State v. Main
| Decision Date | 22 July 2021 |
| Docket Number | No. 20190119-CA,20190119-CA |
| Citation | 494 P.3d 1056 |
| Court | Utah Court of Appeals |
| Parties | STATE of Utah, Appellee, v. James Hudson MAIN Jr., Appellant. |
Laura J. Fuller, Taylorsville, Attorney for Appellant
Sean D. Reyes and Marian Decker, Salt Lake City, Attorneys for Appellee
1
Opinion
¶1 James Hudson Main Jr. was convicted of murder. On appeal he challenges several of the district court's evidentiary determinations. He argues that the court admitted evidence of other crimes in violation of rule 404(b) of the Utah Rules of Evidence, that phone records he sought to admit should not have been excluded on the basis that they lacked foundation, and that color photographs of the crime scene should have been excluded because they were gruesome. We reject these arguments and affirm.
¶2 Main and his father (Father) were staying at Father's remote cabin and experiencing interpersonal conflict during the week leading up to Father's death. Father called 911 twice that week, first expressing that he was "afraid" of Main and needed help from law enforcement, and then in the second call reporting that Main had stolen his gun. According to some witnesses, Main seemed paranoid that week, thinking "everybody was trying to kill him" and, in particular, that Father was trying to poison him. At some point, Main shot and killed Father and fled in Father's truck.
¶3 Main drove Father's truck to the house of his friend, D.N. D.N. and his girlfriend were asleep and "woke up to a gun in [their] face[s]." Main told them he had just "shot [Father] in the head and splattered his brains all over the cupboards" and suggested that he was willing to shoot them too. Main then asked for dry clothing and for all their electronic devices. After Main changed into the clothing they provided and secured the electronics in a bag, the three went into the kitchen, where D.N.’s girlfriend gave Main some food.
¶4 The three moved outside, with Main still in possession of the gun. He stated, "Well, we need to get out of here." Because D.N. had been having problems with his car and was worried that it would stall, he suggested they use his work van. But after they climbed into the van, D.N. realized he did not have the key to it. At this point, Main fired a warning shot at the ground, telling D.N. to "[h]urry up," and D.N. decided they should go ahead and take his car. D.N. drove the three of them in his car to their friends’ house "to get some dope." During the drive, D.N. was focused on trying to make sure his car did not stall because Main had threatened that if the car stopped or the police pulled them over, he would shoot D.N. and D.N.’s girlfriend.
¶5 When they arrived at the friends’ house, Main changed his mind and "decided he didn't want to be there." But when D.N. tried to leave, his car's brakes "grabbed," which prompted Main to say, "You're dead," and D.N. "heard the hammer click right then." D.N. suddenly released the clutch, and as the car stalled and jerked forward, D.N. lunged toward Main to try to wrestle the gun from him. It discharged during the struggle, shooting out one of the car's windows. The two continued to struggle over the gun, and when D.N.’s girlfriend opened the car door, the two men fell out, with D.N. landing on top of Main.
¶6 Having heard the gunshot, the friends came out of the house and joined in the struggle, ultimately succeeding in getting the gun away from Main. Main jumped into D.N.’s car and fled to D.N.’s house, where he left the car and retrieved Father's truck.
¶7 When police arrived at the friends’ house, D.N. gave them the gun and told them Main said he shot Father. Police conducted a welfare check at the cabin and discovered Father's "obviously deceased" body inside. They began searching for Main and ultimately captured him in Colorado the following day.
¶8 In the course of their investigation, police searched D.N.’s house and vehicles, finding several pieces of evidence related to the murder: Main's gun holster, found in D.N.’s driveway; Main's jeans, with Father's blood on the bottom of one leg, found in D.N.’s car; Main's blood-stained jacket, found inside D.N.’s work van; and Main's bloody shoes, found in D.N.’s bedroom.
