State v. White
| Decision Date | 19 April 2011 |
| Docket Number | No. 20090322.,20090322. |
| Citation | 251 P.3d 820,2011 UT 21,680 Utah Adv. Rep. 25 |
| Parties | STATE of Utah, Plaintiff and Respondent,v.Brenda Christine WHITE, Defendant and Petitioner. |
| Court | Utah Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Mark L. Shurtleff, Att'y Gen., J. Frederic Voros, Jr., Laura B. Dupaix, Asst. Att'ys Gen., Salt Lake City, for plaintiff.Richard G. Uday, Jason A. Schatz, Salt Lake City, for defendant.Justice NEHRING, opinion of the Court:
INTRODUCTION
¶ 1 Brenda White was charged with the attempted murder of her ex-husband, Jon White, after she chased and hit him with her car at Mr. White's workplace. Shortly after she was charged, Ms. White filed a pretrial motion asking the trial judge to instruct the jury on the extreme emotional distress defense. In her motion, Ms. White argued that the defense was warranted because, on the date of the incident, stress she felt from her divorce, along with financial difficulties and other emotional problems, overwhelmed her ability to act rationally and caused her to lose all self-control. The trial judge denied Ms. White's motion. The court of appeals affirmed. Because we conclude that the court of appeals applied the wrong standard when it evaluated the availability of the extreme emotional distress defense, we reverse the decision of the court of appeals with instructions to remand to the trial court to reevaluate evidence in support of the defense in a manner consistent with this opinion.
¶ 2 Brenda and Jon White were married for eleven years. Both parties admit the marriage was difficult and that talk of divorce was common. According to Ms. White, Jon was addicted to pornography and suggested that Ms. White participate in “sexual threesomes” with him and his co-worker. Ms. White further alleges that during the marriage Jon was having an affair with another woman. These behaviors caused Ms. White to experience feelings of great anxiety, anger, and agitation, and they eventually led to the couple's divorce.
¶ 3 Following the divorce, Ms. White's stress increased. She struggled financially to support her two daughters and, as a result of having to work more hours, saw less of her children. Throughout this period of time, Ms. White claims that Jon began to withdraw from the children and failed to pay child support. Jon canceled Ms. White's medical insurance, which left her unable to pay for medication she needed to treat her anxiety and depression.
¶ 4 As part of the divorce settlement, Ms. White was awarded the couple's house. Because of her financial troubles, Ms. White attempted to refinance the home, but learned that she would not be able to complete the refinancing process without Jon's assistance and signatures.
¶ 5 On April 26, 2006, Brenda went to Jon's office to speak to him about refinancing the house. Jon spoke to the mortgage broker by phone, but told Brenda the issue would ultimately need to be resolved at a later time. Following the call, Jon walked out to the parking lot with Brenda. Brenda asked Jon to sign a quit-claim deed to the marital home, but Jon refused to do so until Brenda took his name off the two mortgages encumbering the property. The conversation escalated in intensity and Brenda became extremely upset. She climbed into her vehicle and turned on music with the lyrics, “I want to kill you; I want to blow you away.” During the song, she joined her hands together to mimic a gun and pointed her fingers at Jon. She then told Jon he was a “parasite” and that she was going to wipe him off the earth. Jon went back into the office, and Brenda drove away.
¶ 6 That same afternoon, around 4:30 p.m., Ms. White returned to Jon's workplace to again discuss refinancing the home. When she arrived, Jon was leaving the office building. Brenda observed him talking on a cell phone—a cell phone that she claims Jon had repeatedly denied owning. Ms. White testified that at that moment she was overcome with all the anger, agitation, loss, grief, and disappointment she had experienced throughout her relationship and the divorce. Ms. White claims at that point, her emotions took over and she lost all self-control.
¶ 7 As she watched Jon talk on his cell phone, Ms. White drove her vehicle toward him, accelerating quickly. When Jon heard tires screeching, he jumped between two parked cars, over a small cement wall, and back into his office building. Ms. White continued to follow Jon, driving her car through the building's double glass doors. After entering the lobby with her car, Ms. White struck Jon twice with her vehicle. Jon flew over the hood of the car and landed on the ground, injuring his left leg.
