State v. Rockwell

• Decision Date: 08 June 1989
• Docket Number: No. CR-86-0011-AP,CR-86-0011-AP
• Citation: State v. Rockwell, 161 Ariz. 5, 775 P.2d 1069 (Ariz. 1989)
• Parties: STATE of Arizona, Appellee, v. Ronald Edwin ROCKWELL, Appellant. /PC.
• Court: Arizona Supreme Court

Page 1069

775 P.2d 1069

161 Ariz. 5

STATE of Arizona, Appellee, v. Ronald Edwin ROCKWELL, Appellant.

No. CR-86-0011-AP/PC.

Supreme Court of Arizona, In Banc.

June 8, 1989.

[161 Ariz. 7] Robert K. Corbin, Atty. Gen. by Jessica Gifford Funkhouser and Greg A. McCarthy, Asst. Attys. Gen., Phoenix, for appellee.

Kenneth D. Everett, Mohave County Public Defender by Michael J. Burke, Deputy Mohave County Public Defender, Kingman, for appellant.

OPINION

MOELLER, Justice.

JURISDICTION

A jury convicted the defendant, Ronald Edwin Rockwell, of first degree murder and robbery. ¹ The court sentenced him to death on the murder charge and to five years imprisonment on the robbery charge. He appeals. He separately asks us to review the trial court's denial of his petition for post-conviction relief. We consolidated the two proceedings. We have jurisdiction pursuant to article 6, § 5(3) of the Arizona Constitution and A.R.S. § 13-4031.

ISSUES PRESENTED

1. Whether the trial court erred by permitting the state to rebut defendant's "false boasting" defense by inquiring about specific instances in which defendant boasted truthfully about crimes he in fact committed.

2. Whether the trial court erred by admitting evidence of other bad acts.

3. Whether the evidence in the record is sufficient to support the convictions.

4. Whether defendant received ineffective assistance of counsel at trial.

5. Whether the trial court erred by failing to state in the special verdict that it found the existence of the aggravating circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt.

6. Whether the trial court erred by finding two prior convictions as aggravating circumstances justifying the death penalty.

7. Whether the death penalty is warranted in this case.

FACTS

On March 25, 1978, at approximately 4:00 a.m., a trucker discovered a shooting victim at the Bingo Truck Stop, located approximately five miles west of Kingman. The victim was Lynn Anderson, an employee at the truck stop who was working the 10:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. shift. The trucker found Anderson lying on his side with his knees slightly bent in a doorway leading to the men's restroom. Anderson died at the hospital without regaining consciousness. The coroner determined that Anderson was shot in the back of his head.

Deputy Lee Hays of the Mohave County Sheriff's Office arrived at the truck stop at 5:30 a.m. to investigate the shooting. The cash register was empty except for two large bills under the money tray. Approximately $85 to $100 was taken from the tray. No blood stains were found anywhere except in the immediate vicinity of the body. No weapons were found, nor any evidence of a struggle. From the position of the body, Hays determined that Anderson was shot while on his knees and had been left where he fell. The crime scene was thoroughly dusted for fingerprints but none of the prints correlated with any suspect. The murder and robbery were the subject of news stories in the local media.

Approximately one year after the murder, defendant separately told his then-girlfriend, Bobbi Wonzy; his sister, Tanya Wainscott; his brother, Lewis Rockwell; and Lewis's wife, Darci, that he and one or two others robbed a gas station in Kingman and shot the attendant. He included in his stories facts that had not been reported by the media, including the fact that he made the victim kneel in the restroom and shot him there. However, these witnesses testified that they did not believe defendant's admissions because he often told them stories of criminal exploits to create what he perceived to be a macho image. ²

Defendant was indicted for the murder and robbery more than seven-and-a-half years after the crimes were committed. The only evidence connecting defendant to the crimes were the four confessions to his friends and relatives.

The jury convicted defendant on both the robbery and first degree murder charges. After a sentencing hearing, the trial judge found the existence of three statutory aggravating circumstances under A.R.S. § 13-703(F). He found the defendant had previously been convicted of two felonies involving the use or threat of violence, namely, a Tucson robbery and a Kingman assault. ³ The third statutory aggravating circumstance found by the trial court was that defendant committed the murder for pecuniary value under A.R.S. § 13-703(F)(5). The trial court considered, but rejected, defendant's age (twenty-one at the time of the offense) as mitigation sufficient to outweigh imposition of the death penalty. Finding no other mitigation, the trial court sentenced defendant to death for the murder and to five years for the robbery conviction. Defendant appealed.

