State v. Villafuerte

• Decision Date: 25 October 1984
• Docket Number: No. 6038,6038
• Citation: State v. Villafuerte, 142 Ariz. 323, 690 P.2d 42 (Ariz. 1984)
• Parties: STATE of Arizona, Appellee, v. Jose Roberto VILLAFUERTE, Appellant.
• Court: Arizona Supreme Court

Page 42

690 P.2d 42

142 Ariz. 323

STATE of Arizona, Appellee, v.Jose Roberto VILLAFUERTE, Appellant.

No. 6038.

Supreme Court of Arizona In Banc.

Oct. 25, 1984.

Robert K. Corbin, Atty. Gen. by William J. Schafer III and Jack Roberts, Asst. Attys.Gen., Phoenix, for appellee.

Ross P. Lee, Maricopa County Public Defender by Arthur G. Hazelton, Deputy Public Defender, Phoenix, for appellant.

CAMERON, Justice.

Defendant, Jose Roberto Villafuerte, was convicted by a jury on 18 July 1983 of kidnapping, A.R.S. § 13-1304; first degree murder, A.R.S. § 13-1105(A)(2); and theft of property valued in excess of $1,000, A.R.S. § 13-1802.The trial court entered a judgment of guilt on all charges and the defendant received the following sentences: life imprisonment without possibility of parole or release for at least 25 years on the kidnapping conviction, A.R.S. § 13-604.01(A); death on the first degree murder conviction, A.R.S. § 13-703; and 15 years imprisonment on the theft conviction to run concurrently with the kidnapping sentence, A.R.S. § 13-604(B).We have jurisdiction of this appeal pursuant to Art. 6, § 5(3) of the Arizona Constitution, andA.R.S. §§ 13-4031and13-4035.

Defendant raises eight issues on appeal:

1.Did the trial court improperly allow Dr. Thomas B. Jarvis, a forensic pathologist, to testify as to the results of laboratory reports not prepared by him?

2.Did the State present sufficient evidence to prove defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?

3.Did the trial court err in failing to instruct the jury on the definition of intent as to the kidnapping charge?

4.Did the trial court properly instruct the jury as to the dangerous nature of the kidnapping charge?

5.Did the trial court coerce the jury into finding a unanimous verdict?

6.Is A.R.S. § 13-703, the death penalty statute, unconstitutional?

7.Did the defendant commit this murder in an especially cruel and depraved manner?

8.Was the death penalty properly imposed?

The facts necessary to a determination of these issues are as follows.On the afternoon of 22 February 1983, a Coconino County Sheriff's Deputy responded to a disturbance call in the vicinity of Drake's Siding, an unimproved area approximately 20 miles south of Ash Fork, Arizona.A search of the area uncovered a badly damaged 1978, red and white, Ford Thunderbird automobile.Villafuerte was found asleep approximately 100 feet away in a creek bed.

Villafuerte was taken into custody.A search of his person uncovered a California birth certificate bearing the name Ubaldo Gonzalez Dominquez.A search of the vehicle uncovered a purse containing jewelry and money.A vehicle registration certificate, found on the steering column, and identification, found in the purse, indicated that both belonged to Amelia Schoville.Efforts to contact Amelia Schoville proved fruitless.Her ex-husband was, however, contacted and advised to file a missing person report, which he did.

Villafuerte was transferred to a sheriff's substation in Williams where he was advised of his rights by a Spanish speaking employee of the Williams Police Department.The following afternoon, Russell P. Schubert, then a detective with the sheriff's department, and now a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, traveled to Williams from Flagstaff for the purpose of interrogating Villafuerte about the missing person.He was accompanied by Special Agent Robert J. Prida of the F.B.I. who was enlisted to act as a translator.

Evidently, to prevent knowledge of his probation status, Villafuerte continued to maintain that his name was Dominquez.He told Schubert and Prida that he was transported to Drake's Siding after being recruited near a Prescott laundromat by two individuals who asked him to repair their car.Later Villafuerte stated that the laundromat was not in Prescott, but in Ash Fork.

Later in the afternoon Villafuerte revealed his real name and requested to speak to Special Agent Prida.During the course of a tape recorded interview, Villafuerte told Prida and Schubert that Amelia Schoville was his girlfriend.He related that they had fought in a trailer that Villafuerte was renting under the name of Ray Baca.Villafuerte insisted that Schoville attacked him with a knife after they had both been drinking.He claimed that in the course of disarming her, he had struck and kicked her several times and that she sustained a head wound when she fell against an air conditioning vent.

