State v. Suhail
| Docket Number | 20200284-CA |
| Decision Date | 09 February 2023 |
| Parties | STATE of Utah, Appellee, v. Karrar Thaer SUHAIL, Appellant. |
| Court | Utah Court of Appeals |
Andrea J. Garland, Attorney for Appellant
Sean D. Reyes and Karen A. Klucznik, Salt Lake City, Attorneys for Appellee
Opinion
¶1 At the close of a several-day trial, a jury convicted Karrar Suhail of murder, aggravated burglary, aggravated robbery, and obstructing justice. On appeal, Suhail challenges his convictions on several grounds, and he also asks for a rule 23B remand for factual development of an ineffective assistance of counsel claim. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm his convictions and deny the request for a remand.
¶2 For at least four years, Suhail was addicted to oxycodone
. He often bought pills from Victim, who had prescriptions for alprazolam (Xanax ), methadone, and oxycodone and would then sell his pills to Suhail and other local customers. When Suhail took the pills, he would be "calm and relaxed." But when he didn't get the pills, he would "act out" and become "upset" and "[a]gitated."
¶3 Suhail's drug use created problems in his relationship with his ex-girlfriend (Ex-Girlfriend). They had dated on and off for about seven years and had one child (Child) together. Suhail sometimes helped financially with Child, but he "wasn't very dependable," and his support was "never consistent."
¶4 On Thursday, December 8, 2016, Ex-Girlfriend took Child to see Suhail. Suhail became "emotional" during this visit when Ex-Girlfriend told him that she had recently had a miscarriage. After the visit, Ex-Girlfriend took Suhail to his brother's restaurant (the Restaurant) and a nearby gas station to buy him cigarettes. At the gas station, they had an argument about their relationship. Suhail was "frustrated" that another man was texting Ex-Girlfriend, and Ex-Girlfriend told Suhail that she "didn't want to be with him anymore." Ex-Girlfriend took Suhail back to the Restaurant, but she returned at about 10:00 p.m. that night to get food. Suhail asked her to give him a ride to Victim's apartment, and she dropped him off at Victim's around 10:20 p.m.
¶5 Victim's friend (Friend) was at Victim's apartment when Suhail arrived. Suhail and Victim went into a separate room and spoke privately for about five minutes. During that conversation, Suhail bought a pill from Victim for $20. Victim also "fronted" Suhail a second pill.2 After getting the pills, Suhail left Victim's apartment and went to a hookah lounge; while there, he borrowed $20 from somebody so that he could pay Victim back for the fronted pill.
¶6 After Suhail left Victim's apartment, Friend took Victim to a nearby gas station for a soda. They then went back to Victim's apartment, after which Friend left. Around 11:20 p.m., Victim texted Friend, asking if he made it home. Meanwhile, Suhail headed back to Victim's apartment so that he could pay for the fronted pill. Around 11:30 p.m., one of Victim's customers (Customer) called Victim to see if he could come get pills. Victim replied that Customer needed to hurry because he had another customer coming. Customer drove to Victim's apartment, parked across the street, and tried to call Victim, who was no longer answering his phone. Customer sat in his car for 20 to 25 minutes before he received text messages from Victim. The texts—which started arriving at 12:22 a.m. on Friday—read, "I left I will be back in 30 minutes" and "Brotherdon'tcome."3 Customer thought that this second text was odd because Victim couldn't spell very well in English, so he typically used the voice-to-text feature when sending text messages. But the "Brotherdon'tcome" message was oddly spaced, indicating to Customer that it had been typed manually and not with the voice-to-text feature. Moreover, Victim didn't send text messages very often; he would usually just text "Call me" and then have a phone conversation.
¶7 Customer replied quickly to Victim's text messages and then waited for a response. About 20 minutes later, Victim texted back, saying that he had walked to a nearby gas station and asking Customer to meet him there. Customer thought this was a bit unusual because Victim usually didn't walk places, but he headed to the gas station anyway. After waiting awhile, he realized Victim wasn't there, so he texted Victim and asked if he was at the gas station. Victim replied, "Yes cine," and "Are u comeing," but Customer waited for about 15 minutes and never saw him. Customer then drove back to Victim's apartment and again parked across the street.
