State v. Wood

• Decision Date: 08 November 2021
• Docket Number: No. 80692-1-I (consolidated with No. 81660-8-I),80692-1-I (consolidated with No. 81660-8-I)
• Parties: STATE of Washington, Respondent, v. Jerry George WOOD, Jr., Appellant.
• Court: Washington Court of Appeals

498 P.3d 968

STATE of Washington, Respondent,

v.Jerry George WOOD, Jr., Appellant.

No. 80692-1-I (consolidated with No. 81660-8-I)

Court of Appeals of Washington, Division 1.

FILED November 8, 2021

Nielsen Koch PLLC, Attorney at Law, 1908 E Madison St., Seattle, WA, 98122, Jared Berkeley Steed, Nielsen Koch, PLLC, 1908 E Madison St., Seattle, WA, 98122-2842, for Appellant.

Prosecuting Attorney Snohomish, Snohomish County Prosecuting Attorney, 3000 Rockefeller Ave. M/s 504, Everett, WA, 98201, Seth Aaron Fine, Snohomish Co. Pros. Ofc., 3000 Rockefeller Ave., Everett, WA, 98201-4060, Mary Kathleen Webber, Snohomish County Prosecutors Office, 3000 Rockefeller Ave., Everett, WA, 98201-4061, for Respondent.

PUBLISHED OPINION

Andrus, A.C.J.

¶ 1 Jerry Wood, Jr. appeals his convictions and sentence for solicitation of first degree murder and solicitation of first degree kidnapping. We affirm the convictions, concluding that Wood was not denied his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel when his attorney turned over inculpatory evidence to the State. We reverse Wood's sentence and remand to the trial court to determine whether Wood's out-of-state convictions are comparable to Washington crimes and properly included in his offender score.

FACTS

¶ 2 On January 14, 2017, K.M. met Wood and his friend, Abdulaziz Mohamed, in a Shoreline bar. K.M. testified she left the bar with them when they offered to drive her home. Mohamed, however, testified that K.M. agreed to travel to Arlington with the men to visit Wood's friend, Rick Walton.

¶ 3 K.M. testified that when she got into the front passenger seat of Wood's car, Mohamed was in the driver's seat and Wood was in the back. She turned to thank Wood for giving her a ride home and he punched her in the face. According to K.M., Wood then pulled her into the back seat, grabbed her by the hair, and forced her to perform oral sex on him.

¶ 4 Mohamed described these events differently. He testified that Wood was initially in the driver's seat and there was no physical altercation between Wood and K.M. as they drove to a gas station in Everett. En route, Mohamed switched seats with Wood and took over driving. K.M. moved to the back seat with Wood when Mohamed got into the driver's seat. Mohamed described Wood as "drunk and excited" because he thought he was "going to do something sexual with this girl tonight." When they stopped at the gas station, Wood became agitated and Mohamed described Wood's mood as having "changed."

¶ 5 Wood instructed Mohamed to head to Walton's house. As Mohamed drove north on I-5, he realized Wood was very mad. He heard Wood begin to argue with K.M. and could feel the car shaking. When he looked back to see what was happening, he saw Wood placed K.M. in a headlock. Mohamed attempted to grab Wood's arm to stop him from assaulting K.M., but was unsuccessful. When Mohamed tried a second time to separate Wood and K.M., Wood showed him a gun. Mohamed became frightened for both himself and K.M. K.M. appeared scared and began screaming. Mohamed did not feel he could stop in the middle of the road and leave K.M. with Wood, so he decided to "punch the gas" and get to Walton's house "to get [K.M.] to some safe place." Mohamed called Walton before arriving to tell him they were on their way.

¶ 6 Once they arrived at Walton's house, Mohamed got out of the car in a panic and went to find Walton. Mohamed told Walton that Wood was in the car getting violent with K.M. and asked him to intervene. Together, they planned a way to get K.M. to safety and to get Wood off the property.

¶ 7 According to K.M., after Mohamed got out of the car, Wood ripped off her pants and underwear and forced her to have vaginal sex with him. Wood disputed K.M.’s version of events. He testified that they engaged in consensual intercourse and after they finished, K.M. asked Wood to take her home. When he refused, she hit him in the face. Wood admitted he became angry at K.M. and hit her in the face.

¶ 8 When Mohamed returned to the car, he found K.M. sobbing and naked from the waist down, with blood on her chest and marks on her face. Walton's girlfriend, Tara Lien, helped Mohamed get K.M. out of the car and into the house. K.M. realized at that point that she was not wearing any underwear or pants. Mohamed reached into the car to grab K.M.’s pants and purse and helped K.M. get dressed. He described her as "in distress ..., very confused, and shaking, [and] it was hard for her to stand straight." Wood remained in the backseat of his car.