Villafuerte stated that he wrapped the victim's head with bedding to stop the bleeding.At the urging of two friends who he contended were present, Villafuerte claimed that he loosely bound the victim using only torn sheets to prevent her from calling the police.Villafuerte insisted that Schoville was alive and talking with him prior to the time he left.He stated that she consented to the taking of her car and that arrangements were made for her to recover it in Prescott on the following day.Villafuerte claimed to have left instructions with the two friends present in the trailer to untie Schoville once he had safely departed.Maintaining that he was concerned with the victim's welfare, Villafuerte consented to an entry of the trailer.This was fully 24 hours after he was apprehended and 48 hours after the events which he had related.

Agents Schubert and Prida contacted the Phoenix Police Department and advised it to check on the possibility of someone being in the trailer.Detective Gus Oviedo was then dispatched to the trailer.He observed a body on a bed through an opening in the door.He entered the trailer and ascertained that the victim was dead.A search warrant was then obtained.The ensuing search of the interior and vicinity surrounding the trailer failed to disclose a knife or evidence of alcohol consumption.The body was later determined to be that of Amelia Schoville.She was clad only in a blouse, bra, and panties which were inside out.Her hands had been tied tightly behind her back with strips of bed sheet.A strip of bedding also bound one of the victim's ankles at one end and her hands at the other.The decedent's thumbs were tied together with shoelaces and her entire head was wrapped in a sheet, a bed spread, and long thermal underwear, all of which were bloodstained.

A subsequent autopsy disclosed that the victim had several recent bruises and a recent abrasion on her left ankle.The victim also had a scalp laceration with an underlying hairline fracture of the skull.A ball made of a tightly wrapped strip of bed sheet was found in the victim's nasal pharynx.Dr. Thomas B. Jarvis, Maricopa County Deputy Chief Medical Examiner, testified that the victim died as a result of gagging.Additionally, Dr. Jarvis testified that lab tests disclosed the presence of seminal fluid in the victim's vagina and also that a blood alcohol test proved negative.Defendant was tried and convicted as charged and appeals.

EXPERT TESTIMONY

Defendant first asserts that Dr. Jarvis was improperly allowed to testify as to the results of laboratory reports not prepared by him.As authority for this proposition, defendant cites State v. Ceja, 113 Ariz. 39, 546 P.2d 6(1976), in which testimony by a City of Phoenix Crime Laboratory employee as to the results of ballistic comparisons made by another employee was held to be patent hearsay not within any exception.

Ceja was decided prior to the enactment of Arizona's new Rules of Evidence, 17A A.R.S., in 1977.Rule 703 is now dispositive of the issue presented.It provides in pertinent part:

The facts or data in the particular case upon which an expert bases an opinion or inference may be those * * * made known to him at or before the hearing.If of a type reasonably relied upon by experts in the particular field in forming opinions or inferences upon the subject, the facts or data need not be admissible in evidence.

The comment to Rule 703 clearly illustrates that evidence of the type involved in this case is within the rule: "[e]vidence which is inadmissible except as it may qualify as being 'reasonably relied upon by experts in the particular field' has traditionally included such things as certain medical reports * * *."See alsoState v. Noleen, 142 Ariz. 101, 104, 688 P.2d 993, 996(testimony by one medical examiner as to the results of an autopsy performed by another);State v. (Enos) Clark, 112 Ariz. 493, 496, 543 P.2d 1122, 1125(1975)(setting forth the federal rule subsequently adopted in Arizona);Gaston v. Hunter, 121 Ariz. 33, 44, 588 P.2d 326, 337(App.1978)(relating to expert medical testimony based upon an examination of learned medical articles);State v. Rupp, 120 Ariz. 490, 497-98, 586 P.2d 1302, 1309-10(App.1978)(involving testimony by Dr. Jarvis about samples he took from a deceased, as in the instant case, but which other laboratory personnel prepared).We see little to distinguish the case at bar from the foregoing authorities.We find no error.

SUBSTANTIAL EVIDENCE

Defendant maintains that the trial court erred in failing to grant his motion for a judgment of acquittal.We do not agree.

A conviction will not be upset on appeal unless there is no substantial evidence to justify it.E.g., State v. Poland, 132 Ariz. 269, 281, 645 P.2d 784, 796(1982);State v. Clow, 130 Ariz. 125, 126, 634 P.2d 576, 577(1981);State v. (Raymond) Tison, 129 Ariz. 546, 552, 633 P.2d 355, 361(1981), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 882, 103 S.Ct. 180, 74 L.Ed.2d 147(1982).Evidence is considered in the light most favorable to sustaining the conviction.State v. Piatt, 132 Ariz. 145, 151, 644 P.2d 881, 887(1981);State v. Hall, 129 Ariz. 589, 593, 633 P.2d 398, 402(1981);State v. Trotter, 110 Ariz. 61, 63, 514 P.2d 1249, 1251(1973).With these principles in mind, we find that the jury had before it substantial evidence to decide as it did.

As to the kidnapping charge, the jury could have considered the manner in which the victim was bound and gagged...