State v. Sanchez
| Decision Date | 30 October 2012 |
| Docket Number | No. 26816-1-III,26816-1-III |
| Court | Washington Court of Appeals |
| Parties | STATE OF WASHINGTON, Respondent, v. JOSE LUIS SANCHEZ JR., Appellant. |
Siddoway, A.C.J. — Jose Luis Sanchez Jr. was convicted of two counts of aggravated first degree murder and other crimes for his home invasion robbery of a Yakima drug dealer and execution-style shooting of the family that left two dead and two injured. He makes numerous assignments of error. Key among them are the trial court's disqualification of his original appointed lawyers, its conduct of his trial in a jailhouse courtroom, and its denial of his motion to suppress a victim's challenged in-court eyewitness identification testimony. He also challenges the court's denial of his motion to suppress and denial of motions in limine and other evidentiary objections, alleges violations of his due process and public trial rights, and complains of ineffectiveassistance of counsel and cumulative error. We find no reversible error or abuse of discretion and affirm.
On the night of February 20, 2005, Michelle Kublic left her townhouse apartment to run an errand. Upon backing her Chevrolet Suburban out of its parking spot she was confronted by a Hispanic man with a gun, later established to be Mario Mendez, who appeared in front of the vehicle, illuminated by her headlights. A second Hispanic man, later established to be the appellant, Jose Luis Sanchez Jr., opened the driver's door, grabbed her by the hair, and pulled her from her vehicle. Holding a gun to her head, he walked her back to the apartment where she lived with Ricky Causor, a drug dealer, and their two daughters. He told her to tell Causor to open the door. When Causor opened the door, the man holding her hostage pointed his gun at Causor. She noticed the gun was square-shaped with its ammunition clip inserted from the bottom. She tried to wrestle the gun away but Causor said to stop, they were going to "give them what they want." Report of Proceedings (RP) (Nov. 15, 2007) at 1014. He let the man enter. Once inside, the gunman forced Kublic to kneel on the floor with her and Causor's 3-year-old and 18-month-old daughters.
The man she had first seen in her headlights (Mendez) soon entered the apartment, now wearing a mask. He carried a revolver-style handgun and guarded her in the livingroom while the unmasked intruder took Causor into the kitchen to gather marijuana and money. After Causor retrieved all of his marijuana and approximately $900 in currency, the unmasked intruder escorted him back to the living room and Causor knelt down facing Kublic. Their daughters were on the floor between them. The unmasked intruder's last act before leaving the apartment was to fire five shots from his .45 caliber handgun at the heads of Causor and Kublic, at close range. Causor was struck by three shots, two of which passed through his body into the 3-year-old; both died almost immediately. The unmasked intruder's remaining shots wounded Kublic, who was hospitalized for a week with gunshot wounds to her neck, jaw, scapula, lung, and chest. They also injured the 18-month-old.
Officer David Cortez of the Yakima Police Department attempted to interview Kublic in the hospital intensive care unit the following morning. She was medicated, was in obvious pain, appeared tired, and was slow to give answers. She told him the attackers were two Mexican men whom she believed arrived in an older full-size light-blue pickup that she noticed when walking out to her car the prior evening. Although Kublic would later describe the two gunmen and their roles differently, Officer Cortez's notes indicate that she told him the first had a wide nose and a lighter complexion and bigger build than the second, and that he wore a mask. She said the second gunman did not wear a mask, had a "sucked in" face, was thinner than the first, was small (she estimated about 5 feet 4inches or 5 feet 5 inches), and was dingy looking with uncombed matted hair. RP (Nov. 29, 2007) at 2036. She said the second had forced her from her vehicle and made her walk back to her apartment with a semiautomatic pistol to her head. He was the one who later shot Causor. She said Causor had taken the first gunman to another part of the apartment to give him what he wanted while she and the children stayed with the second.
The next morning, February 22, Detective David Kellett, the lead investigator for the department, visited Kublic in the hospital, hoping with her assistance to create composite images of the gunmen. Kublic looked sleepy and under the influence of medication, but was able to participate for about 45 minutes until pain and discomfort made her too tired to continue. In providing descriptions to the detective, Kublic initially did not differentiate between the two gunmen except to state that one wore a mask and one did not. She told the detective she did not get as good a look at the one with the mask, but remembered well the face of the person who wore no mask.
