State v. Smith

• Decision Date: 06 December 2011
• Docket Number: No. 38920–7–II.,38920–7–II.
• Parties: STATE of Washington, Respondent, v. Christopher Leon SMITH, Appellant.
• Court: Washington Court of Appeals

165 Wash.App. 296

266 P.3d 250

STATE of Washington, Respondent,

v.Christopher Leon SMITH, Appellant.

No. 38920–7–II.

Court of Appeals of Washington, Division 2.

Dec. 6, 2011.

David Bruce Koch, Nielsen Broman & Koch PLLC, Seattle, WA, for Appellant.

Stephen D. Trinen, Pierce County Prosecutor's Ofc., Tacoma, WA, for Respondent.

JOHANSON, J.

[165 Wash.App. 300] ¶ 1 A jury found Christopher Leon Smith guilty of first degree rape, second degree child rape, two counts of first degree kidnapping, two counts of felony harassment, and first degree assault. Smith argues that (1) the officers' participation in the Crime Free Motel Program (CFMP) violated his article I, § 7 rights and all evidence found after his arrest should have been suppressed, and (2) his convictions for first degree rape and second degree child rape constitute double jeopardy. In his statement of additional grounds,¹ Smith argues that the trial court violated his constitutional speedy trial rights.

[165 Wash.App. 301] ¶ 2 We hold that the victims' trial testimonies were admissible because they were the product of an independent source, and they were sufficiently attenuated from the illegal motel registry search. We therefore refrain from evaluating Smith's other evidentiary challenges to evidence that is cumulative of the victims' trial testimonies. We also hold that Smith's convictions for first degree rape and second degree child rape do not constitute double jeopardy because they are not legally comparable offenses. Finally, we hold that the trial court did not violate Smith's constitutional speedy trial rights. We affirm Smith's convictions.

Facts

¶ 3 On October 22, 2006, Lakewood Police Officer Austin Lee stopped at the Golden Lion Motel as part of the CFMP. The CFMP was a voluntary program that permitted a motel owner to allow police to check the 10 most recent entries on a guest registry to determine if those individuals had outstanding warrants. Officer Lee performed a warrant check at the Golden Lion Motel and discovered that Christopher Smith, a guest, had an outstanding warrant.

¶ 4 Officer Lee, assisted by other officers, knocked on Smith's motel room door. Smith opened the door, stepped outside, and was placed under arrest. After the arrest, the motel door remained open naturally and was not propped open by anyone. As Officer Lee was leading Smith away, other officers saw Quianna Quabner, who at a subsequent hearing testified that she had been unable to get to a phone to call police for help, inside the motel room “limping toward the door, sobbing a little bit” and holding a bloodied towel to her head. 1 Verbatim Report of Proceedings (VRP) at 40. Officers entered the room to perform “community caretaking” duties and assist her because of the “immediately obvious” head trauma that had occurred. 1 VRP at 29, 60.

¶ 5 Quabner informed the officers that she and Smith had gotten into an argument and that he had tied her to the refrigerator and assaulted her with a metal candlestick and a picture frame. Quabner also reported that Smith had sexually assaulted her 12–year–old daughter, L.S., and had tied them both up. Although Quabner's two-year-old son was also in the room during the incident, there were no allegations of abuse or injury inflicted on him. L.S. informed officers that the items Smith had used to tie them up were in a motel dumpster. The dumpster is open to the public and not secured. Officers found two bags of blood-stained items in the dumpster that appeared to have come from Smith's room.

¶ 6 After Quabner and L.S. were taken away for medical treatment, the officers searched the motel room and seized physical evidence. The officers failed to request a warrant before this search and seizure.

¶ 7 The State charged Smith with first degree rape, under RCW 9A.44.040(1)(a); second degree child rape, under RCW 9A.44.076; first degree kidnapping, under former RCW 9A.40.020 (1975); and felony harassment, under former RCW 9A.46.020 (2003), as to L.S. The State also charged Smith with first degree kidnapping, under former RCW 9A.40.020; first degree assault, under RCW 9A.36.011(1)(a); and felony harassment, under former RCW 9A.46.020, as to Quabner. All of the charges included deadly weapon enhancement allegations.

¶ 8 After Smith was charged, but before his CrR 3.6 hearing, our Supreme Court issued State v. Jorden,² in which it held that absent a valid exception to the prohibition against warrantless searches, random viewings of a motel registry violate article I, § 7. Smith moved to suppress all evidence discovered after his arrest, arguing that it was tainted by the illegal motel registry search and that the State could not establish an independent source for the information.

