State v. Drommond
| Citation | 469 P.3d 1056 |
| Decision Date | 17 July 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 20080252,20080252 |
| Parties | STATE of Utah, Appellee, v. David Edward DROMMOND, Jr., Appellant. |
| Court | Supreme Court of Utah |
Attorneys: Sean D. Reyes, Att'y Gen., Christopher D. Ballard, Asst. Solic. Gen., Salt Lake City, for appellee
Scott L. Wiggins, Salt Lake City, for appellant
INTRODUCTION
¶1 David Drommond, Jr., shot and killed his ex-wife. After he pleaded guilty to aggravated murder, Drommond was sentenced by a jury at a penalty-phase trial to life in prison without the possibility of parole—not to twenty years to life in prison with the possibility of parole as he had hoped. Drommond challenges that sentence, arguing that it should not stand because his penalty-phase trial was fraught with mistakes and his trial counsel was ineffective. We affirm.
¶2 We split the facts into five sections. The first section recounts Drommond's murder of his ex-wife and how he later pleaded guilty to aggravated murder, in part so the State wouldn't seek the death penalty. The second summarizes pretrial motions that Drommond's counsel filed and the trial court's corresponding rulings. The third details the evidence at Drommond's penalty-phase trial. The fourth depicts the trial's closing arguments and the jury's verdict. And the last describes Drommond's appeal to this court and the later rule 23B hearing that the trial court held to enter findings of fact on one of Drommond's claims for ineffective assistance of counsel.
¶3 On the morning of August 28, 2005, Janeil Reed, Drommond's ex-wife, went with her father to Drommond's apartment to drop off their children for a visit. Reed's father, Neil Bradley, waited for her in the car. Upon arriving, the children ran up the stairs to Drommond's apartment door and were let inside. Reed went up the stairs to the door, too, carrying a box of items that Drommond had asked her to bring.
¶4 Reed and Drommond stood just inside the doorway, talking. The conversation ended abruptly when Drommond pulled a handgun from his waistband and shot Reed once, hitting her in the arm and chest area. Reed screamed and stumbled back, falling partway down the front stairs of the apartment. Drommond followed her, stepping out of the doorway to the top of the stairs. He then raised the gun (so that it was three or four feet from Reed's head) and pulled the trigger again, this time shooting her in the head. She died very quickly.
¶5 Hearing the shots, Bradley darted from his car toward Drommond, hoping to detain him. At the same time, Drommond's roommate, Ryan Zimmer—who had been outside as well—came toward Drommond. Zimmer stopped when he saw that the Drommond children "were just right inside the doorway" of the apartment. He told them to stay in the apartment and closed the door.
¶6 Bradley came running up the stairs toward Drommond, and Drommond shot him. The bullet pierced Bradley's arm and entered his body. (Bradley survived his wounds
.) Bradley and Zimmer tried to wrestle the gun away from Drommond. They eventually received help from Jason Von Weller, a neighbor, who stripped the gun from Drommond. Drommond tried to get the gun back but was pinned down until the police arrived and arrested him.
¶7 The State charged Drommond with aggravated murder, attempted murder, and violating a protective order. Drommond was then evaluated for competency by four court-appointed psychologists: Randal Oster, John Malouf, Nancy Cohn, and Stephen Golding. Each psychologist diagnosed him with a different mental health problem, but each concluded that Drommond was competent to proceed.
¶8 Next, Drommond pleaded guilty to aggravated murder. As part of the plea deal, the State dismissed the remaining charges and agreed not to seek the death penalty.
¶9 After Drommond pleaded guilty to aggravated murder, a penalty-phase jury trial was held. The jury's task was to decide whether Drommond should serve a life sentence without the possibility of parole or twenty years to life with the possibility of parole.
¶10 Before the penalty-phase trial, Drommond filed two motions relevant to this appeal. First, he filed a motion asking the trial court for confrontation rights at sentencing. The trial court denied the motion, holding that hearsay would be admissible at the penalty-phase trial if (1) it was reliable, (2) Drommond had the opportunity to rebut it, and (3) it was not unfairly prejudicial. Second, Drommond filed a motion asking the court to limit impermissible victim-impact evidence at the penalty-phase trial. The court held that victim-impact evidence would be admissible at the penalty-phase trial as long as it wasn't "unfairly prejudicial" and didn't "make comparative judgments about the worth of the victim's life in comparison to the life of the defendant."