¶ 8 Brenda was arrested and charged with attempted murder and criminal mischief. In preparation for trial, she filed a motion in limine requesting the court to instruct the jury on the defense of extreme emotional distress found in Utah Code section 76–5–203. In her motion, Ms. White argued that under this section she was entitled to let a jury consider whether during the relevant events Ms. White was acting “under the influence of extreme emotional distress” for which there was a “reasonable explanation or excuse.”
¶ 9 The State opposed her motion. It proffered evidence from Mr. White's sister, who testified that Brenda called her shortly after the events and told her that she thought she had just killed Jon. Mr. White's sister testified that Brenda's tone was “matter-of-fact” and “unemotional.” The State also introduced the statement of the officer who responded to the scene just after the events occurred. The officer testified that when he approached Ms. White, she was still in her car. He observed that she was not crying and did not appear upset.
¶ 10 After the trial court heard argument on the issue, it denied Ms. White's pretrial motion and declined to give the affirmative defense jury instruction. In its order, the trial court stated that “[t]he extreme emotional distress defense is available only to defendants who have been subjected to stress that would cause the average reasonable person to have an extreme emotional reaction and experience a loss of self control.” The trial court concluded that while Ms. White may have been angry and under stress, the stressors she claimed caused her to attack her ex-husband were “common occurrences” for divorced couples and happened “several weeks to years” before the day of her violent attack. The trial court also found that Ms. White's return to Jon's workplace four hours after their argument, along with her negotiation of a “complicated driving pattern” indicated she “was aware of what she was doing and was in control of her faculties at the time in question.”
¶ 11 Ms. White filed a petition for an interlocutory appeal to challenge the trial court's decision to deny her motion.
¶ 12 The court of appeals affirmed the trial court's decision.1 The court of appeals reasoned that to be eligible for an extreme emotional distress defense instruction, a defendant must show that the “defendant's loss of self-control be in reaction to a highly provocative triggering event ” that is “ contemporaneous with the defendant's loss of self-control.” 2 In its application of this rule to Ms. White's case, the court stated:
Ultimately, the only contemporaneous, provocative event that preceded [Ms. White's] loss of self-control was [Jon's] use of a cell phone that he had previously denied possessing. This event is not sufficiently provocative, even when viewed in its unique context, to entitle [Ms. White] to a jury instruction on the affirmative defense of extreme emotional distress.3
¶ 13 The court of appeals reasoned that Ms. White “had the opportunity to proffer as much evidence as she deemed necessary to show that she qualified” for the defense, but the only information she actually proffered—“marital difficulties, financial stress, parenting issues, other difficulties with divorce, and the death of a therapist—lack[ed] the requisite contemporaneous relationship to her loss of self-control.” 4 Finally, the court of appeals held that the availability of the extreme emotional distress defense must be evaluated using an objective standard and based on the expected conduct of a reasonable person under the then-existing circumstances, not the subjective point of view of Ms. White.5 Ms. White filed a petition for certiorari, which we granted. We have jurisdiction under Utah Code section 78A–3–102(3)(a) (Supp.2010).
¶ 14 On certiorari, we review the decision of the court of appeals for correctness, giving no deference to its conclusions of law.6
¶ 15 We granted certiorari to determine whether the court of appeals erred in holding that Ms. White was required to demonstrate a highly provocative and contemporaneous triggering event as a prerequisite to an affirmative defense of extreme emotional distress.
¶ 16 Ms. White contends the court of appeals erred when it required her to show a “highly provocative and contemporaneous triggering event” because this language does not appear in the statute and this standard is more demanding than the language of the statute and our case law requires.7 Ms. White urges us to reverse the decision of the court of appeals and hold that she is entitled to let the jury consider this defense at trial.
¶ 17 The State asks us to affirm the decision of the court of appeals. The State concedes, as it must, that the extreme emotional distress defense statute does not contain the “highly provocative and contemporaneous triggering event” language, but it nevertheless argues that case law interpreting the extreme emotional distress defense statute clearly requires application of this rigorous standard.
¶ 18 We do not decide whether Ms. White is entitled to an extreme emotional distress defense jury instruction at trial because this is not the question presented to us. But we do conclude that the court of appeals' decision imposes a standard more exacting than the statute mandates. We therefore...
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