State v. Dahll
| Decision Date | 01 March 2021 |
| Docket Number | No. 80065-5-I,80065-5-I |
| Parties | STATE OF WASHINGTON, Respondent, v. HELEN M. DAHLL, Appellant. |
| Court | Washington Court of Appeals |
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
VERELLEN, J. — Helen Dahll assigns error to her convictions for first degree theft and attempted first degree theft. She contends the court erred by excluding evidence, the State prejudiced her right to a fair trial by mismanaging discovery, and the State failed to disprove her good faith claim of title defense to the money she was charged with stealing from her elderly father, John Dahll.1
Helen fails to show the court abused its discretion by concluding her father's will was irrelevant to her right to his money before his death and by concluding the probative value of the foreclosure of her home after the charging period did not outweigh its emotional impact.
She also fails to prove actual prejudice from discovery mismanagement by the State because evidence timely disclosed revealed the same information and would have let her attorney pose the same theory she now argues was unavailable to her.
And she fails to demonstrate the State presented insufficient evidence to disprove her defense of an open and avowed taking of her father's money under a good faith claim of title.
Therefore, we affirm.
FACTS
In April of 2012, Helen became a caregiver for her elderly father John and, after a power of attorney he had signed years earlier took effect, became his attorney-in-fact. John was in the early stages of dementia and suffered from heart disease, congestive heart failure, and arthritis in his knees, among other health problems. Helen hired a home healthcare provider, and John began receiving 24-hour care in his house.
In the spring of 2014, John moved in with Helen, and she rented out his house. She reduced his caretaking hours to only four per day. By this time, he was unable to toilet himself, prepare meals, manage his medications, or get around independently. Helen's neighbors began noticing she often went out for hours and left John alone. Helen would leave the front door unlocked when she went out, so her neighbors would check on John. More than once, a neighbor found John lying on the floor and calling out for Helen, unaware she had left himalone. As more neighbors became concerned for John's welfare, they submitted reports to Adult Protective Services (APS).
On October 8, 2015, an APS investigator visited John. She noticed his limited cognitive abilities, such as not knowing the date or time, not knowing who was visiting him, not knowing how long Helen left him alone, and being unaware he was unable to care for himself. She returned again on November 4 after a home healthcare worker arrived to find John cold, shivering, and precariously positioned in his bed.
On November 14, the APS investigator returned to check on John, and Helen refused to let her in, relenting only after the police arrived. The investigator found John lying in his own waste and wearing clothes stained with urine and blood. He had a bright red sore on his tailbone and a bloody wound on his buttocks. Helen said she knew he needed 24-hour care but could not afford it because John had only $15,000 in certificates of deposit and no savings. She said his only income was from his Boeing pension and from renting out his house. Helen had not worked in over 10 years due to her own medical issues, and John had financially supported her.
John was moved into an adult family home in November of 2015. On February 3, 2016, an independent guardian was appointed, over Helen's objection, for John's person and estate. The appointment ended Helen's role as John's attorney-in-fact. The guardian reviewed John's finances and discovered at least $200,000 missing from his checking and savings accounts,all of which were at BECU. The guardian called the police. John died on September 15, 2016, and the guardian became personal representative of his estate.
Helen was charged with committing first degree theft between April 1, 2014 and February 22, 2016, attempted first degree theft between March 22 and 23, 2016, and third degree criminal mistreatment between June 1, 2015 and November 16, 2015. The State's theory was that Helen took John's money through many unauthorized automated teller machine (ATM) withdrawals. Helen's pretrial theory was that she spent the missing money both on John's care and to support herself, which he had intended for her to do by making her a joint accountholder. The court excluded evidence that John had made Helen the primary beneficiary of his estate and that Helen's home was in foreclosure at the time of trial.