Defendant also filed a Rule 32 petition for post-conviction relief with the trial court, which alleged ineffective assistance of counsel. The trial court denied the petition without a hearing and denied a motion for reconsideration. The defendant petitions this court to review those rulings. We consolidated the two proceedings.

DISCUSSION

Defendant's Confessions to Other Crimes He Committed

Before trial, the state accurately predicted that defendant would contend that he had falsely confessed. The state originally sought a pre-trial evidentiary ruling that would permit it to introduce testimony concerning defendant's confessions to other crimes and his convictions for those other crimes. These confessions related to the assault of a young child in Kingman and the robbery of a Tucson donut shop. The state initially argued that these items were admissible under Rule 404(b) of the Arizona Rules of Evidence. Rule 404(b) permits evidence of prior acts to prove "motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident." However, the state ultimately conceded that the evidence was not admissible for any purpose listed in Rule 404(b).

The state refined its argument at the pre-trial hearing. The state anticipated, and defense counsel acknowledged, that defendant would argue at trial that his confessions in this case were suspect because he routinely boasted untruthfully about criminal activity. The state argued that it should be permitted to rebut this defense by showing that, although he may have falsely boasted about some criminal activity in the past, in the two instances referred to he had boasted truthfully and had been convicted of the crimes that were the subjects of the boasts.

Defense counsel objected. The court, however, ruled that it would allow evidence of the convictions if it developed that the witnesses mentioned them either in explaining their opinion of the defendant's truthfulness or in the course of explaining defendant's confession to the murder.

The defense did not want documentary evidence of the convictions in evidence. As an alternative, the defense offered to stipulate that the defendant had in fact committed the other two acts, without putting the convictions in evidence. The court accepted the stipulation. The jury first learned of the other two acts from the defense counsel's opening statement, and the following stipulation was read to the jury at the close of the state's case:

Ladies and gentlemen, the parties have stipulated that independent conclusive proof exists that shows that the defendant did in fact assault a three-year-old boy in Kingman and did in fact rob the Bosa Donut Shop in Tucson and assault the clerk.

Reporter's Transcript, November 6, 1985, at 221, lines 19-23.

At the conclusion of the case, the court also gave a limiting instruction to the effect that the evidence relating to the other acts was not received and should not be considered for the purpose of showing the defendant had a disposition to commit crimes.

On appeal, defendant argues that the trial court erred by permitting the jury to hear about the other two crimes. In essence, he argues that the trial court should not have accepted the stipulation. Usually, a stipulation waives defendant's right to object to the evidence on appeal. See Wolf Corp. v. Louis, 11 Ariz.App. 352, 355, 464 P.2d 672, 675 (1970). However, because defense counsel offered the stipulation as an alternative only after an adverse ruling on the admissibility of the other crimes, we believe he fairly and properly preserved the issue for appeal and we will address the issue on the merits. See Bell v. State, 143 Ariz. 305, 310, 693 P.2d 960, 965 (App.1984).

Defendant sought to establish as a defense his character trait of untruthfulness; namely, that it was his nature to fabricate stories of criminal exploits. Rule 404 of the Arizona Rules of Evidence controls the circumstances in which character evidence is admissible; Rule 405 defines the manner in which admissible character evidence may be proved. Although Rule 404(a) instructs generally that "[e]vidence of a person's character or a trait of his character is not admissible for the purpose of proving that he acted in conformity therewith on a particular occasion," Rule 404(a)(1) allows an accused in a criminal case to offer evidence of a pertinent trait of his character. If the accused does so, the prosecution may rebut it. Therefore, under this rule, defendant properly introduced character evidence supporting his fabrication defense, and the state properly endeavored to rebut that character evidence.

The critical issue and the heart of defendant's complaint on appeal is the method by which the state rebutted defendant's character defense. Rule 405 governs the methods of proof. It provides:

(a) Reputation or Opinion. In all cases in which evidence of character or a trait of character of a person is admissible, proof may be made by testimony as to reputation or by testimony in the form of an opinion. On cross-examination, inquiry is allowable into relevant specific instances of conduct.

(b) Specific Instances of Conduct. In cases in which character or a trait of character of a person is an essential element of a charge, claim, or defense,...