State v. Jones

• Decision Date: 30 January 2015
• Docket Number: No. 20100555.,20100555.
• Citation: 779 Utah Adv. Rep. 151
• Parties: STATE of Utah, Appellee, v. Michael JONES, Appellant.
• Court: Utah Supreme Court

779 Utah Adv. Rep. 151

STATE of Utah, Appellee,

v.Michael JONES, Appellant.

No. 20100555.

Supreme Court of Utah.

Jan. 30, 2015.

Affirmed.

[345 P.3d 1200]

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.

¶ 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 DNA evidence ² and the exclusion of the second police interview with Mr. Jones. “[W]e review a trial court's decision to admit or exclude specific evidence for an abuse of discretion.” ³

¶ 13 Mr. Jones also alleges prosecutorial misconduct during the closing argument and challenges the admission of testimony using statistical evidence. These arguments are unpreserved; we therefore review them

[345 P.3d 1203]

for plain error.⁴ To establish plain error, the burden is on the defendant to demonstrate that “(i) [a]n error exists; (ii) the error should have been obvious to the trial court; and (iii) the error is harmful, i.e., absent the error, there is a reasonable likelihood of a more favorable outcome for the appellant.” ⁵

¶ 14 Mr. Jones claims ineffective assistance of counsel on the basis of counsel's failure to put Mr. Jones's statements during the second police interview into context, counsel's failure to object to the statistical evidence testimony, and counsel's failure to object to the State's closing argument. For “ineffective assistance of counsel claims, we review a lower court's purely factual findings for clear error, but [we] review the application of the law to the facts for correctness.” ⁶

¶ 15 Mr. Jones also alleges that the trial court erred when it denied his motion for a directed verdict, claiming that the State produced insufficient evidence to prove murder and aggravated robbery.⁷ “[I]n considering an insufficiency-of-evidence claim, we review the evidence and all reasonable inferences drawn therefrom in a light most favorable to the verdict.” ⁸ Therefore, we will reverse “only when the evidence, so viewed, is sufficiently inconclusive or inherently improbable that reasonable minds must have entertained a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the crime of which he or she was convicted.” ⁹

¶ 16 Finally, Mr. Jones argues that even if no one error is sufficient, the cumulative effect of the errors warrants reversal. In evaluating the cumulative error doctrine, “we will reverse only if the cumulative effect of the several errors undermines our confidence ... that a fair trial was had.” ¹⁰

ANALYSIS

I. THE TRIAL COURT DID NOT ABUSE ITS DISCRETION IN ADMITTING THE Y–STR DNA EVIDENCE

¶ 17 Mr. Jones argues that the trial court erred when it admitted Y–STR DNA evidence because he contends that the State did not carry its burden of showing the reliability of the evidence and that the probative value of the evidence was substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. We conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion.

A. Procedural Background

¶ 18 In the present case, the State filed a pretrial motion to admit Y–STR DNA results showing that evidence collected from the belt ligature and from underneath Ms. Brennan's fingernails matched Mr. Jones's DNA profile. At the time, the Salt Lake Legal Defender Association (LDA) represented Mr. Jones. ¹¹ LDA was also handling an unrelated criminal case, State v. Johnson, ¹² in which the defendant challenged the admission of Y–STR DNA evidence. For reasons of economy, the parties in this case stipulated that the pleadings

[345 P.3d 1204]

and evidentiary hearing from the Johnson case regarding the Y–STR DNA issue would be adopted for Mr. Jones's trial. Following a hearing, the Johnson court admitted the evidence under rule 702 of the Utah Rules of Evidence, concluding that the scientific principles underlying the Y–STR DNA testing are “generally accepted by the relevant scientific community,” and that the probative value of the evidence was not substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice under Utah Rule of Evidence 403. The trial court in Mr. Jones's case therefore adopted the Johnson rulings and admitted the Y–STR DNA evidence against Mr. Jones.

B. The Issue Was Properly Preserved

¶ 19 The State first contends that Mr. Jones did not preserve his reliability challenge under rule 702 and that therefore this court should not reach the issue. Mr. Jones does not contest the underlying principles or techniques of the Y–STR DNA technology; rather, Mr. Jones frames his 702 challenge as pertaining to the reliability of Y–STR DNA “as identification evidence.”

¶ 20 “An issue is preserved for appeal when it has been presented to the district court in such a way that the court has an opportunity to rule on [it].” ¹³ As noted above, Mr. Jones and the State adopted the pleadings, argument, and court order from the evidentiary hearing in the Johnson case, during which defense counsel challenged the admissibility of the Y–STR DNA evidence on the very grounds that it was unreliable for identification purposes. We determine that counsel's challenge during the evidentiary hearing permitted the trial court to meaningfully rule on the issue. We therefore conclude that Mr. Jones's challenge to the admission of the Y–STR DNA evidence for purposes of identification was preserved.

C. Standard of Admissibility for Expert Testimony

¶ 21 The admission of the Y–STR DNA evidence is governed by Utah Rules of Evidence 702 and 403.¹⁴ “ Rule 702 assigns to trial judges a ‘gatekeeper’ responsibility to screen out unreliable expert testimony.” ¹⁵ To that end, the rule establishes a two-part analysis to determine admissibility of expert testimony.¹⁶ First, the testimony must “help the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue.” ¹⁷ Second, scientific knowledge that “serve[s] as the basis for the expert testimony” must meet “a threshold showing that the principles or methods that are underlying in the testimony (1) are reliable, (2) are based upon sufficient facts or data, and (3) have been reliably applied to the facts.” ¹⁸ This threshold showing may be satisfied if the underlying methods “are generally accepted by the relevant expert community.” ¹⁹ Finally, even if the testimony satisfies rule 702, the court “may exclude relevant evidence if its probative value

[345 P.3d 1205]

is substantially outweighed by a danger of ... unfair prejudice” under rule 403.

D. ...