State v. Davis, 1 CA-CR 02-0007.

• Decision Date: 17 December 2002
• Docket Number: No. 1 CA-CR 02-0007.,1 CA-CR 02-0007.
• Citation: 68 P.3d 127,205 Ariz. 174
• Parties: STATE of Arizona, Appellee, v. Schuylar Ray DAVIS, Appellant.
• Court: Arizona Court of Appeals

68 P.3d 127

205 Ariz. 174

STATE of Arizona, Appellee, v. Schuylar Ray DAVIS, Appellant.

No. -0007.

Court of Appeals of Arizona, Division 1, Department D.

December 17, 2002.

As Amended April 23, 2003.

Redesignated as Opinion by Order April 24, 2003.

Janet Napolitano, Attorney General By Randall M. Howe, Chief Counsel, Criminal Appeals Section and Robert L. Walsh, Assistant Attorney General, Phoenix, for Appellee.

James J. Haas, Maricopa County Public Defender By James R. Rummage, Deputy Public Defender, Phoenix, for Appellant.

OPINION

THOMPSON, Judge.

¶ 1 Schuylar Ray Davis (defendant) appeals from his conviction and sentence for second degree murder. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

¶ 2 We view the facts in the light most favorable to sustaining the jury's verdict and resolve all inferences against defendant. State v. Fontes, 195 Ariz. 229, 230, ¶ 2, 986 P.2d 897, 898 (App.1998).

¶ 3 On October 1, 2000, at approximately 8:30 p.m., J.M.'s seventeen year-old daughter, Jackie, arrived at her home in Avondale and told her mother that defendant was coming into the house to "visit with her for a while." J.M. looked outside and saw a blue pickup truck with someone in the driver's seat. Jackie told her mother that she was going out to get defendant, but returned inside without him. Instead, she informed her mother that she was going out to the desert with defendant "to talk" and left around 9:00 p.m. J.M. never saw her daughter alive again and made a missing person's report to Avondale Police on October 3rd.

¶ 4 At some point during either the late night of October 1st or the early morning of October 2nd, 2000, defendant appeared at the home of C.O., where his girlfriend M.L. was staying, and asked to take a shower. C.O. noticed that defendant had blood on his pants and later found a footprint with blood on her bathroom floor. M.L. also noticed blood on defendant's pants. When C.O. asked him what had happened, defendant told her that he had gotten into a fight with someone who had jumped him at a Circle K and tried to steal his truck.

¶ 5 Defendant took a shower and asked C.O. for a pair of her son's shorts to wear, which she gave him. He also asked her if he could burn a stick and some clothes in her backyard, but she said he could not. He then left the house, but returned at some undetermined time because M.L. discovered him sleeping next to her when she woke up.

¶ 6 Three days later, defendant told M.L. that the blood on his pants had not been "from some guy, it was from Jackie." Defendant told M.L. that he had run into Jackie at C.H.'s house and that they had gone to Estrella Park and gotten kicked out because it was too late. They had then gone to "the fishing hole," which M.L. described as a grassy knoll with trees and sand in the desert.¹ According to defendant, when Jackie started "making sexual advances" towards him, defendant had rebuffed her because she was a minor and because he had a girlfriend and was not interested. Jackie had yelled at him, and he had "snapped" and killed her. Defendant told M.L. that he had stabbed Jackie with a knife. He also told her that he had rolled Jackie's body in a carpet and burned her.

¶ 7 On October 4, M.L. told C.O. about defendant's confession, and C.O. drove M.L. to the Avondale Police Department that same day, where M.L. related defendant's statements to police. The police executed a search warrant on defendant's parents' residence and arrested defendant. While being placed under arrest, defendant stated that he "knew what was going on and ... was cool with that." He also asked if the police were going to "tear up" his mother's house because of the warrant and advised that there was no need to do so because there was no evidence inside the house as he had already gotten rid of all of it.

¶ 8 In a video-taped interview with Avondale Police Detective Michael Sgrillo on October 5, defendant confessed to having killed Jackie, who was an acquaintance². On the night of the murder, she had needed a ride home from a friend's house, and he had given her one. However, she had subsequently decided to accompany him to Estrella Park. Because the park was closing, they were asked to leave; and they had moved on to some cotton fields nearby.

¶ 9 According to defendant he had simply wanted to talk that night, but Jackie had wanted to have sex and had "kept coming on to [him]", so he just "snapped." He took a knife from his truck and stabbed her, first in the side of the neck, and then all over her body "lots of times." He also beat her with a stick. After he had killed her, he had tried to burn her, and had done so by siphoning gasoline from his truck. But parts of her had been left, so he had gone back the next day or so to see if someone had found her.

