you are aware, doctor, that a child is alive and well at 10:00 P.M. and that at 7:30 A.M. the next morning the infant of this age is dead, and the person in whose care the child has been placed says that contrary to all other evidence that the child was very, very ill during that time period and you are aware of, again, the child had visited a doctor evidencing no symptoms whatsoever of being very, very ill, the mother having seen the child at 10:00 [P.M.] or even a little bit later, how can you say that it is not a logical and reasonable possibility that the child died from human intervention? Perhaps not the only one but a logical one? 22
The disjoined answer Dr. Schiefelbein gave to the question, after objections and colloquy between counsel, as well as partial responses from the witness, was:
I think that it is a reasonable inference but I don't think ... the autopsy findings per se lead to that inference with that history. But what I guess I'm saying that inference, I guess, I could make that inference--well, I would but not based on the autopsy findings in a way wouldn't contribute to that inference. It would be the history that would be contributing to the inference. 23
At trial, Sandra's mother, Ms. Gonzales, testified that on or about February 2, 1991, Respondent asked her what the autopsy on the baby showed. Ms. Gonzales said she answered "they thought it was Sudden Infant Death Respondent's 17-year old daughter, Virginia (Jenda) Barley, testified that around January 31 and the first weeks of February 1991, Respondent put some of her possessions in storage. Her mother asked people to temporarily keep other possessions and gave some of them away. Ms. Barley testified her mother would not say why she was doing it, but did tell her the sheriff might lock the whole house up. 25
Syndrome." She said Respondent then told her that was not true. 24
On February 6, 1991 Respondent met with Patrick Downie, the lay bishop of her church. 26 He became concerned for her psychological and emotional condition and arranged immediate contact between her and Peninsula Counseling and a mental health professional. 27 That same day, the mental health professional accompanied Respondent to the Olympic Memorial Hospital where she voluntarily checked herself into the behavioral medicine unit, a locked or secured facility at the hospital. 28 At 10:00 p.m. she was given 50 milligrams of Elavil, an antidepressant medication. 29
On February 7, 1991 Respondent was seen in the hospital by Dr. Norman F. Peterson, M.D. He diagnosed her as having "adjustment reaction with acute grief and depressed mood" 30 or suffering from grief and depression.
He felt she was seriously depressed. 31 Dr. Peterson testified he saw Respondent daily during her hospitalization, with the exception of her first day, February 6, and the day she was discharged, February 19. 32 He testified Respondent was not given any medication on February 7, 8 or 9.
On February 10 at 4:30 p.m. Respondent was given a half dose of Librax, an anti-anxiety medication. Dr. Peterson testified that Librax generally had a mild calming effect. 33 He testified he would not expect Librax to impair a person's ability to make judgments or decisions or impair a person's alertness and awareness, but that two possible adverse reactions to the drug could be confusion...
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