State v. Hawkins

• Decision Date: 13 April 1998
• Docket Number: No. 22489,22489
• Citation: 131 Idaho 396,958 P.2d 22
• Parties: STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. David M. HAWKINS, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Idaho Court of Appeals

Page 22

958 P.2d 22

131 Idaho 396

STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. David M. HAWKINS, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 22489.

Court of Appeals of Idaho.

April 13, 1998.

Robert J. Van Idour, Lewiston, for appellant.

Alan G. Lance, Attorney General; Catherine O. Derden, Deputy Attorney General, Boise, for respondent. Catherine O. Derden argued.

LANSING, Chief Judge.

A jury found David M. Hawkins guilty of the first degree murder of Leslie McKinney committed in Lewiston in December, 1993. In this appeal Hawkins contends that the evidence at his preliminary hearing did not support the magistrate's finding of probable cause to bind him over for first degree murder. He also asserts that the district court erred in admitting at trial evidence found during a warrantless search of a motor home, evidence of a bloody handprint that was allegedly destroyed by a state crime laboratory, certain photographic evidence, and DNA evidence. Hawkins also challenges the district court's refusal to exclude evidence or to grant a continuance due to the State's violation of a pretrial order, and he asserts that the district court erred in excluding testimony about the victim's violent relationship with another man.

I. BACKGROUND

David Hawkins came to Lewiston, Idaho, in October 1993. He worked at the Hillary Motel, which was owned by his sister, Dorothy Jungert. He slept and kept his possessions in Jungert's motor home, which was parked behind the motel. On December 18, 1993, Leslie McKinney's corpse was found near the Hillary Motel. She had been bludgeoned and strangled. Hawkins was arrested and charged with her murder.

Evidence at his trial indicated that Hawkins' friend, Monte Olson, had introduced Hawkins to McKinney on the evening preceding her death while the three were at a local bar. Hawkins asked Olson to invite McKinney to the motor home for a party later that evening. Hawkins and Olson left the bar and went to Olson's room at the Hillary Motel. At some point, Olson decided not to attend the party, but at Hawkins' request, Olson telephoned McKinney at the bar to find out if she would be coming to the party. Hawkins then left Olson's room.

The next morning, Leslie McKinney's body was found in a wooded area close to the motel, and the police began an investigation. Some time later that day, Dorothy Jungert discovered in a crawl space under the motel a bloodstained bedspread that she recognized as being from the motor home. Jungert's boyfriend, Bill Hubbard, and Olson showed Hawkins the bedspread. Hawkins pulled the bedspread from the crawl space and then said he wanted to get rid of it because his fingerprints were on it. Hubbard refused to destroy the bedspread and sent Olson to call the police to report the discovery. A short time later, Jungert gave Hawkins one hundred dollars, and Hawkins packed a suitcase, got a ride to the bus station, and left town.

Officers Greene and Pedersen of the Lewiston police department responded to Olson's call regarding the bedspread. Officer Greene testified that Jungert and Hubbard told him that Hawkins left town because he was afraid he was in violation of the terms of his parole in Oregon, but that they were not sure where he was going when he left. When officer Greene asked to search the motor home, Jungert agreed and signed a consent form. In the motor home, the police discovered Hawkins' flashlight with a palm print in blood on it. There was also blood elsewhere in the motor home. Hawkins was arrested in Pomeroy, Washington, the night of December 18, 1993, and was charged with first degree murder.

II. ANALYSIS

A. Sufficiency of Evidence at Preliminary Hearing

Hawkins first asserts that the State presented insufficient evidence of premeditation at Hawkins' preliminary hearing to support a finding of probable cause on the charge of first degree murder. We decline to address the merits of this issue. If at a fair trial a defendant has been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt upon sufficient evidence to sustain the verdict, we do not consider, on appeal, the sufficiency of the evidence presented at the preliminary hearing. State v. Streeper, 113 Idaho 662, 664-65, 747 P.2d 71, 73-74 (1987); State v. Maland, 124 Idaho 830, 832, 864 P.2d 668, 670 (Ct.App.1993); State v. Maylett, 108 Idaho 671, 672, 701 P.2d 291, 292 (Ct.App.1985). As explained below, we conclude that Hawkins received a fair trial, and we therefore do not consider his claims regarding the preliminary hearing.

B. Search of the Motor Home

Hawkins next challenges the propriety of the police search of the motor home. He argues that the district court should have suppressed the bloody palm print on Hawkins' flashlight and other evidence found inside the motor home because the search violated the Fourth Amendment guarantee against unreasonable searches. After hearing evidence at Hawkins' suppression hearing, the district court denied Hawkins' motion on the ground that the officers had obtained valid consent to the search from the motor home's owner, Dorothy Jungert. Hawkins argues that the district court's finding that Jungert had authority to consent to a search of a motor home where Hawkins had been living was erroneous.