¶ 10 Defendant admitted to having had blood on his pants and to going to C.O.'s house after the killing and taking a shower. He also admitted telling C.O. and M.L. that night that he had gotten into a fight with someone over his truck. He informed Sgrillo that the police were not going to be able to find his clothes or the knife he had used because he had burned the former near his house and had thrown the latter into a canal.

¶ 11 Defendant then accompanied the police to the site of the murder and directed them to the remains of the victim's body wrapped in a piece of carpet hidden in some bushes. He stated that he had wanted to burn the rest of the remains, but had become concerned that some "transients living in the thick brush" would see him. He had therefore wrapped them in the carpet instead. He also identified the fire pit where he had burned some portions of the body and the stick with which he had beaten the victim.

¶ 12 Defendant stated that the sole person he had told about the killing was M.L. and then only because she had "hound[ed]" him about where he had been. He offered no justification for his actions, conceding only that they were "very wrong" and that he had "no explanation or excuse."

¶ 13 Defendant reiterated and expanded upon what he had told police in a press conference he held while in the Madison Street Jail. The state entered an audiotape of the conference into evidence at trial and played it for the jury during its case in chief. ¶ 14 The state charged defendant with first degree murder, a class 1 dangerous felony, for the premeditated murder of the victim. The trial court also instructed the jury on second degree murder and manslaughter. Unable to reach a unanimous verdict on first degree murder, the jury found defendant guilty of second degree murder.

¶ 15 On December 7, 2001, the trial court sentenced defendant to an aggravated term of twenty-two years flat time in prison. Defendant timely appealed.

ISSUES

¶ 16 Defendant raises two issues on appeal. (1) Did the trial court abuse its discretion in not permitting him to present evidence of third party culpability? (2) Did the trial court abuse its discretion in denying his request for a Willits instruction?³

DISCUSSION

(1) Evidence of Third Party Culpability

¶ 17 Throughout the trial, defendant sought to introduce evidence to suggest that someone other than he might have committed the crime. Specifically, defendant sought to introduce testimony that, on the night of the murder, P.S., with whom the victim had stayed from time to time, had seen M.H. and T.J. with injuries on their arms and had thought they had "acted suspicious." He also sought to introduce testimony that P.S. had informed Sgrillo that, roughly a month prior to her death, the victim had told her that she was pregnant with M.H.'s child. Additionally, he sought to introduce evidence that P.S. had provided police with the name of Mark H., who had told police in a taped interview that he had heard M.H. and T.J. make incriminating statements about their role in the victim's death.

¶ 18 A suitcase characterized as a "portable meth lab" was among the detritus at the scene of the crime. As part of his third party culpability argument, defendant therefore also sought to introduce evidence that M.H. had been found to have a "portable meth lab" in his car when he was allegedly arrested approximately one month after the murder.

¶ 19 P.S., M.H., T.J., and Mark H. did not testify at trial.⁴ Instead, defendant attempted to introduce the victim's statements about pregnancy and P.S.'s comments about M.H.'s and T.J.'s possible involvement in the case via the testimony of Detective Sgrillo. The state argued that, despite defendant's assertions about M.H. and T.J., the evidence was not relevant as there was nothing linking either one or their actions to this particular crime. As to any testimony M.L. would offer about the victim's statements concerning pregnancy, the state contended that such evidence would also be hearsay not covered by any exception. The state made similar objections based on relevance and hearsay regarding defendant's questioning of Sgrillo.

¶ 20 The trial court excluded defendant's third party culpability evidence with regard to M.H. and T.J., "based on the lack of definiteness of the anticipated evidence and the unavailability of particular witnesses." It denied admission of M.L.'s testimony about pregnancy based on the state's hearsay objection. It also denied a motion to reconsider these decisions, albeit without prejudice.

¶ 21 Defendant also attempted to elicit testimony from Avondale Police Officer Raphael Fernandez about any role he might have played in the arrest of M.H. "sometime in November 2000" when a portable meth lab was allegedly found in his car. The trial court precluded the testimony, again based on lack of relevance.

¶ 22 Defendant maintains that the trial court's preclusion of the contested evidence of third party culpability was contrary to the recent holding of State v. Gibson, 202 Ariz. 321, 44 P.3d 1001 (2002), regarding the "relevance test" for the admissibility of such evidence and,...