State v. Schreuder
| Decision Date | 15 August 1986 |
| Docket Number | No. 19588,19588 |
| Citation | 726 P.2d 1215 |
| Parties | The STATE of Utah, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Frances B. SCHREUDER, Defendant and Appellant, |
| Court | Utah Supreme Court |
Ronald J. Yengich, Salt Lake City, for defendant and appellant.
Kevin J. Kurumada, David L. Wilkinson, Atty. Gen., Sandra L. Sjogren, Asst. Atty. Gen., Salt Lake City, for plaintiff and respondent.
Defendant appeals her conviction by a jury of first degree murder, a capital felony. U.C.A., 1953, § 76-5-202 (Repl.Vol.8B 1978 ed.) (current version at Supp. 1986). Defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment. We affirm.
At about 7:30 a.m., on July 23, 1978, in the warehouse of his automotive parts business, Franklin Bradshaw was shot and killed by his grandson, Marc Schreuder. Marc was convicted of second degree murder for the homicide. Frances B. Schreuder, Marc's mother and Bradshaw's daughter, was charged with having knowingly and intentionally caused Bradshaw's death for pecuniary or other personal gain. U.C.A., 1953, § 76-5-202(1)(f) (Repl.Vol. 8B 1978 ed.) (amended 1983).
Defendant and Bradshaw had often argued over money. At one time, defendant was receiving $3,000 each month from Bradshaw, but this support had gradually dwindled. Divorced from her second husband and unemployed, defendant had told Marc that killing Bradshaw was the only way of assuring there would be funds to support the family.
In the summer of 1977, Marc and his brother Larry came to Salt Lake City and worked for Bradshaw at the automotive parts business. Defendant instructed her sons to kill Bradshaw and gave them amphetamines to put in Bradshaw's food to cause a heart attack. Defendant also made other plans for her sons to kill Bradshaw, including setting fire to his warehouse while he was inside and throwing an electrical appliance in the bathtub while he was taking his bath. None of the murder plans were attempted that summer.
Defendant further instructed her sons to steal money for her from Bradshaw. The brothers stole around $200,000 in stocks, checks, and cash and sent it to defendant. Bradshaw discovered the thefts and cut off all financial assistance to defendant.
When Marc returned to New York City in September 1977, defendant asked him to give her some photographs he had taken while in Salt Lake City so that she could give them to Myles Manning, an individual she had hired to kill Bradshaw. Defendant had met Manning through Richard Behrens, a long-time friend who lived near the Schreuders in New York City. Defendant had paid Manning $5,000 to commit the murder. In February or March 1978, after defendant discovered that Manning had not carried out the murder, defendant told Marc she was going to hire another hit man from out of state.
Defendant asked both Marc and Behrens to obtain a gun with which to kill Bradshaw. Defendant also attempted to obtain a gun, inquiring at a rifle store in New York City and buying stacks of gun magazines. Ultimately, Marc arranged to buy a gun from Jon Cavenaugh, a friend who lived in Midland, Texas. Defendant obtained Cavenaugh's address, father's name, and phone number and gave the information to Marc. In late June or early July 1978, Marc telephoned Cavenaugh from New York City and asked about getting a gun. As Marc spoke to Cavenaugh, defendant wrote notes on a yellow legal pad instructing Marc what to say.
Defendant gave Marc some money obtained from Berenice Bradshaw, defendant's mother, to fly from New York City to Texas, to Salt Lake City, and back to New York. In order to divert suspicion, defendant made the airline ticket reservations using the name of Marc's brother, Lorenzo Gentile (Larry), who was then in Salt Lake City.
Around July 18, 1978, Marc flew to Midland, Texas, and stayed with Cavenaugh. On Saturday, July 22, Marc bought a .357 magnum and some bullets in Midland and flew to Salt Lake City. Marc took a taxi cab from the airport to a hotel, address of which defendant had provided him. That night, Marc called defendant and told her he had the gun, but that he did not want to go through with the killing. Defendant became hysterical and told Marc, "If you don't do it, don't come home again." Marc began to cry because he did not want to kill his grandfather. Defendant and Marc argued for over an hour on the telephone.
At 7 a.m. the next morning, Marc went to Bradshaw's warehouse, hid behind a loading dock, and waited. Bradshaw drove up and entered the warehouse. Marc waited a few minutes, and there went in and talked with his grandfather for about twenty minutes. When Bradshaw turned his back behind the sales counter, Marc shot him twice. Defendant had told Marc to make the murder look like a robbery, so Marc pulled out Bradshaw's pockets, took the money from his wallet, and scattered his credit cards. Marc then took a cab back to the hotel and retrieved his belongings. He went to the airport and flew home.
When Marc told defendant about shooting Bradshaw, she said "Thank God" and hugged and kissed him. Marc gave the gun and shells to defendant, who took them to Behrens' apartment. Defendant gave the gun to Behrens to avoid its discovery in the event the police obtained a search warrant for her apartment.
After Bradshaw was killed, defendant, by court order, received a temporary family living allowance of $3,000 per month and later $5,000 per month from Bradshaw's estate. Defendant did not inherit under Bradshaw's will.