Detective Kellett then enlisted her assistance in preparing a computer-generated composite of the gunman she remembered best. Kublic described him as thin and gaunt, with long and unkempt straight hair, a thin or short mustache, and a dark Hispanic complexion. Detective Kellett never asked her whether he, or the other, was the shooter. When she reached a point at which she was in too much pain to continue, she told him the depiction was good so far, but that the cheeks needed to be more hollow, the chindifferent, and the hair longer.
On the night of February 22, Officer Cortez returned to the hospital and showed Kublic a photomontage. Before allowing Kublic to view this and later photo arrays, he admonished her that she was not required or expected to choose anyone but just to pick the person who did the crime, and that the purpose of the review is not only to arrest offenders but to clear the innocent. The photo array presented by Cortez happened to include Jose Luis Sanchez Jr., but only as a filler photo because he was not yet a suspect. Kublic did not identify him or anyone else from the array.
On February 23, police officers received two anonymous telephone tips that Jose Sanchez, or "Junior" Sanchez, a name by which he was commonly known, was responsible for the Causor murder. The second caller said that Junior1 could be found at 303 South Ninth Street. The Ninth Street address was the home of Luz Carrillo, her husband Albert Vasquez, and Luz Carrillo's three children. The oldest of Carrillo's children, Roberta,2 then age 15, was the girl friend of Junior Sanchez and was pregnant with his child in February 2005. The house was described by witnesses as a "drughouse," known to be a place where acquaintances of the Vasquez/Carrillo family could drop in to smoke marijuana or crystal methamphetamine. Among those identified by witnesses as regulars at the Ninth Street house were Junior's older brother Manuel "Puppet" Sanchez and his younger brother Rene Sanchez. In February 2005, Junior was living with Roberta at the Ninth Street house.
Acting on the tips, officers set up surveillance and eventually stopped a Toyota Celica that left the house with Ramon Marmelejo driving and Junior in the passenger seat. Both were handcuffed and transported to the police station. While in a holding cell, Junior was captured by a surveillance camera pulling currency from his pocket (as best he could while handcuffed) and attempting to eat it.
Back at the Ninth Street house, a frightened Albert Vasquez spontaneously had told an officer that his family needed protection because "the people who killed the little girl" had been at his house. RP (Nov. 19, 2007) at 1368. He also told the officer that they left clothing inside. Officers obtained a search warrant for the house and seized the clothing worn by Junior on the day of the crime. They also found and seized a .45 Kimber handgun hidden within a couch, which proved in later ballistics testing to be the gun from which all the shell casings and bullets recovered from the murder scene were fired.
Detective Kellett returned to the hospital again late on the night of February 23 topresent Kublic with a binder including a 20-page serial array of individual photographs. Among them were photographs of Junior Sanchez, Mario Mendez, and Manuel Sanchez. The detective did not tell her that Junior Sanchez had been arrested. Kublic appeared more alert. Detective Kellett positioned himself beside her and turned the pages, pausing about three seconds with each page. Upon seeing Mendez's photo, Kublic gasped and said, "that looks like him." RP (Nov. 29, 2007) at 2079. She did not react in any way upon seeing the photographs of Junior Sanchez or Manuel Sanchez. After reviewing all of the photographs, Kublic took the book from the detective's hands, turned back to the photo of Mendez and expressed assurance that he was "the one without the mask." Id.
On February 28, Mendez and Sanchez were charged as codefendants with several crimes including aggravated first degree murder, which carried a possible death penalty.
On March 2, several days after Kublic was released from the hospital, she met with Detective Kellett to provide a tape-recorded statement. By that time, Junior's booking photo had appeared in the newspaper and on local television news. In the course of Kublic's recorded statement, she stated that she now thought the suspect she had earlier described as having very short hair might have been the one with the automatic gun. She also stated that she had thought he had hair, "but after I saw him on the news, he's the one with the shaved head, the one that they have." Id. at 2086. Detective Kellett's understanding was that Kublic had been sure on February 23 that Mendez wasthe one without the mask, but on March 2 was now sure that "the one that they have" (Junior) was the one without the mask.
Mendez became...
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