In the middle of trial, the records officer for BECU provided documents to the State that had not been disclosed previously. Account documents showed several accounts identified as Helen's alone were actually joint accounts held by Helen and John. Helen moved to dismiss under CrR 8.3(b), arguing the late disclosures were prejudicial discovery violations caused by governmental misconduct. The court denied her motion. The jury found Helen guilty of all charges.
Helen appeals, assigning error to only the theft and attempted theft convictions.
ANALYSIS
Helen contends her right to present a defense was violated by the court excluding two pieces of evidence. We review a court's evidentiary decisions for abuse of discretion and review de novo whether the defendant's right to present a defense was violated.2
She argues the court erred when it excluded relevant evidence from John's 1992 will designating her as the primary beneficiary of his estate.
"'To be relevant . . . evidence must (1) tend to prove or disprove the existence of a fact, and (2) that fact must be of consequence to the outcome of the case.'"3 The threshold for relevancy is very low, and even minimally relevant evidence is admissible.4 Irrelevant evidence is inadmissible.5 A defendant has no right to introduce inadmissible evidence.6
In 1992, John signed a will designating Helen the personal representative and primary beneficiary of his estate if his wife Marypredeceased him. The court allowed evidence John designated Helen as his personal representative but excluded his decision to make Helen his primary beneficiary. She argues the court erred because her status as primary beneficiary was probative of her defense that John let Helen use his money on herself during his lifetime.
An heir cannot have an interest in another's estate until that person's death.7 "Prior to that event there is no 'heir' because no one can be the heir of a living person."8 This is true for both realty and personalty in an estate.9 Helen provides no authority that a will evidences a living person's intent to make inter vivos gifts.10
Helen was accused of taking John's money without his authorization. John's will had no effect on Helen's legal interest in his money before his death. Because John's decision to make Helen his primary beneficiary was not probative of her legal right to his money nor of John's intent to make gifts to herwhile alive, the evidence was not relevant. Helen fails to show the court erred or infringed upon her right to present a defense.11
Helen also argues the court erred when it excluded evidence her home entered foreclosure after the charging period. Helen sought to introduce evidence of the foreclosure to argue it made it less likely she stole thousands of dollars from her father only to stop paying her mortgage. The court concluded the evidence was minimally probative, and ER 403 barred the evidence as unduly prejudicial in Helen's favor.
Relevant evidence can be excluded when "its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice."12 "'Evidence likely to provoke an emotional response rather than a rational decision is unfairly prejudicial.'"13 A court considers the whole case when weighing the risk of unfair prejudice, including:
"the importance of the fact of consequence for which the evidence is offered in the context of the litigation, the strength and length of the chain of inferences necessary to establish the fact of consequence, the availability of alternative means of proof, whether the fact of consequence for which the evidence is offeredis being disputed, and, where appropriate, the potential effectiveness of a limiting instruction."14
When the evidence is of high probative value, "it appears no state interest can be compelling enough to preclude its introduction" without violating the state and federal constitutions.15
Helen analogizes to State v. Jones, where our Supreme Court held retrial was required after a defendant being tried for rape was prohibited from testifying the sex was consensual or from cross-examining the victim about having consented.16 Only a police officer and the victim testified, and the State did not call other witnesses to the alleged rape.17 Under those circumstances, evidence of consensual sex was the defendant's "entire defense" and had "extremely high probative value."18 Excluding it violated the defendant's right to present a defense, requiring retrial.19
Helen sought to introduce evidence of the foreclosure to illustrate she could not afford her mortgage and therefore could not have stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars years earlier. Unlike Jones, evidence of the foreclosure is minimally probative of the crimes charged. It occurred outside the chargingperiod and after Helen lost access to John's accounts. Only by layering inferences does it suggest Helen's innocence. Again, unlike Jones, other evidence allowed the same argument. Helen introduced evidence she had not paid her homeowner's association dues since John died and elicited other testimony she should "write a book on how to survive with no cash for two or three years."20 She also introduced evidence that John had supported her financially "for some time."21 The evidence of foreclosure had little probative value because it could not directly establish Helen's...
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