State v. Stenson, 45665-6-II
| Decision Date | 22 February 2017 |
| Docket Number | No. 45665-6-II,45665-6-II |
| Parties | STATE OF WASHINGTON, Respondent, v. DAROLD R. J. STENSON, Appellant. |
| Court | Washington Court of Appeals |
SUTTON, J. — Darold R. J. Stenson appeals his convictions for two counts of premediated first degree murder with aggravating factors. We hold that the trial court did not err when it (1) granted the State's motion to continue the trial, (2) denied Stenson's CrR 8.3(b) motion to dismiss, (3) denied Stenson's motion to dismiss based on a due process violation, and (4) denied Stenson's motion to suppress evidence. We also hold (5) that Stenson was not entitled to a spoliation instruction and (6) that the trial court did not err when it denied Stenson's motions for mistrial or (7) when it admitted evidence of a defense witness's prior drug conviction. We further hold that (8) the trial court's reasonable doubt jury instruction was proper, (9) the prosecutor's rebuttal argument was not misconduct, and (10) there is no cumulative error to entitle Stenson to a new trial. Thus, we affirm Stenson's convictions.
In the early morning hours of March 25, 1993, law enforcement arrived at the Stenson home in response to a 911 call; Stenson met the responding officers outside the home. Stenson led the officers to the body of Frank Hoerner, Stenson's friend and business partner, who was lying face down on the floor in the main-floor guest bedroom, dead of an apparent gunshot wound to the head. Officers found a gun on the floor near Hoerner's1 left hand.
Stenson then led the officers upstairs to the master bedroom where they found his wife, Denise Stenson,2 lying in bed with a gunshot wound to her head. Denise Stenson was alive, but died the following day in the hospital. The State charged Stenson with two counts of premediated first degree murder with aggravating factors.
During Stenson's first trial, the pants that Stenson had worn on the day of the murders provided forensic evidence that directly connected him to the murders—gunshot residue (GSR)3which was found in the pockets of the pants and bloodstains on the front of the pants. In Re the Personal Restraint of Stenson, 174 Wn.2d 474, 478, 491, 276 P.3d 286 (2012).4 Detective Monty Martin, one of the responding officers to the scene in 1993, had collected Stenson's pants, socks, belt, sweatshirt, and shoes as evidence. Stenson initially told law enforcement that he had discovered Hoerner's body and that he had knelt next to it, but Stenson contended that he did not touch or otherwise contact the body. In Re Stenson, 174 Wn.2d at 478. The bloodstains were consistent with Hoerner's blood protein profile. In Re Stenson, 174 Wn.2d at 478.
Michael Grubb, supervising Forensic Scientist of the Washington State Patrol Crime Laboratory, testified at trial that there were bloodstains on the knee of Stenson's right pant leg and left pant leg which were caused by airborne droplets, and additional bloodstains on the left pant cuff which were caused by medium velocity droplets consistent with a beating by a bloody object. Grubb testified that the smaller stains on Stenson's pants appeared to have been "airborne droplets" of blood that were traveling through the air when they struck the pants leg. Trial Verbatim Report of Proceedings (VRP) at 2454. Grubb also testified that the larger stains on the right knee were Hoerner's blood.
Grubb testified that the blood on the right knee of the pants could not have gotten there by Stenson touching the body after it was on the floor or by kneeling next to the body, and that the blood had to have been deposited on the pants before Hoerner's body came to rest on the bedroom floor. In Re Stenson, 174 Wn.2d at 478. Grubb concluded that the stains on the right leg of the pants came to be on the pants while Hoerner was in some position other than his final restingposition at the scene, most likely while he was up off the floor. According to Grubb, the stains on the right knee area of the pants could not have been caused by contact with any of the bloodstained vertical surfaces in the laundry room area of the crime scene (the door, the wall, the freezer, or the dryer). This was so because there was no corresponding pattern of bloodstains on the floor of the laundry room or bedroom where Hoerner's body was found. This testimony refuted Stenson's statement that he discovered Hoerner dead on the bedroom floor. In Re Stenson, 174 Wn.2d at 478.