¶11 The jury received evidence at trial about (A) Drommond's relationship with Reed, (B) his mental health problems after their divorce, (C) his desire to keep her from dating or marrying someone else, (D) his bipolar disorder
at the time of the murder, (E) the murder itself, (F) his statements after the murder, and (G) the impact of the murder on the Drommond children. We summarize below the relevant parts of that testimony.
¶12 Bradley (Reed's father) and Melina Yorke (Reed's friend) testified about Reed and Drommond's relationship, which began in 1994. According to Yorke, in August 1995, Reed told Yorke that she had talked to a male friend from high school at a music store, and that when Drommond found out that the two had talked, his temper snapped. Yorke said that Drommond choked Reed, leaving bruises on her neck.
¶13 Despite this incident, the couple married a short while later. Reed and Drommond later had two children. Bradley testified that when Drommond lost his job in about 2002, the marriage deteriorated, and, by the beginning of 2005, Reed and Drommond had divorced.
¶14 Bradley testified that soon after the divorce—in March 2005—Drommond strangled Reed to the point that she thought she would die because she had used his cell phone to call another man and had incurred a large bill. After the strangling, Reed obtained a protective order against Drommond, but she agreed to continue taking the children to visit him. Bradley testified that Drommond also frightened Reed with threatening emails in August 2005, causing Bradley to stay periodically at Reed's house at night.
¶15 After the divorce, Drommond went to live with his parents and stayed there until June 2005. Dr. Linda Gummow—a neuropsychologist and Drommond's expert witness at trial—detailed much of Drommond's mental health history during this time.
¶16 Dr. Gummow first outlined Drommond's mental health. She said that Drommond was diagnosed with major depressive disorder
at the end of 2004, and at the beginning of the next year, he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder, explained Dr. Gummow, is "a major mood disorder." She further explained that, to be diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a person must have had at least one manic episode—which is an "episode[ ] of very high mood, way beyond normal elation"—and episodes of depression, which are episodes of "very extremely low moods."
¶17 A few months after the divorce, testified Dr. Gummow, Drommond cut himself, attempted suicide several times, and had "hostile thoughts" toward Reed and his own family. As a result, he was admitted to Lakeview Hospital at the beginning of May 2005, where he stayed for about five days.
¶18 Dr. Gummow said that while Drommond was at Lakeview Hospital, he was treated by several physicians and received many diagnoses of his mental health problems. At various times at the hospital, Drommond was diagnosed with bipolar disorder
not otherwise specified (bipolar disorder NOS),1 schizoaffective disorder, and—upon discharge—bipolar disorder one.2
¶19 Dr. Gummow testified that after being discharged from Lakeview Hospital, Drommond had "no treatment" other than being "given some bottles of pills." Dr. Gummow said that this was a mistake—that he should have seen a mental health professional once a week, that "his medication should have been monitored," and that "his moods should have been tracked very regularly."
¶20 As mentioned above, Drommond lived with his parents after the divorce. But at the end June 2005—about a month after he was released from Lakeview Hospital—he moved into an apartment with some roommates.
¶21 Drommond's roommate, Rian Carlson, testified that, a couple of months before the murder, Drommond asked Carlson to get him a gun so the two could start a "bounty hunter service" or, more accurately, so Drommond could have the gun to use as an "an intimidation factor." Carlson said that he obtained a handgun about a month before the murder and gave it to Drommond. That was the handgun that Drommond would use to murder Reed.
¶22 Carlson testified that he and Drommond eventually shared their "bounty hunter idea" with a friend named Michael Hansen. Carlson testified that Drommond talked with him and Hansen about how they were going to "scare" and "rough [ ] up" people who owed him money. The group never followed through with any of those plans, and the group's focus soon shifted to Reed.
¶23 Carlson explained at trial that Drommond found out that Reed was dating someone, and he didn't like it. He wanted to put a stop to it. So, testified Carlson, two or three weeks before the murder, Drommond talked with him and Hansen about scaring Reed out of dating by breaking into her house and cutting her phone...
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