State v. Woolheater

• Decision Date: 07 December 2011
• Docket Number: No. 1-798 / 10-0478,1-798 / 10-0478
• Parties: STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. LOUIS EUGENE WOOLHEATER, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Iowa Court of Appeals

STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.LOUIS EUGENE WOOLHEATER, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 1-798 / 10-0478

COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

Filed December 7, 2011

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, Joel D. Novak, Judge.

A defendant challenges his judgment and conviction for the offense of first-degree murder, contending (1) the evidence was insufficient to support the jury's finding of guilt, (2) the verdict was contrary to the weight of the evidence, (3) the district court improperly admitted certain evidence, and (4) the district court abused its discretion in overruling his mistrial motion based on claimed prosecutorial misconduct. AFFIRMED.

Susan R. Stockdale, Des Moines, for appellant.

Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Thomas S. Tauber, Assistant Attorney General, John P. Sarcone, County Attorney, and Steve Foritano and Mike Salvner, Assistant County Attorneys, for appellee.

Heard by Vaitheswaran, P.J., and Potterfield and Doyle, JJ. Tabor, J., takes no part.

VAITHESWARAN, P.J.

Lance Morningstar's bullet-riddled body was found behind the Altoona home of Louis Woolheater. The State charged Woolheater with first-degree murder and a jury found him guilty as charged.

On appeal, Woolheater contends: (1) the evidence was insufficient to support the jury's finding of guilt, (2) the verdict was contrary to the weight of the evidence, (3) the district court improperly admitted certain evidence, and (4) the district court abused its discretion in overruling his mistrial motion based on claimed prosecutorial misconduct.

I. Sufficiency of the Evidence

The jury was instructed that the State would have to prove the following elements of first-degree murder:

1. On or about September 30, 2004, the defendant or someone he aided and abetted shot Lance Morningstar.

2. Lance Morningstar died as a result of being shot.

3. The defendant or someone he aided and abetted acted with malice aforethought.

4. The defendant or someone he aided and abetted acted willfully, deliberately, premeditatedly and with a specific intent to kill Lance Morningstar.

See Iowa Code §§ 707.1, .2(1) (2003). Woolheater asserts there was "no forensic or physical evidence to link [him] to Morningstar's death and no evidence of premeditation or malice aforethought." A reasonable juror could have found otherwise.

The State theorized that Woolheater killed Morningstar at the request of a friend named Vern Huser, who had discovered that his wife was having an affairwith Morningstar.¹ In support of that theory, the State called Huser's wife, who admitted to an intimate relationship with Morningstar. She also testified that, when Huser found out about the affair, he was "angry and [h]urt" and "wanted revenge." He told her that, some day, Morningstar "would turn up missing and that no one would find his body."² While Huser's wife acknowledged that she never heard her husband mention Woolheater by name, other witnesses tied Woolheater to the crime.

According to one of Woolheater's many girlfriends, Woolheater told her Huser wanted Morningstar "roughed up" because he had an affair with his wife or ex-wife. Another girlfriend testified that Woolheater carried around a blue bag with a gun in it. Yet another girlfriend testified that Woolheater told her "one of his friend's [wives] was cheating and that he wanted to get the guy." When this girlfriend asked Woolheater why he cared about his friend's marital problems, he said the two of them "stick together." Woolheater also told her "he was going to kill [Morningstar]." After the shooting, he called her again and said "he was in big trouble."

A fourth girlfriend, Michelle Zwank, directly tied Woolheater to the shooting. According to her, Woolheater said his brother and his nephew "Ricky" would be coming into town to "deal with [Morningstar]" and he wanted to "check it out or whatever." Woolheater had Zwank drop him off near Morningstar's house.He told Zwank he would call her and left carrying a satchel that looked "like something that you would have pool cues in." Zwank drove around for awhile and, in time, received a call from Woolheater in which he said, "Ricky made a hell of a shot."

Zwank picked up Woolheater, but later took him back to Morningstar's house "to clean up the scene." She backed up to the house and opened the trunk of her car, as instructed. Woolheater brought out "a big form" wrapped in tarp. Zwank assumed the form was a body, an assumption that was confirmed when Woolheater told her to "[g]rab the feet." Woolheater deposited the body into the trunk and Zwank drove her car back to Woolheater's house, where she left it for the night. At the end of the day, Woolheater instructed Zwank to purchase a chemical that "would dissolve anything." The following day, Woolheater returned Zwank's car to her without the body. Zwank never saw "Ricky" or Woolheater's brother.