In 1994, a jury convicted Stenson of premeditated first degree murder with aggravating factors for the deaths of Denise Stenson and Frank Hoerner. Stenson was sentenced to death on August 19, 1994. In July 1997, our Supreme Court affirmed Stenson's convictions and the death penalty sentence. See State v. Stenson, 132 Wn.2d 668, 940 P.2d 1239 (1997). Our Supreme Court rejected four subsequent personal restraint petitions (PRP). Stenson, 174 Wn.2d at 478.
In 2008, the State notified Stenson's appellate counsel that the State's expert witness at the first trial, FBI Special Agent Ernest Peele, who testified about the GSR analysis, had testified beyond "the scope of what the evidence could properly show." In Re Stenson, 174 Wn.2d at 479. Although the GSR evidence was of relatively little significance at the first trial, the information about Peele's testimony raised additional questions for Stenson's appellate counsel, who then submitted a discovery request asking the State to turn over all the records "relating to bullet leadanalysis, GSR, and blood spatter testing."5 In Re Stenson, 174 Wn.2d at 479. In its 2009 response, the State disclosed new evidence including: (1) photographs of Detective Martin wearing Stenson's pants with the right pocket turned out and showing Detective Martin's ungloved hands and (2) an FBI file containing notes related to the GSR testing revealing that someone else, other than Peele, had performed the GSR testing. In Re Stenson, 174 Wn.2d at 479.
In response to the State's disclosure, Stenson filed his fifth PRP alleging ineffective assistance of counsel because his counsel had failed to discover this previously undisclosed evidence. He then filed his sixth PRP alleging that the State had withheld materially exculpatory evidence, which violated Brady.6 Our Supreme Court ordered the Clallam County Superior Court to conduct a reference hearing to determine whether the evidence was "newly discovered" and if so, whether the newly discovered evidence would have changed the outcome of the trial. In Re Stenson, 174 Wn.2d at 480.
At the conclusion of the reference hearing, the trial court found that photographs showed Stenson's pants being handled by Detective Martin, who was ungloved, and that the pockets were turned inside out to look for blood evidence six days prior to being sampled by the FBI for GSR. In Re Stenson, 174 Wn.2d at 480. Subsequently, Detective Martin took the pants to his garage for sampling and the pants pockets were again turned inside out and the samples were sent to the FBI for GSR testing. In Re Stenson, 174 Wn.2d at 480-81. The trial court also found that the FBI labnotes indicated that Kathy Lundy, not FBI agent Peele, had performed the GSR testing, only four grains of GSR had been found after a series of examinations, and the number of GSR particles that were found was relatively insignificant. In Re Stenson, 174 Wn.2d at 483. The trial court further found that both parties were aware of the FBI file and the lab notes but that neither party believed there was anything worth looking at in the FBI file. In Re Stenson, 174 Wn.2d at 483. The trial court then concluded that the photographs of Detective Martin wearing Stenson's pants were sufficient to cause the subsequent GSR test evidence to be wholly unreliable, and that if this had been made known to the trial court and an appropriate objection made, the GSR evidence would have been excluded. In Re Stenson, 174 Wn.2d at 484. But, the trial court ultimately found that Stenson was not prejudiced because the FBI file and the photographs would not have changed the outcome of the trial. In Re Stenson, 174 Wn.2d at 484, 491. Furthermore, the trial court declined defense counsel's request that it rule on whether the newly discovered evidence violated Brady. In Re Stenson, 174 Wn.2d at 484.
Upon reviewing the trial court's reference hearing findings and conclusions, our Supreme Court remanded the case for a second reference hearing on whether the State had violated Brady. In Re Stenson, 174 Wn.2d at 484. At the second reference hearing, the trial court concluded that the evidence in the FBI file relating to the GSR evidence and the photographs contained exculpatory or impeaching information and that the newly discovered evidence should have been provided to the defense. In Re Stenson, 174 Wn.2d at 484, 490. The trial court also found and concluded that that there was no prejudice to Stenson because the newly discovered evidencewould not have changed the outcome of the trial because the blood evidence on the pants provided the jury with strong evidence of Stenson's guilt. Stenson, 174 Wn.2d at 484.
The blood spatter evidence, however, not the GSR evidence, was the most significant evidence at trial. [T]he weight of the circumstantial evidence against Mr. Stenson coupled with the blood spatter evidence directly linked him to the initial attack on Mr. Hoerner is compelling.
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