State v. Green
| Decision Date | 21 August 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 118,366,118,366 |
| Citation | 469 P.3d 1228 |
| Parties | STATE of Kansas, Appellee, v. Thad Christopher GREEN, Appellant. |
| Court | Kansas Supreme Court |
Peter Maharry, of Kansas Appellate Defender Office, argued the cause, and was on the briefs for appellant.
Jodi Litfin, assistant solicitor general, argued the cause, and Derek Schmidt, attorney general, was with her on the brief for appellee.
This is defendant Thad Christopher Green's direct appeal of his convictions arising out of the death of Cameron Wawrzynaik. Wawrzynaik was the boyfriend of the defendant's ex-wife.
A jury convicted the defendant of first-degree premeditated murder, aggravated burglary, and arson. He raises seven issues in this appeal: (1) The jury should have been instructed on the defense of voluntary intoxication; (2) the jury should have been instructed on voluntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense of first-degree premeditated murder; (3) the district court judge's failure to instruct on voluntary intoxication and voluntary manslaughter deprived him of his constitutional right to a jury trial, because the judge made factual determinations that should have been made by the jury; (4) the failure to instruct on voluntary manslaughter pushed the jury to convict him of first-degree premeditated murder even if jurors had a reasonable doubt about whether the State had proved its case; (5) the district judge erred in admitting a videotaped interrogation of the defendant into evidence because law enforcement agents repeatedly challenged his honesty and truthfulness during that interrogation; (6) the district judge erred in refusing to give a cautionary instruction about testimony from jailhouse informants upon whom the State's case relied; and (7) cumulative error requires reversal of the defendant's convictions and a new trial.
In the early morning hours of December 23, 2015, Mary Lou Vannoster, who lived in rural Montgomery County, Kansas, near Jefferson, looked out her living room window and saw her "whole yard was lit up." She ran outside, saw that the house next door was on fire, and ran back inside to call 911.
Montgomery County dispatch sent firefighters and law enforcement, including Detective Matthew Hastings of the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office, to the scene of the fire. When Hastings arrived, the entire house was in flames and had "lost a lot of its height and its shape." An outbuilding north of the house and a pickup in the driveway also were on fire.
After speaking with Vannoster, Hastings found out that Wawrzynaik had been renting the burning house from another neighbor's son. Hastings tried to contact Wawrzynaik by phone but did not get a response.
Eventually Ron Cunningham, Wawrzynaik's stepfather, pulled up in a pickup. Cunningham believed Wawrzynaik was inside the burning house because Wawrzynaik's pickup was in the driveway.
As this situation evolved just north of the Kansas-Oklahoma border, Martha Donelson Green and Fred Green were at home near Burbank, Oklahoma, south of the border.
About 12:15 a.m., Martha heard Fred answer a phone call.
Martha could hear "screaming and yelling" coming from the person who had called. She could not hear much of what was being said—"just a really serious situation was going on." She could hear Fred responding to the caller "really calm." The only word from the caller that Martha could make out—a word she "heard real clear"—was "blood." She believed Fred was talking to one of his sons—the defendant or his brother, Dustin. After the call was over, Fred "started crying." According to Martha, " Martha "thought that whatever happened on the phone ... was, you know, life or death," but Fred would not tell her what had happened.
Martha was caring for her grandbaby that night and needed help dealing with both Fred and the baby; so she sent a text message to her daughter, Tasha Fox. Tasha and her husband, Brad, shared an address but not a residence with Martha and Fred. The Foxes came over, and Tasha took the baby upstairs, where she called 911.
Sheriff's Deputy Mike Stasyszen from Osage County, Oklahoma, was dispatched to Fred and Martha's house. When he got there, Fred did not want to talk to him and told him to go away. Eventually Martha let him into the house. Stasyszen would later testify that "
Fred eventually calmed down: Martha told him, "Well, we've got to figure out what's going on, Fred," but "he just wouldn't talk about it."
Fred left the house, and Martha asked the sheriff's deputies who remained if they had heard about any wrecks or about the defendant or his brother "getting into trouble." Martha would later testify: Martha was worried that the defendant had hurt Wawrzynaik. Stasyszen would later testify that Fred had told [Martha], "My son just killed somebody," and then became irate and, according to her, "went crazy."