¶9 Main was charged with aggravated murder, aggravated burglary, two counts of aggravated robbery, two counts of aggravated kidnapping, felony discharge of a firearm, possession of a firearm by a restricted person, carrying a loaded firearm in an unlawful place, attempted aggravated murder, and two counts of assault. After a preliminary hearing, the district court determined there was probable cause to bind over Main on the lesser included offense of murder, but not on aggravated murder because the acts supporting the aggravating factor were not part of the same criminal episode.
¶10 The defense successfully moved to bifurcate the remaining eleven charges from the murder charge. As a result, evidence supporting the bifurcated charges was not initially expected to be admitted during the murder trial. But during questioning on the first day of trial, it became clear that the defense strategy was to suggest to the jury that D.N. was the perpetrator based on his connection with the case, specifically, that much of the evidence was found at D.N.’s house and in his vehicles, that he told police Father had been shot, and that Father's gun was in his possession. At this point, the district court addressed whether some evidence of the bifurcated crimes—in particular, evidence of the interactions between Main and D.N. and "subsequent events"—would be allowed or whether rule 404(b) of the Utah Rules of Evidence prohibited its presentation. The court determined that the evidence was "outside the scope of 404(b)" because "the crimes are so linked ... with the crime charged in this case, in time and circumstances, that one cannot be shown without proving the other, or there are facts that must be shown in order to explain evidence and where it was found and why it was found in this case." The court also determined that the evidence passed the balancing test articulated in rule 403 of the Utah Rules of Evidence, reasoning that (1) the evidence in question was "all highly probative of why the [physical] evidence was found in [D.N.]’s possession" and "why [D.N.] made reports that he [was] alleged to have made" and that (2) the evidence was not unfairly prejudicial because it was "not something that [would] cause a heightened emotional response in the jury" and because the bifurcated charges were "less serious" than the murder charge at issue in this case. The court also offered to include a jury instruction to clarify the evidence's limited purpose.3 Thus, D.N. was allowed to testify about some of the events related to the bifurcated crimes.
¶11 In an attempt to challenge D.N.’s credibility, specifically by rebutting his testimony that Main had taken the electronics and put them in a bag, the defense sought to introduce phone records from D.N.’s cell phone showing three data transmissions during the period in question. The State objected on multiple grounds, including hearsay, relevance, and lack of foundation. The district court agreed with the defense that the document fell within an exception to the rule against hearsay. But the court agreed with the State that the evidence lacked foundation, ruling that it would not be received because the defense had presented no expert or other individual with personal knowledge who could explain and interpret what the data transmissions represented.
¶12 The district court also preemptively ruled on the admission of two color 8"x11" photographs of the crime scene that the State intended to offer as exhibits to show that Father was shot inside the cabin. The first photograph, State's exhibit 35-A, showed Father in "his deceased condition" and "a fair amount of dried blood," but no "graphic wounds." The second photograph, State's exhibit 35-B, was a closer view of content included in the first photograph, showing in greater detail Father's uninjured right shoulder and arm, as well as "a small amount of dried blood." The defense objected on the grounds that the photographs were "gruesome," arguing that this made their use unfairly prejudicial. After analyzing several factors, the court determined that the photographs were highly probative as to where Father was shot and whether his body was moved after he was shot. The court also found that, while 35-A was somewhat "unpleasant," neither photograph was gruesome or unfairly prejudicial. Therefore, the court was prepared to allow admission of the photographs should the State so request.
¶13 The trial proceeded with the State presenting testimony from a police detective who had discovered Father's deceased body and taken photographs of it in the cabin. But the State did not initially move for admission of either of the contested photographs. On cross-examination, however, defense counsel requested admission of the first photograph:
Later, in questioning another police detective, the State referred to and then sought admission of the second photograph:
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A Practitioner’s Guide to Utah Rule of Evidence 404(b)
...referred to as prior bad act evidence, "the rule itself makes no reference to 'prior' acts." State v. Main, 2021 UT App 81, ¶ 18 n.7, 494 P.3d 1056. Accordingly, 404(b) evidence does not need to occur before the conduct at issue. State v. Von Niederhausern, 2018 UT App 149, ¶ 21 &n.6, 427 P......