State v. Jones

• Decision Date: 30 January 2015
• Docket Number: No. 20100555.,20100555.
• Parties: STATE of Utah, Appellee, v. Michael JONES, Appellant.
• Court: Utah Supreme Court

345 P.3d 1195

2015 UT 19

STATE of Utah, Appellee

v.Michael JONES, Appellant.

No. 20100555.

Supreme Court of Utah.

Jan. 30, 2015.

Sean D. Reyes, Att'y Gen., John J. Nielsen, Asst. Att'y Gen., Salt Lake City, for appellee.

Lori J. Seppi, Salt Lake City, for appellant.

Associate Chief Justice NEHRING authored the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice DURRANT, Justice DURHAM, Justice PARRISH, and Justice LEE joined.

INTRODUCTION

Associate Chief Justice NEHRING, opinion of the Court:

¶ 1 Michael Jones appeals from his convictions of murder, aggravated robbery, and unlawful distribution of a controlled substance. He alleges multiple errors at trial. First, Mr. Jones contends that the trial court erred when it admitted Y–STR DNA evidence linking Mr. Jones to the murder weapon. Second, Mr. Jones argues that the trial court erred when it denied admission of Mr. Jones's second police interview after the State used excerpts from the interview at trial. In the alternative, Mr. Jones contends that trial counsel's failure to put his statements during the police interview into context constituted ineffective assistance of counsel. Third, Mr. Jones argues that the trial court erred when it admitted testimony that Mr. Jones claims was “anecdotal statistical evidence.” Fourth, Mr. Jones contends that multiple statements made during the State's closing argument constituted prosecutorial misconduct. Fifth, Mr. Jones argues that the State's evidence was insufficient to sustain convictions for murder or aggravated robbery, and thus the trial court erred when it denied Mr. Jones's motion for a directed verdict. Finally, Mr. Jones alleges that the cumulative effect of the errors should undermine our confidence in the verdict. After review, we affirm Mr. Jones's convictions.

BACKGROUND

¶ 2 On the afternoon of February 24, 2004, police officers Jim Spangenberg and Joshua Scharman were patrolling Poplar Grove Park in Salt Lake City when they spotted a Honda in the parking lot with its driver's side window rolled down. The vehicle piqued the officers' interest because there had recently been a rash of Honda thefts in the Salt Lake City area and the car was parked by itself. Officer Scharman ran the license plate number while Officer Spangenberg investigated the car. Officer Spangenberg opened the car door and sat in the driver's seat, looking for signs of tampering on the steering column. Officer Spangenberg did not initially notice anything unusual in the back seat of the Honda. Eventually, however, he noticed a knee poking out from underneath the towel in the backseat. The officers tilted the front seat forward and removed the towel and a black coat in the back seat, revealing the body of a deceased young woman who was later identified as Tara Brennan.

¶ 3 During her life, Ms. Brennan struggled with an addiction to cocaine. After several unsuccessful attempts in rehab programs, Ms. Brennan moved back into her mother's home in Salt Lake. On February 23, 2004, Ms. Brennan and her mother ran an errand at the bank to cash a check of Ms. Brennan's for approximately $350. Ms. Brennan gave $100 to her mother for car insurance and spent approximately $50 on a new car battery for her Honda. Ms. Brennan's mother had cleaned out the car in order to sell it. She testified that she wiped down the leather seats, vacuumed the carpet, and cleaned out the trunk. Around 6 p.m. that evening, February 23, 2004, Ms. Brennan told her mother “she wanted to take [the car] around the block to see how it was running.” Ms. Brennan's mother assumed that Ms. Brennan took the remainder of the money, approximately $250, from the cashed check with her when she left. Ms. Brennan's mother did not see her again.

¶ 4 When the officers found Ms. Brennan's body in the back of her Honda, she had a belt around her neck, stab wounds

to her face, defensive wounds on her hands, and a “significant slash” to her neck. The cuts alone would not have been fatal. The medical examiner testified that the wounds suggested “some sort of struggle.” The medical examiner certified the cause of death as strangulation and the manner of death as homicide. The medical examiner estimated Ms. Brennan's time of death was between 2 a.m. and 8 a.m. on February 24, 2004. From a toxicology report, the examiner also concluded that Ms. Brennan had ingested cocaine shortly before her death. Additionally, Ms. Brennan's pants were pulled down to her knees and she was not wearing underwear. But the evidence suggested that her clothes had been removed after the attack took place. The medical examiner completed a rape kit, but the results did not show signs of sexual intercourse or sexual assault.

