State v. Wood

Decision Date30 December 1993
Docket NumberNo. 900194,900194
Citation229 Utah Adv.Rep. 12,868 P.2d 70
PartiesSTATE of Utah, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Lance Conway WOOD, Defendant and Appellant.
CourtUtah Supreme Court

R. Paul Van Dam, Atty. Gen., J. Frederic Voros, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Salt Lake City, for the State.

G. Fred Metos, Salt Lake City, for Lance Conway Wood.

STEWART, Justice:

A jury found defendant Lance Conway Wood guilty of murder in the first degree, a capital offense, aggravated sexual assault, a first degree felony, and aggravated kidnapping, a first degree felony. Wood received a life sentence for the murder conviction and two consecutive sentences of ten years to life for the aggravated sexual assault and aggravated kidnapping convictions. He appeals his convictions for murder and aggravated sexual assault.

On October 25, 1988, Wood, newly released from the Utah State Prison, moved into the Cedar City two-bedroom apartment of his girlfriend, Brenda Stapely, and her roommate, Paula Jones. Soon after, Michael Archuleta, also just released from prison, moved into the same apartment to be with his girlfriend, Paula Jones. Wood and Archuleta had known each other in prison.

On November 21, 1988, Wood and Archuleta purchased soft drinks at a local convenience store. After adding whiskey to their drinks, the two men engaged in a conversation with Gordon Church, who was seated in his car in a nearby parking lot. Church drove Wood and Archuleta up and down Main Street and then up Cedar Canyon. After returning to Cedar City, Church left Wood and Archuleta at their apartment complex.

Wood and Archuleta walked to the apartment of Anthony Sich, who lived above the apartment rented to Stapely and Jones. Wood told Sich that he was going into the mountains and asked if he could borrow a pair of gloves. Sich sent Wood to retrieve the gloves from his car, and while Wood was outside, Church returned and invited him and Archuleta to go for another drive.

Church drove Wood and Archuleta back to Cedar Canyon and pulled off the road. Wood and Archuleta exited the car first and began to walk down a path. Archuleta told Wood that he wanted to rob Church, and Wood acquiesced. Church overtook the two men, and the three continued walking up the trail. As the men started back down the trail toward the car, Archuleta grabbed Church and put a knife to his neck. Although Wood attempted to stop Archuleta by grabbing his arm, Archuleta made a surface cut on Church's neck. Church broke free and ran, but Archuleta chased after and tackled him, again putting the knife to his neck and threatening to kill him. Archuleta cut Church's throat again so that the two cuts formed an "X" on the front of Church's neck.

Archuleta bent Church forward over the hood of the car and, with the knife still at Church's throat, had anal intercourse with him. At Church's request, Archuleta used a condom. Archuleta then turned to Wood, who was standing by the trunk of the car, and asked if he "wanted any." Wood declined. Archuleta went to the trunk of the car and opened it. He told Wood that he was looking for something with which he could bind Church. Wood removed a spare tire and a fan from the trunk, while Archuleta retrieved tire chains and battery cables. Wood remained at the rear of the car, while Archuleta returned to the front, where he wrapped the tire chains around Church. Archuleta also fastened the battery cable clamps to Church's genitals. Wood maintained before and at trial that he removed the clamps from Church as soon as he realized what Archuleta had done.

Archuleta led Church to the rear of the car and forced him into the trunk. Wood and Archuleta replaced the spare tire and fan and drove to a truck stop near Cedar City where they purchased gas. They continued north on Interstate 15 until they reached the Dog Valley exit. They parked along a deserted dirt road where Archuleta told Wood, "You know we have to kill him."

Archuleta removed Church from the trunk and attempted to kill him by breaking his neck. When that failed, Church suffered several blows to the head with a tire iron and a jack. The tire iron was then shoved and kicked so far into Church's rectum that it pierced his liver. A state medical examiner testified that Church was killed by injuries to the head and skull due to a blunt force and internal injuries caused by the tire iron inserted into Church's rectum.

Wood told police that he waited inside the car while Archuleta killed Church. Evidence adduced at trial, however, showed that Wood's pants and jacket were splattered with blood in a cast-off pattern indicating that during the beating, Wood was within two or three feet of Church, and that Wood was facing Church when the blows were struck. A blood spot appeared on the back of Archuleta's jacket, and Wood's shoes bore a transfer or contact blood stain caused by contact with a bloody object. Investigators found strands of human hair consistent with Church's hair wrapped around Wood's shoelaces. The injuries to Church's lower jaw were consistent with being kicked by someone wearing Wood's shoes. Three paired lesions on Church's back were caused by a dull-tipped instrument such as some red-handled side cutters found in the pocket of Wood's jeans.

After Church died, Wood and Archuleta dragged his body to some nearby trees, where they covered it with branches. They swept their path with branches on the way back to the car to conceal any footprints. With Wood at the wheel, the pair again drove north on I-15. They abandoned Church's car in Salt Lake City.

Wood called his friend Christy Worsfold and asked if he and Archuleta could come to her apartment for a few minutes. When the men arrived at the apartment, Worsfold immediately noticed that Archuleta's pants were caked with blood. Wood explained that they had been rabbit hunting the night before, their car had broken down, and they had hitchhiked to Salt Lake. The two men then went to a thrift store, where Archuleta bought some clean pants and repeated the rabbit hunting story to the store clerk.

