State v. Hosman
| Decision Date | 30 September 2021 |
| Docket Number | No. 20190589-CA,20190589-CA |
| Citation | 496 P.3d 1162 |
| Parties | STATE of Utah, Appellee, v. Aaron Daniel HOSMAN, Appellant. |
| Court | Utah Court of Appeals |
Janet Lawrence, Attorney for Appellant
Sean D. Reyes, Salt Lake City, and Daniel L. Day, Attorneys for Appellee
1
Opinion
¶1 Aaron Daniel Hosman was convicted of first-degree murder after he ran down a pedestrian with his car. Hosman appeals that conviction, arguing the district court erred by (1) denying his motion for mistrial after two state witnesses allegedly opined on the intent element of the murder charge; (2) denying his motion for a directed verdict, which challenged the sufficiency of the evidence to establish the required mental state on the murder charge; and (3) failing to remedy alleged prosecutorial misconduct during closing arguments. We reject all three challenges and affirm Hosman's conviction.
¶2 A carpet layer (the victim) and his coworker were driving to a job site in Salt Lake City when they saw Hosman "beating" a chihuahua, Buddy, at the corner of 4100 South and 3600 West in West Valley City (the intersection). The abuse angered the victim and made the coworker "sick to [his] stomach," so they decided to "confront the guy." The coworker abruptly turned around their SUV, drove back toward the intersection, and pulled over. The two men left the SUV to "fuck [Hosman] up."
¶3 At the street corner, the victim and the coworker confronted Hosman, who was now holding Buddy under his arm "like you would a football." An eyewitness testified that she saw the victim "was very escalated"—he "puffed out" his chest, "balled up" his fists, and gave Hosman "a very intense stare." The two men "tried to instigate [Hosman] into coming at" them by using "aggressive words." One witness testified that the victim threatened to "cut [Hosman] up into little pieces" if he ever saw Hosman "hurt any animal again like that." The two men tried to block Hosman's way, but Hosman was able to walk to his car with Buddy and drive away from the intersection.
¶4 The victim and his coworker returned to their SUV and continued toward their job site until the victim realized he was missing a bag of methamphetamine (meth). Both the victim and his coworker regularly used meth and had been preparing to smoke the drug before they were sidetracked by seeing Hosman hit Buddy. The men pulled over to the side of the road to search the SUV for the meth.
¶5 Meanwhile, Hosman made a U-turn, headed back toward the intersection, and pulled up alongside the victim and his coworker. Hosman yelled, "Come follow me, motherfucker!" then continued driving. The two men "laughed it off" because "the moment had passed" and their anger had dissipated; they continued searching for the lost meth. Concluding he must have dropped the bag during the earlier confrontation with Hosman, the victim jumped out of the SUV and ran back to the intersection to find the drugs.
¶6 When the men failed to follow him, Hosman made a second U-turn and drove back toward the intersection. Now driving west on 4100 South, Hosman approached the intersection as the victim was in the 3600 West crosswalk in front of one of the three northbound lanes. Hosman sped past slowing traffic, "swerved" left into the oncoming 4100 South lanes, and made a southbound, left-hand turn onto 3600 West. Rather than turning into a southbound lane, Hosman cut across the northbound lanes and struck the victim—without slowing down or leaving any brake marks. Hosman's car was traveling at approximately thirty-five to forty miles per hour3 when it "clipped [the victim's] legs out from underneath him." The victim "hit the windshield" with the back of his head, "bounced off," and was "propelled into the air forward," flipping "head over heels." The victim struck a telephone pole approximately fifty-four feet away and slumped to the ground. Within minutes he was dead.
¶7 Hosman did not stop, call for help, or notify the police. When he was apprehended by police three days later, he had spray painted part of his car white, removed the smashed windshield and identifying window stickers, changed the license plate, replaced the distinctive mismatched rims, and concealed the car under a tarp.