In addition to these girlfriends' testimonies, a friend of both Huser and Woolheater connected Woolheater to the crime. Lawrence Webb testified that he saw Huser and Woolheater together. At one point, Huser told him Morningstar ended up with money that went to Huser's ex-wife. Woolheater separately told him Huser wanted "something done about it." A day after Morningstar's body was found, Webb went to Woolheater's house. Woolheater told him "the body wasn't even supposed to be there. It was supposed to be in Oklahoma in a pit." Woolheater also said .22 caliber ammunition was used in the shooting.

A reasonable juror could have found this evidence sufficient to support the elements of first-degree murder, whether Woolheater was acting as a principal or as an aider or abettor. See State v. Lewis, 514 N.W.2d 63, 66 (Iowa 1994) (stating aiding and abetting requires proof that the defendant "assented to or lent countenance and approval to the criminal act either by active participation in it or by some manner encouraging it prior to or at the time of its commission" (quoting State v. Lott, 255 N.W.2d 105, 107 (Iowa 1977))).

II. Whether the Verdict was Contrary to the Weight of the Evidence

Woolheater moved for a new trial on the ground that the verdict was contrary to the evidence. He cited conflicting DNA evidence identifying Morningstar as the person in the trunk of Zwank's car, the claimed absence of forensic or ballistic evidence tying him to the crime, and the absence of "money exchanged or an agreement" with Huser. The district court denied the motion, stating "I considered and heard all of the witnesses in this case testifying against Mr. Woolheater. And I find that those witnesses were credible and no miscarriage of justice is taken based on the weight of the evidence test." See State v. Ellis, 578 N.W.2d 655, 659 (Iowa 1998) (stating the "weight of the evidence" refers to "a determination [by] the trier of fact that a greater amount of credible evidence supports one side of an issue or cause than the other" (quoting Tibbs v. Florida, 457 U.S. 31, 37-38, 102 S. Ct. 2211, 2216, 72 L. Ed. 2d 652, 658 (1982))). Our review of this ruling is for an abuse of discretion. See id. at 659.

We begin with the conflicting DNA evidence cited by Woolheater. Law enforcement officers extracted a "weak" DNA sample from the trunk of Zwank'scar, which a State expert attempted to link to Morningstar. The State's efforts were challenged by a defense expert, who questioned the State's interpretation of the sample. While this evidence was controverted, the district court found all the State's witnesses more credible. As the court exercised its unique authority "to weigh the evidence and determine credibility," we will not second guess this finding. See State v. Reeves, 670 N.W.2d 199, 208 (Iowa 2003).

That said, even without this disputed evidence and even without forensic or ballistic evidence tying Woolheater to the crime, the State presented several witnesses who connected Woolheater to Huser and to the shooting of Morningstar. The district court acted well within its authority in finding these witnesses credible. Accordingly, we conclude the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Woolheater's motion for new trial on this ground.

III. Evidentiary Issues

A. Ownership of Firearms

At trial, an agent with the Department of Criminal Investigation testified that Woolheater told him that, at one time, he had over 200 firearms. Woolheater said he no longer had any, as he either gave them to his brother or sold them. He also said law enforcement authorities probably would not come across any of the guns. Woolheater did not disclose that he gave some of the guns to one of his girlfriends.

Based on these statements, the State sought to admit evidence of a cache of guns Woolheater gave to that girlfriend. The prosecutor argued that

[t]he fact that [Woolheater] knew that [his girlfriend] was holding weapons for him, including what we believe to be the murder weapon, shows a consciousness of guilt in that he knew that theseweapons would land him in trouble and would then connect him with that murder. Otherwise, he would have not answered the way he did.

The district court admitted evidence of Woolheater's ownership of these and other guns, ammunition, and silencers. On appeal, Woolheater contends the evidence was irrelevant and prejudicial. Our review is for an abuse of discretion. See State v. Paredes, 775 N.W.2d 554, 560 (Iowa 2009) (articulating an abuse of discretion standard of review on evidentiary rulings).

"Relevant evidence" is "evidence having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence." Iowa R. Evid. 5.401. The State asserts the gun evidence was relevant for the following reasons:

(1) That evidence of Woolheater's ownership of firearms was admissible to show the falsity of his claim that he owned no firearms, and thus to support an inference concerning his consciousness of guilt; and (2) that evidence of Woolheater's

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