[165 Wash.App. 303] ¶ 9 At the CrR 3.6 hearing, witnesses testified to the above facts. Quabner also testified that she had not been able to get to a phone before the police arrived, but that she would have called the police at the earliest available opportunity. Police officers testified that they entered the motel room to assist Quabner and not with an intent to look for drugs or collect evidence. The State conceded that the warrantless search of the motel room “after the patrol officers finished the arrest process and obtained medical aid for the victims” was not lawful and that the evidence seized at that time should be suppressed. I VRP at 120–21. But the State argued that, under the inevitable discovery rule, the remaining evidence, including the victims' statements at the scene, police observations of the room during their initial entry when performing community caretaking functions, photographs of the victims' injuries, testimony from medical personnel, and evidence found in the dumpster, was still admissible, and that Quabner and L.S. could testify at trial. Smith responded that the inevitable discovery exception to the exclusionary rule was incompatible with article I, § 7.

¶ 10 The trial court found that Quabner would have called the police as soon as possible and that the inevitable discovery exception applied. The trial court found that the victims' statements, medical treatment, and sexual-assault-center interview were admissible, as was the evidence found in the dumpster, because all evidence would likely have been in the same condition at the time Quabner called the police. But the trial court also found that the State failed to prove that police would have observed the room in the same condition if they had entered it at a later date and excluded the officers' testimonies about their observations of the motel room's condition.³

¶ 11 At trial, L.S. and Quabner testified about the incident. L.S. testified that after Smith and her mother argued, Smith tied her and Quabner up. Smith tied Quabner's wrists together behind her back and tied her to a refrigerator's handles; Smith tied L.S.'s wrists, neck, and feet and placed her in a bedroom closet. About 20 or 30 minutes later, Smith took L.S. out of the closet and led her into the bathroom where he untied her. Smith put a knife to her throat and told her to do whatever he said. The knife had at least a three-inch blade. Smith told L. S., who was wearing a nightgown, to bend over the bathtub and she refused. Smith hit her in the nose with his hand and she started bleeding. Smith again told her to cooperate before he did “something” to her mother or family. 6 VRP at 272. Next, Smith pulled down the top part of L.S.'s nightgown and told her to pull down her bra, which she did. L.S. sat on the toilet and Smith put his penis in her mouth while still holding the knife to her throat. With his penis still in her mouth, Smith also hit her on the shoulder with a hammer.

¶ 12 L.S. testified that after the bathroom assault, Smith left the motel room and she untied her mother. Smith returned soon thereafter with a gas can and said he was going to set them on fire. He also took a knife and made circular motions over Quabner's stomach and threatened to cut out the baby she carried. He did not carry out either threat. Instead, Smith grabbed a metal candlestick, which was about two or three inches thick, and hit Quabner in the head three or four times. Smith then broke a glass picture frame over Quabner's head.

¶ 13 When he stopped attacking Quabner, Smith told L.S. to clean up the blood. L.S. testified that she cleaned up blood in the kitchen and bathroom with a towel and cleaned up the broken glass. She placed the bloody cleaning towel, broken glass, blood-stained clothes, and the ropes used to tie her and her mother up in a plastic bag and put the bag in the motel dumpster. L.S. testified that she later spoke with officers and medical personnel and, also during her testimony, L.S. identified pictures of objects she had placed in the dumpster.

[165 Wash.App. 305] ¶ 14 Quabner testified about the fight with Smith, being tied up, and the assault; this testimony largely repeated L.S.'s testimony. Quabner also identified bloody clothing that she and L.S. wore during the attack and the rope used to tie them up.

¶ 15 Two Lakewood Police officers testified about responding to the scene and observing Quabner's injuries. One officer also testified about photographs he took of Quabner's injuries outside the motel room and testified about bags of evidence he recovered from the motel dumpster. A Lakewood Police Department property and evidence supervisor identified evidence recovered from the dumpster and identified photographs taken of the dumpster evidence and Quabner's injuries. A detective testified about interviewing L.S. and Quabner later the day of the incident. The detective interviewed L.S. at the police department and described L.S. as calm, articulate, and cooperative. The detective also interviewed Quabner, but she did so at a hospital.

¶ 16 One of the paramedics, who took Quabner to the hospital, testified about Quabner's injuries and about Quabner reporting that she had been struck with...