¶8 Relevant to this appeal, the State charged Hosman with one count of first-degree murder with a dangerous weapon. Before trial, Hosman filed a motion in limine to preclude the State's witnesses from opining on his intent.4 Specifically, Hosman argued that if a State witness were to opine on Hosman's intent, it would "constitute an impermissible legal conclusion in violation of rules 701 and 704 of the Utah Rules of Evidence." At the final pretrial conference, the prosecutor agreed that Hosman's motion "was not in dispute." The record does not reflect the details of the agreement, but the State does not dispute that the parties "reached a stipulation that a State witness would not opine on Hosman's intent."5
¶9 On the second day of trial, the State's traffic accident reconstructionist testified as an expert. The expert's analysis confirmed that Hosman's car entered the intersection and struck the victim traveling between twenty-four and thirty-six miles per hour. The expert testified that "if the vehicle braked or turned sharply, the wheels will leave rubber on the asphalt," yet he saw no "braking marks" from Hosman's tires.
¶10 During cross-examination, defense counsel asked the expert whether he would agree that the other officers had not started processing the scene until he had arrived. The expert responded, Counsel did not object to this testimony and continued the cross-examination.
¶11 The next day, the State called the case agent to testify as a fact witness about the murder investigation. The case agent explained that a "traffic investigator" team normally investigates traffic accident fatalities and that "traffic investigators" and "patrol officers" had initially responded because they believed it was a "hit-and-run type accident." The case agent, on the other hand, was an investigator for the "major case squad." He was called out approximately an hour-and-a-half after the collision occurred because the accident reconstruction team had gathered information that "this is possibly not an accident, that this is possibly an intentional hit-and-run situation to where the driver of a vehicle had intentionally hit somebody and then left the scene." Defense counsel objected and moved for a mistrial. The court deferred argument and its ruling on the motion until after the State had completed its direct examination of the case agent. The prosecutor then focused his questions on what occurred after the case agent arrived on the scene.
¶12 Outside the jury's presence, defense counsel argued that a mistrial was warranted "based on some comments made by [the case agent] in the very initial portion of his testimony." Defense counsel argued that the State violated the stipulation that no State witness would opine on intent when it elicited testimony from the case agent "that he had received some information that, perhaps, this was not an accident, that it would be a potential—that it was an intentional hit-and-run accident." Defense counsel noted that the expert had "also made a comment regarding whether or not this was an intentional act or an accident." Defense counsel had not objected to that testimony but explained that the case agent's testimony was more objectionable because he was the lead investigator, had been at every court proceeding, and knew that the State's witnesses were not supposed to offer an opinion regarding Hosman's intent.
¶13 The district court concluded that the case agent had not opined on intentionality but testified The court further concluded that the case agent's testimony did not "overstep[ ] into a legal conclusion or direct[ ] the jury to go one way or the other." And it found that the prosecutor "immediately addressed the issue to ensure that the witness did not go further." The court further concluded that nothing "would impair [Hosman's] ability to have a fair trial." Nonetheless, the court offered to consider a curative instruction should the defense find it helpful, but defense counsel never requested one.
¶14 Later, during cross-examination, the case agent agreed with defense counsel that Hosman had repeatedly said during his police interview that "he did not want to hit [the victim]." After the State's case in chief, defense counsel moved for a directed verdict on the murder count, arguing that the State had not met its burden to prove the intent required for murder, only manslaughter. Specifically, the defense argued "the evidence ha[d] been insufficient to establish that [Hosman] acted with a reckless intent to have committed a murder" because witness testimony was "inconsistent" regarding "where [the victim] was in the intersection when he was struck" and "which lane [Hosman] came from at the time that he made his turn." The court denied the motion, ruling that "the State has met its burden to establish sufficient evidence from which a jury, acting reasonably, could convict the defendant."
¶15 In closing argument, the State asserted that Hosman was guilty of murder with a dangerous weapon under any one of three theories: (1) intentionally or knowingly taking a life; (2) intending serious bodily injury while...
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