Archuleta discarded his bloody jeans in a drainage ditch near the 45th South on-ramp to I-15 in Salt Lake County. He and Wood then went into a nearby Denny's restaurant, where Wood left the gloves he had borrowed from Sich. After eating, the two hitchhiked as far as the Draper exit, where Archuleta pulled out Church's wallet, scattered its contents, and handed the wallet to Wood. They next hitchhiked to Salem, where they visited Archuleta's father. From there, they hitchhiked to Cedar City, arriving at about 11:30 p.m.

Wood immediately went upstairs to Sich's apartment and told him about the murder. When Sich advised him to contact the police, Wood responded, "[M]aybe I could get some kind of federal protection." Sich and Wood walked to a local convenience store, where Wood called Brenda Stapely, who was in Phoenix, and told her that Archuleta had killed someone. Stapely contacted John Graff, Wood's parole officer, and told him to call Wood at the store. Graff called Wood and arranged to meet him at the convenience store. Just before Graff's arrival with the police, Wood discarded Church's wallet.

Wood and Sich accompanied Graff and a police officer to the corrections department office, where Wood recounted the events of the previous night. The police arrested Archuleta for the murder and, after several interviews with Wood, also charged Wood with murder in the first degree, aggravated sexual assault, object rape, forcible sexual abuse, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated assault, and possession of a stolen vehicle.

The State stipulated to defendant's motion to sever the counts of object rape, forcible sexual abuse, aggravated assault, and possession of a stolen vehicle. Wood was tried by a jury for first degree murder, aggravated sexual assault, and aggravated kidnapping. The jury found him guilty on all three counts. Because the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict as to the death penalty, the court imposed a life sentence for first degree murder and two consecutive mandatory minimum sentences of ten years to life for aggravated sexual assault and aggravated kidnapping.

Wood's appeal from his convictions for murder in the first degree and aggravated sexual assault asserts that the trial court erred (1) in refusing to exclude two potential jurors for cause, (2) in denying defendant's motion to suppress statements he made after he requested counsel, and (3) in imposing sentences for aggravated sexual assault and aggravated kidnapping because they were lesser included offenses of first degree murder. Wood also asserts that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to support a conviction of first degree murder and aggravated sexual assault.

I. POTENTIAL JURORS CHALLENGED FOR CAUSE

Wood contends that the trial court committed prejudicial error by refusing to excuse for cause two potential jurors who expressed a belief in the religious doctrine of "blood atonement" 1 on voir dire. Wood exercised two of his peremptory challenges to remove the jurors and used all his peremptory challenges during the course of jury selection.

In Utah, it is prejudicial error if a defendant uses all of his peremptory challenges and one of them was used to remove a juror who should have been removed for cause. State v. Wetzel, 868 P.2d 64, 66-67 (Utah 1993); State v. Chealey, 116 P.2d 377, 379 (Utah 1941); see State v. Bishop, 753 P.2d 439, 451 (Utah 1988); State v. Gotschall, 782 P.2d 459, 461 (Utah 1989); State v. Brooks, 563 P.2d 799, 802 (Utah 1977); Crawford v. Manning, 542 P.2d 1091, 1093 (Utah 1975). However, we will reverse the denial of a motion to remove a juror for cause only if the trial court abused its discretion in overruling the challenge for cause. Gotschall, 782 P.2d at 462; Bishop, 753 P.2d at 451; State v. Cobb, 774 P.2d 1123, 1125 (Utah 1989).

Each prospective juror in this case completed a thirty-two-page written questionnaire which asked if the juror was...

To continue reading

Request your trial
39 cases
  • Drinkard v. Walker
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Georgia
    • October 16, 2006
    ......In addition, because the "actual evidence" test adopted in State v. Estevez2 is inconsistent with our statutory rules for determining when one offense is "included in" another, we hereby overrule that decision and ...State, 569 A.2d 79 (Del.1990); People v. Abiodun, 111 P.3d 462, 465 (Colo. 2005); State v. Wood, 868 P.2d 70, 90-91 (Utah 1993), overruled on other grounds by State v. Mirquet, 914 P.2d 1144, 1147, n. 2 (Utah 1996). 30. 249 Ga. at 121, 288 ......
  • State v. Bond
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Utah
    • September 30, 2015
    ......Wood, 868 P.2d 70, 88–91 (Utah 1993)(merging a predicate offense of aggravated sexual assault with a first-degree murder conviction); State v. Nielsen, 2014 UT 10, ¶¶ 57–58, 326 P.3d 645(merging a conviction for aggravated kidnapping with an aggravated murder conviction because aggravated ......
  • People v. Matheny
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Colorado
    • May 20, 2002
    ... 46 P.3d 453 The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellant, . v. . Jonathan Edward MATHENY, Defendant-Appellee. . No. 01SA355. . Supreme Court of Colorado, En Banc. . May ...Herting, 604 N.W.2d 863, 864 (S.D.2000) ; Garza v. State, 34 S.W.3d 591, 593 (Tex.App.2000) ; State v. Wood, 868 P.2d 70, 83 (Utah 1993), overruled on other grounds, State v. Mirquet, 914 P.2d 1144, 1147 (Utah 1996) ; King v. Commonwealth, No. ......
  • State v. Iowa Dist. Court For Webster County
    • United States
    • United States State Supreme Court of Iowa
    • August 23, 2011
    ...(rejecting federal harmless error rule under Texas Constitution where physical violence applied to obtain confession); State v. Wood, 868 P.2d 70, 82 & n. 2 (Utah 1993), abrogated on other grounds by State v. Mirquet, 914 P.2d 1144, 1147 n. 2 (Utah 1996) (rejecting Supreme Court precedent i......
  • Request a trial to view additional results
1 books & journal articles

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT