State v. Pandeli
| Citation | 200 Ariz. 365,26 P.3d 1136 |
| Decision Date | 17 July 2001 |
| Docket Number | No. CR 98-0376-AP.,CR 98-0376-AP. |
| Parties | STATE of Arizona, Appellee, v. Darrel Peter PANDELI, aka Darrel Peter Florian, Appellant. |
| Court | Supreme Court of Arizona |
Janet Napolitano, Attorney General, by Paul J. McMurdie, Criminal Appeals Chief Counsel and Kent E. Cattani, Assistant Attorney General, Phoenix, Attorneys for Appellee.
J. Douglas McVay, Phoenix, Attorney for Appellant.
¶ 1 Defendant Darrel Peter Pandeli (defendant) was convicted by a jury of first degree murder and was sentenced to death by the trial judge. The case is before us on direct review, pursuant to Rules 26.15 and 31.2 of the Arizona Rules of Criminal Procedure. We have jurisdiction pursuant to article VI, § 5(3) of the Arizona Constitution and Arizona Revised Statutes (A.R.S.) §§ 13-4031 (1989) and 13-703.01 (Supp.1999).
¶ 2 The State charged defendant with two counts of premeditated murder: count one for the murder of Teresa Humphreys and count two for the murder of Holly Iler. Humphreys was murdered more than a year before Iler. The two counts were severed for trial.
¶ 3 In February 1996, a jury convicted defendant of second degree murder for the Humphreys death. The trial court sentenced him to twenty years in prison. Defendant appealed the conviction, and the court of appeals affirmed. This appeal pertains exclusively to the conviction and sentence in the Iler case.
¶ 4 Defendant's trial for the Iler murder commenced in June 1997. At the close of the State's case, defense counsel moved for a directed verdict on premeditated murder, arguing that no evidence of premeditation existed and asking the trial court to allow the jury to consider only second degree murder and its lesser-included offenses. The trial court denied the motion. Defendant did not testify, and defense counsel presented no evidence because defendant did not contest the allegation that he killed Iler. He challenged only the element of premeditation in connection with the murder charge.
¶ 5 The jury, instructed on both first and second degree murder, returned its verdict July 2, 1997, convicting defendant of first degree murder. The sentencing hearing lasted eight days. The trial court heard testimony and argument on all sentencing issues and, on July 15, 1998, handed down its Special Verdict sentencing defendant to death.
¶ 6 On September 23, 1993, defendant and his friend, Mark Cowan, went to a bar in Phoenix where they consumed beer. After the bar trip, the two proceeded to a K Mart store where Cowan purchased a shirt. Cowan changed his clothes and left his shirt, shoes, and deodorant in the defendant's van. They then met defendant's brother Chris Pandeli and another friend at a restaurant at the Arizona Center in Phoenix and remained there for several hours. At about 10:15 p.m., Chris and Cowan left for another bar. Defendant stayed at the Arizona Center. At approximately 11:45 p.m., defendant again met Chris and Cowan and asked his brother to give Cowan a ride home. Cowan slept at Chris' apartment that night.
¶ 7 At about 2:00 a.m., defendant's roommate, Louis Russo, arrived home and found defendant cleaning his van and washing his clothing. Defendant had removed the mattress from his van. Russo testified that defendant told him he was cleaning the van because someone spilled a strawberry soda inside and that defendant appeared sober but upset, excited, and stressed.
¶ 8 The next morning, Holly Iler's nude body was found in an alley near the defendant's residence. Among other injuries, her throat had been slashed and the areolae and nipple parts of her breasts excised. ¶ 9 The same morning, Cowan asked Chris to take him to defendant's house to retrieve his clothing from the van. They arrived at about 7:30 a.m. and found the defendant outside. Still tired, Cowan asked defendant if he could sleep in the van, and defendant permitted him to do so. After approximately ninety minutes, defendant woke Cowan and told him the police were investigating the death of a woman whose body was found down the street. Cowan drifted back to sleep, but defendant woke him again and asked whether Cowan knew what an RV van marked "Phoenix Mobile Command" would be doing at a crime scene. Cowan told defendant he presumed it was a mobile crime laboratory. Defendant then asked Cowan if the police had the ability to detect tire tracks or identify other types of tracks, and Cowan responded that the police could take impressions and pictures of tracks.