¶ 5 The car's interior showed signs of a struggle. There was “blood throughout” the back of the vehicle and on the driver's seat. There were shoe prints on the ceiling and on a window, and a rear view mirror and directional signal were broken. Crime scene technicians also recovered a partial palm print, a number of shoe prints, several cigarette butts from inside and outside the car, and a blond hair from an outside door handle. Ms. Brennan's wallet was never recovered, and she had one penny in her pocket.

¶ 6 The technicians submitted the evidence to the crime lab, including an empty cigarette pack, a piece of adhesive note paper, a leather belt, an empty soda bottle, sunglasses, a lighter, the vehicle's rear view mirror and turn signal lever, and a partial seatbelt buckle strap, along with other items. The evidence was processed for fingerprints and DNA. The blond hair that had been recovered was not submitted because officers assumed it belonged to a lab technician who was at the crime scene, even though that technician had logged the hair as evidence. The crime lab developed DNA profiles from the cigarette butts found inside and outside the Honda using PCR STR DNA testing. A cigarette butt recovered from a cup holder in the Honda matched the DNA profile for Michael Jones. Two cigarette butts found outside the car yielded DNA profiles for an unknown male and an unknown female.

¶ 7 Based on the DNA match from the cigarettes, police located and interviewed Mr. Jones in April 2004. Officers showed him a picture of Ms. Brennan, and Mr. Jones recognized her immediately. He said that he had seen her near the homeless shelter where he stayed and that Ms. Brennan had approached him to buy crack cocaine. Mr. Jones told the officers that he helped Ms. Brennan purchase the narcotics, which they then smoked together in Ms. Brennan's car using Mr. Jones's pipe. After that, Mr. Jones said they smoked cigarettes together. Mr. Jones claimed that he was with Ms. Brennan for about forty-five minutes, and then he returned to the shelter and eventually spent the night in an overflow shelter. Mr. Jones submitted to a blood draw during the interview. The case then went cold for more than two years.

¶ 8 In 2006, at the request of the State, Sorenson Forensics performed a type of DNA testing, called Y–STR DNA, of fingernail clippings taken from Ms. Brennan and of the belt used to strangle her. Y–STR DNA analysis tests only male DNA and thus allows for the identification of a very small amount of male DNA that might otherwise go undetected in the presence of a large amount of female DNA. At Mr. Jones's trial, the State's experts would explain that a profile developed by the lab “matched” Mr. Jones in that it was a “rare profile” that excluded 99.6 percent of the male population.

¶ 9 Officers also collected DNA samples from thirty to forty men during the investigation but did not submit them for testing because the men had submitted the samples willingly and officers were seeking someone uncooperative. Carlaya Yazzie,¹ a female suspect, was uncooperative when asked for a DNA sample and none was collected from her. She remained a person of interest but could not be located at the time of Mr. Jones's trial.

¶ 10 Detectives Taylor West and Mark Knighton interviewed Mr. Jones more extensively on May 11, 2006, two years after his initial interview. At that time, Mr. Jones said that when Ms. Brennan contacted him, she wanted to “buy some crack cocaine,” and that he told her “he'd have to take her somewhere to go get it.” According to Mr. Jones, Ms. Brennan then drove him to the Regis Hotel, where they purchased narcotics from “a guy named Joseph.” Ms. Brennan gave Mr. Jones $30, and Mr. Jones bought three rocks of crack cocaine. Mr. Jones told the police that he had sold drugs for Joseph in the past but did not work for him after that night. Mr. Jones said that he and Ms. Brennan then drove to a parking lot at 400 South and State Street in downtown Salt Lake City, where they smoked the cocaine together in Ms. Brennan's car using Mr. Jones's pipe. He stated that Ms. Brennan drove him back to the homeless shelter and left. According to Mr. Jones, he then went to Motel 6, where he had rented a room with money he had earned “selling dope that day.” Mr. Jones said he was kicked out of the motel room and returned to the shelter. After the interview, officers confirmed that a room at the Motel 6 was reserved under Mr. Jones's name, but that he did not stay there. The shelter log where Mr. Jones claimed he stayed did not indicate that he had checked in that night. The shelter director also testified that the logs are maintained by seasonal staff and that the logbook had inaccuracies.

¶ 11 Mr. Jones was charged with murder, a first-degree felony; aggravated robbery, a first-degree felony; and unlawful distribution of a controlled substance, a second-degree felony. At trial, a jury convicted Mr. Jones on all counts. The trial court sentenced Mr. Jones to consecutive statutory prison terms: five years to life for murder, five years to life for aggravated robbery, and one to fifteen years for distribution. Mr. Jones timely appealed. We have jurisdiction under Utah Code section 78A–3–102(3)(i).

STANDARDS OF REVIEW

¶ 12 Mr. Jones challenges the admission of the Y–STR...