¶8 While sitting in his car, Customer looked at Victim's apartment and saw Suhail "coming out of the door." Suhail "shut the door behind him and just looked left and right and then walked off at a fast pace." Suhail was wearing "a hoodie" and "red shoes."4
¶9 Shortly after observing Suhail leave Victim's apartment, Customer received a phone call from Suhail. During their conversation, Customer told Suhail that he thought he saw him at Victim's and asked if Suhail had any pills. Customer was hoping to get pills from Suhail since Victim wasn't answering his phone. Suhail told Customer that he had been at home and that he wasn't the person that Customer saw. But Suhail said he had pills, and the two men arranged to meet up "[l]ater that same day" so that Customer could get the pills. Customer went home and tried calling Victim a few more times, but he eventually gave up because Victim was not answering.
¶10 That same morning—Friday, December 9—Suhail called Ex-Girlfriend at 7:09 a.m. They agreed to meet up that day so that Suhail could give Ex-Girlfriend some money and other items for Child. Ex-Girlfriend went to work, and during her lunch break she met up with Suhail. She took him to pay some of his bills, and they went to the Restaurant, where he gave her approximately $200. Sometime that day, Suhail also gave Child a computer tablet, a baseball bat, and a baseball glove.
¶11 Ex-Girlfriend believed that Suhail had money because he sold a car (a Mercedes, possibly), but she didn't know any details about the sale, such as who bought the car, how much it sold for, or when the sale occurred.5 While they were together that day, she also thought that Suhail was "out of it" and seemed "like a zombie." Suhail was "stooped over," "had difficulty walking," "couldn't keep his eyes open[ ]," and was "slurr[ing] his words." Ex-Girlfriend believed that he was high—"[h]igher than [she'd] seen him before"—and asked him what was going on. He said that he hadn't slept. Girlfriend also noticed what looked like a "hickey" on Suhail's neck. When she asked him about it, he "said that he had got [it] in a fight."6
¶12 That day, Suhail bought new clothing, including a new coat and boots. Suhail went to other stores that day too and made several purchases, paying with cash each time. Around 9:00 or 10:00 a.m., Suhail went to a smokeshop and bought cigarettes. He asked the employee working the front counter (Employee) when the store's owner (Owner) would be in. Suhail wanted to talk to Owner about purchasing a knife. That afternoon, Suhail came back to the shop and purchased a small "[s]port knife." Sometime during one of these visits to the smokeshop, Suhail asked Employee for change for a $100 bill.
¶13 Around 5:00 p.m., a woman called Friend and said Victim wasn't answering his door. Friend went to Victim's apartment and saw Victim's neighbor (Neighbor). Friend tried to open Victim's door, but it was locked. Neighbor, who was drunk, began yelling at Friend and telling him not to open the door. But Friend was worried about Victim, so he asked another neighbor to call the police. While they waited for the police, Neighbor suggested that they should try to open Victim's back door. Neighbor jumped over the fence into Victim's backyard and tried to push the door open. Neighbor then started screaming that Victim had been killed. Police soon arrived, and they had to force Victim's back door open because Victim's body was against the door.
¶14 Later that night, Ex-Girlfriend, Child, and Suhail went to the Restaurant to have dinner with some members of Suhail's family. Suhail's brother asked Ex-Girlfriend to run an errand for him; she agreed, and Suhail went with her. During this drive, Suhail had a phone conversation with somebody. Ex-Girlfriend didn't know what the conversation was about because Suhail was speaking Arabic, which she doesn't speak, but when the phone conversation ended, Suhail told her that Victim had been stabbed. The two also drove past Victim's apartment while they were out and saw several police officers outside. Suhail asked Ex-Girlfriend if she "would keep in contact with him if he were to get locked up for 25 years." This conversation started because she was "trying to encourage him to stop using drugs," but she still thought this question "was a little weird." Suhail also asked Ex-Girlfriend something like, "[D]o you think I would do that?" When the prosecutor (Prosecutor) asked her about this question at trial, she said that she thought that he was asking about Victim's murder.7 When Suhail and Ex-Girlfriend completed the errand, Ex-Girlfriend took Suhail to his mother's apartment and then went home.
¶15 Later that night, Customer and Suhail met up. Customer bought two pills from Suhail, and they discussed Victim's death. Customer—who had previously gone to Victim's apartment and talked to the police when he found out what happened—was sad and upset. But Suhail seemed "very calm." Customer began to suspect that Suhail was involved in Victim's murder, so he confronted him. Suhail "arrogantly" denied any involvement and dismissed the confrontation as though Victim's death "wasn't an important subject to him."
¶16 An autopsy later showed that Victim had been stabbed 39 times. And while police...
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