¶ 9 K.M. recalled entering Walton's house, lying down on a couch, and seeing blood on her jacket and clumps of her hair on her clothes. K.M. insisted she did not want to call 911, and Lien used K.M.’s cellphone to call Amber Simpson and Jay Gaudina, K.M.’s friends, to ask them to come and take K.M. home.

¶ 10 Walton wanted Wood off his property. Once he knew K.M. was safely inside the house, Walton convinced Wood to accompany him and Mohamed to a nearby casino. Walton and Mohamed left in Walton's car and Walton's friend drove Wood's car because Wood had, by this time, passed out in the back seat.

¶ 11 Simpson and Gaudina picked K.M. up from Walton's house and drove her to a friend's nearby home. They later took her to the hospital because of the severity of K.M.’s injuries. K.M. had visible bruises under her nose, on her right eyelid, and around her mouth. Her lip was swollen and bleeding. At the hospital, the forensic nurse who examined K.M. noted bruising and redness over her right cheek and eyelid, blood in her right eye, and a disruption to the skin of her vagina. Semen samples collected from K.M.’s vagina and from the back of the car were consistent with Wood's DNA.

¶ 12 When the police subsequently executed a search warrant at Wood's home, they discovered the underwear K.M. had been wearing that night and her credit card in Wood's bedroom. They also found K.M.’s hair in the back seat of his car. On February 3, 2017, the State charged Wood with a single count of second degree rape by forcible compulsion under RCW 9A.44.050(1)(a).

¶ 13 In January 2018, while in the Snohomish County Jail awaiting trial, Wood was confined in a maximum security unit known as "the hole" at the same time as Anthony Baldonado, a man Wood had met in jail in 2017. Baldonado, who was trying to raise money for bail, testified that Wood promised to help him with bail money if Baldonado would help Wood with something. Wood asked Baldonado how much he needed and told him he would have the money dropped off with a bail bond company.

¶ 14 Later, Wood left the unit for a visit and when he returned, he told Baldonado that the money had been dropped off. Baldonado asked Wood if he had anything to read. Wood said he would give a book to a corrections officer to pass to Baldonado. A few hours later, while he was reading the book, Wood instructed Baldonado to flip to specific pages to receive a message from Wood. Baldonado followed Wood's directions and found "little sentences" handwritten in between the paragraphs of the book. Later that same day or the next day, Baldonado received a second book from Wood containing additional messages.

¶ 15 Wood's notes included descriptions of K.M., her house and address, and instructions to "make her disappear by any means." Wood stressed how important it was for K.M. to "disappear before the 5th" (Wood's trial date), and that Wood was relying on Baldonado. He told Baldonado to "babysit [her] for 40 days" or administer a lethal dose of heroin. The notes informed Baldonado that K.M. lived with her father and told him that "if the dad say[s] she is not there go in the house anyway [be]cause he's lying." Wood promised rewards including the money Baldonado needed for bail "plus a car and 200 a day to babysit for 40 days." Wood assured Baldonado that "you wont [sic] have to worry about shit [be]cause I got you with whatever work, money, house anything." A handwriting expert confirmed that Wood had written these notes.

¶ 16 At the same time that Wood passed these notes to Baldonado, Wood's mother, Shirley Malone, paid $450 towards Baldonado's bail. When Baldonado learned he was going to be released, he tore Wood's notes out of the books, intending to turn them over to his lawyer to get a deal on his pending charges. Jail staff, however, stopped Baldonado as he was leaving the jail and seized the notes. Baldonado later disclosed to law enforcement that Wood had asked him to kill or kidnap K.M. and explained how Wood had instructed him on how to read his handwritten notes on the pages Baldonado had removed from the two paperback books. The jail found one of the two books Wood had delivered to Baldonado and verified that the torn pages Baldonado had in his possession came from the book. Baldonado subsequently entered into a plea agreement on unrelated gun charges in which he agreed to testify against Wood.

¶ 17 Based on Wood's notes and Baldonado's statement to the police, the State amended the charges against Wood to include one count of criminal solicitation of first degree murder under RCW 9A.28.030(1) and RCW 9A.32.030(1)(a) and one count of solicitation of first degree kidnapping under RCW 9A.28.030(1) and RCW 9A.40.020.

¶ 18 After entering his guilty plea, Baldonado was incarcerated in the Washington Corrections Center (WCC) in Shelton. Wood's friend and fellow gang member, Andrew Tisdale, was incarcerated at the WCC at the same time. Wood sent a letter to Tisdale identifying Baldonado as a snitch in his case. In February 2019, several WCC inmates told Baldonado that Tisdale knew he was a snitch and showed him paperwork from Wood's criminal case in which Baldonado was identified as a witness. Handwritten notes on the pleadings, subsequently determined to be Wood's handwriting, identified witness "A.B." as Baldonado and called him a "rat." The inmates informed Baldonado that Tisdale wanted him to write an affidavit retracting any statement he had given police about...