Stasyszen called dispatch to let them know Fred had left his home. The dispatcher was Lacy Ferguson, who happened to be Ramanda's sister-in-law. Ferguson told Stasyszen that the defendant was separated from Ramanda. She also told him that the defendant was mad at Ramanda and her current boyfriend because Ramanda would not take the defendant back. Stasyszen asked Ferguson if she knew where the boyfriend lived; she told him that the boyfriend lived near Independence, Kansas. Stasyszen then asked Ferguson to contact Montgomery County to do a welfare check on the boyfriend.
Ferguson asked her husband, John, who was on duty as an Osage County deputy, to contact Ramanda to make sure she was okay. Ramanda was fine, but she had not been able to get in touch Wawrzynaik. When Montgomery County was contacted, the Oklahoma authorities learned that there was a fire at Wawrzynaik's house in Kansas.
Hastings would later testify about receiving a call from Osage County dispatch. The dispatcher told him she might have information about the fire and
When Hastings learned this information, he believed that Wawrzynaik had been in the burning house and that it could be the scene of a homicide. Because of this and the nature of the fire, Montgomery County contacted the state Fire Marshal to assist.
While Hastings waited for the state authorities to arrive at the scene of the fire, one of the firefighters informed him that human remains had been found in the house. Their location was consistent with the reported location of Wawrzynaik's bedroom. Although the defendant immediately became a suspect, he was not located by law enforcement until about noon on December 23.
Earlier that day, KBI Special Agent Jeremy Newman followed up on a "ping" of the cell phone number believed to be the defendant's. The ping, conducted from Independence, Kansas, showed that the phone was near Burbank, and Newman and another KBI agent drove to Pawhuska, Oklahoma, where the defendant and Ramanda Green each lived.
When Newman arrived in Pawhuska—about 70 minutes' drive from Independence—he sought another ping of Green's cell phone; it again showed that the phone was located near Burbank.
Also early that morning, KBI agent David Falletti interviewed Brayden Green and Donna Barnes at the Osage County Sheriff's Office. Brayden is the defendant's son from a relationship before his marriage to Ramanda. Barnes is Brayden's mother. Brayden told Falletti that his father had awakened him about 1 a.m. and told him he "did something bad." His father was upset and starting to cry. Brayden would later testify that his aunt, Kimberly Cass, came to the defendant's house later and took him to his uncle's house to stay the rest of the night.
When the defendant later showed up at Cass' home, Cass contacted law enforcement, and they arrested him. One of the arresting officers would later testify that he heard him
Newman and Falletti interviewed the defendant after the arrest. The agents first gathered general personal information, including that the defendant had left the Army on the previous June 2.
After the defendant's Miranda rights were read, the agents questioned him about his relationship with Ramanda. When asked about divorce, the defendant said,
The defendant told the agents that he and Ramanda were living in Washington state before his deployment but decided she would move back to Oklahoma with the kids while he was gone. A few days before Green left the country, Ramanda flew to Washington so he could see her one more time. During that trip, he said, he caught Ramanda having sex with another man. Despite this indiscretion, he said, the couple
When the defendant completed his deployment, Ramanda again flew to Washington to see him. He said: ...
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State v. Gallegos
...denied him a fair trial. The cumulative error rule does not apply if there are no errors or only a single error. State v. Green , 311 Kan. 960, 993, 469 P.3d 1228 (2020). As Gallegos has failed to establish any error, this rule is inapplicable.Gallegos' conviction for first-degree murder is ...
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State v. Milo
...Milo argues cumulative error denied him a fair trial. Finding no trial errors, the cumulative error doctrine does not apply. State v. Green , 311 Kan. 960, Syl. ¶ 7, 469 P.3d 1228 (2020) ("The cumulative error doctrine does not apply when no errors or only one error is identified by an appe......
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State v. Milo
...denied him a fair trial. Finding no trial errors, the cumulative error doctrine does not apply. State v. Green, 311 Kan. 960, Syl. ¶ 7, 469 P.3d 1228 (2020) ("The cumulative error doctrine does not apply when no errors or only one error is identified by an appellate court."). Affirmed. ...
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State v. Milo
...Milo argues cumulative error denied him a fair trial. Finding no trial errors, the cumulative error doctrine does not apply. State v. Green, 311 Kan. 960, Syl. ¶ 469 P.3d 1228 (2020) ("The cumulative error doctrine does not apply when no errors or only one error is identified by an appellat......