¶ 10 Shortly thereafter, defendant and Cowan left to run errands. When defendant dropped Cowan off at a motel, he gave Cowan his clothing from the van, but the shirt and one sock were missing. After showering at the motel, Cowan noticed red spots on his shoes and deodorant stick that were not present when he left them in defendant's van the night before. Cowan became suspicious that defendant was somehow involved in the death of the woman whose body had been discovered and watched for television reports of the crime. When he saw a report describing the victim, his suspicion heightened because the description resembled a woman with whom defendant had socialized the night before at the Arizona Center. Though it was not the same woman, Cowan thought it might be.
¶ 11 That evening, the defendant, Cowan, Chris, and two other friends went to several bars. During the evening, Cowan noticed that defendant appeared subdued and quiet, more than was normally the case. Cowan returned to the motel at the end of the evening. The following morning, Cowan's suspicions of defendant's involvement in the woman's death caused him to call Silent Witness, an evidence gathering arm of the Phoenix Police Department. The police came to question Cowan, who surrendered his shoes and deodorant stick to them for testing the red spots. The soles of Cowan's shoes matched prints found near the victim's body in the alley. Additionally, preliminary testing found the red spots on the shoes to be consistent with the victim's blood. Based on these facts, police obtained a search warrant for the defendant's residence and van and took him into custody.
¶ 12 Police detectives questioned defendant after giving him the Miranda1 warning. He initially denied involvement in the murder. When questioned about the blood on Cowan's shoes, defendant told detectives that he walked outside early that morning and saw the body. He said he looked at the body and touched and moved it to see if any marks were on the victim's back. Defendant denied killing Iler and attributed the blood on his shoes to the morning contact with her body. He stated that he did not tell anyone about the body because he did not want to be blamed for the death. Defendant admitted removing and taking a ring and other items from the body.
¶ 13 A detective explained to the defendant that the police have equipment to detect traces of blood in a van that has been cleaned and on clothing that has been washed. At that point, defendant ceased his denials and stated that he wanted to confess the truth. He told the detective that he offered Iler a ride and she accepted. They stopped at a park near his residence where she agreed to have sexual intercourse in exchange for twenty dollars. He used a condom and attempted intercourse, but was unable to perform. He stopped trying and asked her to return his money.
¶ 14 Defendant claimed that Iler then became upset and pulled a knife. They struggled. He hit her in the chest four or five times and in the head three or four times, then slit her throat with a knife. After the killing, he amputated parts of her breasts, dumped the body in the alley, and placed her clothing in a nearby garbage container; he then returned to his residence and cleaned the van. Defendant admitted mutilating Iler's breasts after she was dead. He said he did it because he was angry. He first claimed to have thrown the excised breast parts into the garbage container, but later confessed to flushing them through the toilet in his residence. After confessing the Iler murder, defendant also confessed to having committed the earlier murder of Teresa Humphreys.
¶ 15 Police searched defendant's residence and van and located a Swiss Army knife, keys, a blood-stained rope, and a "fanny pack" purse that belonged to Iler. Police also obtained from a nearby garbage container, identified by the defendant, bedding, a T-shirt, a sock, and a condom.
¶ 16 Prior to trial, the State moved in limine, pursuant to Rule 404(b), Arizona Rules of Evidence, to admit portions of defendant's confession, including parts relating to Humphreys' killing. The trial court denied the motion, ruling that evidence pertaining to Humphreys' murder was inadmissible. Consequently, the State determined not to use any of defendant's confession in its case-in-chief, indicating during a bench conference that no part of the confession would be offered because the prosecution did not wish "to open the door" to some exculpatory statements.
¶ 17 Defense counsel filed a trial memorandum requesting that the court rule defendant's entire confession admissible as hearsay exceptions under Rules 803(3) and 804(b)(3), Arizona Rules of Evidence. The State objected. The trial court sustained the State's objection and excluded the confession.
¶ 18 We review the trial judge's refusal to admit defendant's confession for abuse of discretion. State v. LaGrand (Walter), 153 Ariz. 21, 27, 734 P.2d 563, 569 (1987). Decisions to exclude such evidence remain within the sound discretion of the trial court and will be reversed on appeal only upon a showing of clear, prejudicial abuse. State v. Ayala, 178 Ariz. 385, 387, 873 P.2d 1307, 1309 (App.1994). "The prejudice must be sufficient to create a reasonable doubt about whether the verdict might have been different had the error not been committed." Id.
¶ 19 The...
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...latter circumstances outweigh the former when both are present." (Emphasis added.) Brewer, 170 Ariz. at 500. See State v. Pandeli, 200 Ariz. 365, 374, 26 P.3d 1136 (2001),cert. granted and judgment rev'd by Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584, 153 L. Ed. 2d 556, 122 S. Ct. 2428 (2002); State v. H......
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