Defendant's first point on appeal is that the testimony of Marc Schreuder, an admitted accomplice of defendant's, was uncorroborated and thus insufficient to support defendant's conviction.
At the time of Franklin Bradshaw's murder on July 23, 1978, Utah law provided:
A conviction shall not be had on the testimony of an accomplice, unless he is corroborated by other evidence, which in itself and without the aid of the testimony of the accomplice tends to connect the defendant with the commission of the offense; and the corroboration shall not be sufficient, if it merely shows the commission of the offense or the circumstances thereof.
U.C.A., 1953, § 77-31-18 (Repl.Vol.8C 1978 ed.). Subsequent to the murder but before defendant's trial in late September 1983, the Utah legislature repealed this section and enacted a new section 77-31-18 (Repl.Vol.8C 1978 ed. Supp.1979), which provided that "[a] conviction may be had on the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice." This section has been recodified at U.C.A., 1953, § 77-17-7 (Repl.Vol.8C 1982 ed.).
Before the trial, defendant made a motion to require that the accomplice corroboration statute be followed at defendant's trial since it was the statute in effect at the time of the murder. The trial court granted the motion and ruled that application of section 77-17-7 at defendant's trial would be an ex post facto application prohibited by article I, section 9, clause 3 of the United States Constitution and article I, section 18 of the Utah Constitution. We agree.
It has been generally held and is well settled that:
any statute which punishes as a crime an act previously committed, which was innocent when done; which makes more burdensome the punishment for a crime, after its commission, or which deprives one charged with crime of any defense available according to law at the time when the act was committed, is prohibited as ex post facto. 1
Statutory changes in the mode of trial or the rules of evidence which operate only in a limited and insubstantial manner to a defendant's disadvantage are not prohibited. 2 However, statutes which "alter the degree, or lessen the amount or measure, of the proof which was made necessary to conviction when the crime was committed" are ex post facto when applied in prosecuting crimes committed prior to the statute's passage. 3
Here, the repeal of the corroboration statute and subsequent passage of the statute providing that a conviction can be had on the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice reduced the amount of proof necessary for conviction. This Court consistently held when interpreting former section 77-31-18 (Repl.Vol.8C 1978 ed.) that a defendant could not be convicted solely on the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice. If uncorroborated accomplice testimony was the sole evidence against a defendant, the defendant had to be acquitted. 4 Thus, applying current section 77-17-7, which was passed after the crime was committed, would lessen the amount of proof necessary to convict defendant and thereby deprive defendant of a substantial right that the law gave her at the time of the murder. Therefore, application of section 77-17-7 would fall within the classes of changes prohibited by the ex post facto clause. 5
Thus, we must determine whether there was testimony corroborating that of Marc Schreuder, an admitted accomplice of defendant. The corroboration need not go to all the material facts as testified to by the accomplice or be sufficient in itself to support a conviction. 6 It must only connect the defendant with the commission of the offense and be consistent with his guilt and inconsistent with his innocence. 7
The testimony of four witnesses, Marc Schreuder, Richard Behrens, Myles Manning and Vittorio Gentile, connects defendant with the murder of Franklin Bradshaw. Marc Schreuder was an admitted accomplice. His testimony clearly established defendant as the person who knowingly and intentionally planned the murder of Bradshaw and who ordered Marc to commit the murder. Marc's testimony also established the motive, pecuniary gain in the form of an inheritance. Thus, Marc's testimony established evidence of all of the elements of the crime of first degree murder. However, because of the applicability of former section 77-31-18 to this case, Marc's testimony must be corroborated. The question then is whether the testimony of any of the other three witnesses corroborated Marc's testimony and, if...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
State v. Nunes
...since experts in the field view everything relating to the patient as relevant to the patient's personality." State v. Schreuder , 726 P.2d 1215, 1224 (Utah 1986). And Utah courts have repeatedly held that statements by rape victims made to medical providers describing their abuse are admis......
-
Felix v. State, s. 18960
...should not be an open-ended invitation to admit all evidence of any statements made to these health care providers. State v. Schreuder, 726 P.2d 1215, 1225 (Utah 1986). With this in mind, we review the hearsay statements made by Susan and testified to by Dr. Scully and psychologists Payne a......
-
State v. Young
...in the proper counterbalancing of excluding ADPs that the Moore opinion assumed they would. The lead opinion cites State v. Schreuder, 726 P.2d 1215, 1225-26 (Utah 1986), to support the proposition that "[t]he Utah practice of death qualification excludes not only those jurors who would nev......
-
Mulder v. State
...that "there is [a] reasonable likelihood that the false testimony could have affected the judgment of the jury." See State v. Schreuder , 726 P.2d 1215, 1228 (Utah 1986) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). In this case, apart from Schlegel's testimony, Campbell testified that M......
-
Trial Objections
...to inadmissible evidence must be made at the earliest opportunity. This means at the time it is offered in evidence. State v. Schreuder, 726 P.2d 1215 (Utah 1986); Szarak v. Sandoval, 636 P.2d 1082, 1084 (Utah 1981). Opposing counsel may not speculate on obtaining a favorable answer to an i......