State v. Vidot
| Decision Date | 28 June 2021 |
| Docket Number | P1/18-33AG, No. 2020-18-M.P.,No. 2020-84-C.A.,2020-84-C.A. |
| Citation | 253 A.3d 401 |
| Court | Rhode Island Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE v. Xavier VIDOT. |
Owen Murphy, Department of Attorney General, for State.
Christopher S. Gontarz, Esq., Ferenc Karoly, Esq., for Defendant.
Present: Suttell, C.J., Goldberg, Robinson, Lynch Prata, and Long, JJ.
The defendant, Xavier Vidot, was convicted by a jury of one count of second-degree murder and one count of discharging a firearm during a crime of violence, thereby causing death. He was sentenced to twenty-four years’ imprisonment for the second-degree-murder conviction and a consecutive mandatory life sentence for the discharge-of-a-firearm conviction.
On review, defendant contends that the trial justice erred by (1) failing to declare a mistrial and (2) denying defendant's motion for a new trial. The defendant maintains that each of these errors entitles him to have his conviction vacated and to be granted a new trial. After careful consideration of defendant's arguments and a thorough review of the record, we affirm the judgment of conviction.
On July 18, 2017, an Attleboro, Massachusetts, police officer made a grisly discovery—a human corpse that had been set afire and abandoned. Through fingerprint analysis, the police were able to identify the decedent as Valdez Loiseau (Valdez).1
Prior to his death, Valdez resided at 15 Edgewood Avenue in Cranston with his girlfriend Melonie Perez (Melonie) and her son, defendant.2
On January 10, 2018, defendant was charged by indictment with murder and use of a firearm during a crime of violence. Melonie was also charged by indictment with failure to report a death and misprision of a felony. A codefendant jury trial began on October 1, 2018; however, Melonie pled guilty in the middle of trial. At trial, the state called thirteen witnesses. The defendant presented two witnesses—himself and his grandmother, Martha Perez (Martha), who is Melonie's mother. The testimony revealed the following.
Around July 2016, Valdez moved into 15 Edgewood Avenue after a friend of Melonie's "vouched for him" and explained that "he needed a place to stay." Valdez paid rent and had his own room in the house. He also used a room as a recording "studio" to further his nascent career as a rap musician. After several months of living in the home, Valdez began dating Melonie.
On the afternoon of July 17, 2017, Valdez and Melonie left the house in Melonie's vehicle. Shortly thereafter, Melonie returned home alone and told defendant that Valdez had wrecked her car. The defendant went outside and observed the damaged vehicle. Approximately twenty-five minutes later, Valdez returned home upset that Melonie had left him at the scene of the accident. The defendant then heard Valdez and Melonie arguing for "hours."
At some point during the argument, Martha received a call from Melonie's phone, during which she heard Melonie "crying and screaming" and "heard somebody else's screaming." Martha immediately drove to 15 Edgewood Avenue. When she entered the home, she heard screaming upstairs. She then rushed upstairs and was met by Melonie; Melonie appeared intoxicated and ran toward Martha exclaiming, "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, he wrecked my car."
Valdez then entered the hallway, where Martha and Melonie were standing, and, according to Martha, he "went and grabbed Melonie." Martha observed that Valdez also appeared to be intoxicated. The defendant attempted to separate Melonie and Valdez, and, eventually, Melonie left the home.
Valdez followed Melonie out of the home, and Martha and defendant went after them. Melonie and Valdez entered a corner store that was located a few doors away from the home, and then Melonie returned home and locked the door. Martha and defendant watched as Valdez repeatedly banged on the door and called Melonie's name, but Melonie did not open the door to let him in. Martha then left, "because Melonie was locked in the house[,]" and Martha believed "[s]he was safe in the home."
The defendant testified that, after Martha left, Valdez climbed up onto the porch, "pushed in the AC that was in his room[,]" and entered the home. The defendant then also entered the home by climbing through an unlocked kitchen window. The defendant testified that, once inside the home, he remained on the first floor, where he could hear Melonie and Valdez arguing upstairs.
At some point during the argument, defendant heard a loud bang and rushed upstairs, where he found Melonie on the floor in the corner of the room, while Valdez was "pacing" and "ranting" with a gun in his hand. The defendant testified that he also observed a gun "on the bed directly in front [of] where she is sitting." The defendant testified that Valdez dropped the gun he was holding, and defendant removed both guns from the room—placing one under the mattress in a spare bedroom upstairs and placing the other under the couch cushions on the first floor.
The defendant testified that he was seated on the first-floor couch—where he had hidden one of the guns—when he "heard a loud, loud scream from [his] mother." He then put the gun in his waistband and ran upstairs. Upon reaching the bedroom, defendant observed Valdez pulling Melonie up by her hair and smacking her a few times in the stomach. The defendant testified that he was attempting to move Valdez away from Melonie when Valdez spun around "aggressively" and "rushed" defendant. The defendant said he then pulled out the gun and shot Valdez. Valdez fell to the floor, and defendant attempted to fire a second shot but the gun "did not fire for whatever reason." The defendant testified that he "still thought [Valdez] could have been a threat[,]" so he retrieved the second gun from the spare room and shot Valdez in the head as Valdez was "trying to lift himself up[.]"
After the shooting, Melonie called her ex-boyfriend, James Clark, and asked him to help dispose of the body. Clark testified that defendant told him that he had killed Valdez; defendant explained to Clark that he shot Valdez after Valdez had "lunged at him[.]" Melonie and defendant wrapped Valdez's body in sheets and loaded it into the trunk of Clark's car. Clark and Melonie then got into the vehicle while defendant retrieved a gas container. Clark testified that, once all three were in the vehicle, Melonie instructed him to drive to Pawtucket. Melonie further directed Clark to a "secluded" area where he stopped the vehicle. Clark testified that he remained in the vehicle while Melonie and defendant removed Valdez's body from the trunk. He further testified that he observed defendant lighting a fire before he returned to the vehicle.
After seven days of testimony, the jury found defendant not guilty of first-degree murder, guilty of second-degree murder, and guilty of discharging a firearm during a crime of violence, thereby causing the death of Valdez Loiseau. On October 22, 2018, defendant filed a motion for a new trial. The motion was heard on October 24, 2018, and the trial justice denied the motion in an oral decision that was rendered at the end of the hearing on the same day. On April 1, 2019, defendant was sentenced to twenty-four years’ imprisonment for the second-degree-murder conviction and a consecutive mandatory life sentence for the conviction for discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence, thereby causing death. A judgment of conviction entered on that same day, and defendant sought review.3
On review, defendant first argues that the trial justice erred by failing to declare a mistrial. Second, defendant argues that the trial justice erred in denying defendant's motion for a new trial.
The defendant asserts two claims of error with regard to the trial justice's failure to declare a mistrial. First, he claims that the trial justice erred "in failing to declare a mistrial at the close of the [s]tate's case due to the prosecutor's improper introduction of prejudicial out-of-court statements of a witness not available for trial[,]" in violation of defendant's rights under the Confrontation Clause of the United States Constitution and article 1, section 10 of the Rhode Island Constitution. Second, he argues that the trial justice erred in failing to grant a mistrial given the prosecutor's "improper suggestions and assertions of personal knowledge in his closing argument, which included unduly prejudicial scientific statements not presented as evidence in trial[.]"
The defendant avers that the prosecutor improperly "introduced testimonial statements by a nontestifying witness to be used against the defendant, thus implicating the Confrontation Clause." During the prosecution's cross-examination of defendant, the following exchange occurred:
The defendant did not raise a contemporaneous objection during trial; however, defendant now argues, for the first time on review, that "[b]ecause of...
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