In evaluating a denial of a motion to suppress, our standard of review is one of deference to factual findings of the trial court unless they are clearly erroneous, while giving free review to the trial court's determination as to whether constitutional standards have been satisfied in light of the facts found. State v. Pick, 124 Idaho 601, 603, 861 P.2d 1266, 1268 (Ct.App.1993); State v. Heinen, 114 Idaho 656, 658, 759 P.2d 947, 949 (Ct.App.1988). The determination of whether a search is reasonable, and therefore complies with the Fourth Amendment, is a question of law over which we exercise free review. State v. McIntee, 124 Idaho 803, 804, 864 P.2d 641, 642 (Ct.App.1993); Heinen, 114 Idaho at 658, 759 P.2d at 949.

The Fourth Amendment guarantee against unreasonable searches is implicated when police search premises in which the defendant has a reasonable expectation of privacy. Minnesota v. Olson, 495 U.S. 91, 110 S.Ct. 1684, 109 L.Ed.2d 85 (1990); Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170, 104 S.Ct. 1735, 80 L.Ed.2d 214 (1984); Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 99 S.Ct. 421, 58 L.Ed.2d 387 (1978). Warrantless searches or seizures are presumptively unreasonable unless they come within one of several judicially recognized exceptions to the warrant requirement. Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 454-55, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 2032, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971). Those exceptions include, among other things, searches that are conducted with proper consent, voluntarily obtained. United States v. Matlock, 415 U.S. 164, 94 S.Ct. 988, 39 L.Ed.2d 242 (1974); State v. Whiteley, 124 Idaho 261, 264, 858 P.2d 800, 803 (Ct.App.1993); State v. Rusho, 110 Idaho 556, 558, 560, 716 P.2d 1328, 1330, 1332 (Ct.App.1986). Consent that will justify a warrantless search is not limited to consent given by the defendant; it may be obtained from "a third party who possessed common authority over or other sufficient relationship to the premises." Matlock, 415 U.S. at 171, 94 S.Ct. at 993. See also State v. Johnson, 110 Idaho 516, 522, 716 P.2d 1288, 1294 (1986). Even if it is later established that the third party lacked actual authority to consent, the search will be upheld if the law enforcement officers reasonably believed that such authority existed. Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U.S. 177, 110 S.Ct. 2793, 111 L.Ed.2d 148 (1990); State v. McCaughey, 127 Idaho 669, 672, 904 P.2d 939, 942 (1995). See also United States v. Hamilton, 792 F.2d 837, 842 (9th Cir.1986) (upholding search based upon government agent's reasonable belief that third party had authority to consent); United States v. Sledge, 650 F.2d 1075, 1081 (9th Cir.1981) (articulating apparent authority exception to warrant requirement and holding that officer reasonably believed that the tenant had abandoned apartment and that landlord therefore had authority to consent to search); United States v. Lopez-Diaz, 630 F.2d 661, 666-67 (9th Cir.1980) (holding that police officer may act upon reasonable, good faith belief that third party had authority to consent to search of motor home). The conduct of the officers must be "judged against an objective standard: would the facts available to the officers at the moment ... 'warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief' that the consenting party had authority over the premises?" Rodriguez, 497 U.S. at 188, 110 S.Ct. at 2801. The Court in Rodriguez further explained:

Because many situations which confront officers in the course of executing their duties are more or less ambiguous, room must be allowed for some mistakes on their part. But the mistakes must be those of reasonable men, acting on facts leading sensibly to their conclusions of probability.

....

Whether the basis for ... authority [to consent to a search] exists is the sort of recurring factual question to which law enforcement officials must be expected to apply their judgment; and all the Fourth Amendment requires is that they answer it reasonably.

Id. at 186, 110 S.Ct. at 2800 (quoting Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 176, 69 S.Ct. 1302, 1311, 93 L.Ed. 1879 (1949)). Hence, we need not address the scope of Dorothy Jungert's actual authority over the motor home that had been occupied by Hawkins; rather, we will examine the reasonableness of the law enforcement officer's belief in that regard.

At the suppression hearing in this case officer Greene testified as follows concerning the information that he received before he conducted the search.

When we got out there we talked to Mr. Olson and also talked to a Bill Jungert. That's not right. It was Dorothy Jungert and Bill Hubbard. They told us that this bedspread had been--had come out of their motorhome which was a Bounder motorhome which was parked a short distance from the motel. They told me that ...