State v. Young

• Decision Date: 29 February 2012
• Docket Number: 2 CA-CR 2010-0164
• Parties: THE STATE OF ARIZONA, Appellee, v. RONALD KELLY YOUNG, Appellant.
• Court: Arizona Court of Appeals

THE STATE OF ARIZONA, Appellee, v. RONALD KELLY YOUNG, Appellant.

2 CA-CR 2010-0164

COURT OF APPEALS STATE OF ARIZONA DIVISION TWO DEPARTMENT A

Date: February 29, 2012

NOTICE: THIS DECISION DOES NOT CREATE LEGAL PRECEDENT AND MAY NOT BE CITED EXCEPT AS AUTHORIZED BY APPLICABLE RULES. See Ariz. R. Supreme Court 111(c); ARCAP 28(c); Ariz. R. Crim. P. 31.24.

MEMORANDUM DECISION

Not for Publication

Rule 111, Rules of

the Supreme Court

APPEAL FROM THE SUPERIOR COURT OF PIMA COUNTY

Cause No. CR20084012

Honorable Christopher C. Browning, Judge

AFFIRMED IN PART

VACATED AND REMANDED IN PART

Thomas C. Horne, Arizona Attorney General By Kent E. Cattani and Laura P. Chiasson

Tucson

Attorneys for Appellee

Robert J. Hirsh, Pima County Public Defender

By David J. Euchner

Tucson

Attorneys for Appellant

ECKERSTROM, Presiding Judge.

¶1 Appellant Ronald Young was convicted after a jury trial of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and first-degree murder. He was sentenced to consecutive prison terms of natural life for the first-degree murder conviction and life with the possibility of parole after twenty-five years for the conspiracy conviction. Young argues on appeal that his convictions and sentences should be reversed because the trial court erred by denying his pretrial motions to dismiss and to suppress evidence, by admitting evidence about a shotgun, and by denying his motions for a mistrial and a new trial. He also argues there was insufficient evidence to support his convictions. For the following reasons, we vacate Young's sentence on count one, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and remand for resentencing consistent with this decision.

Factual and Procedural Background

¶2 We view the facts and the inferences to be drawn from them in the light most favorable to sustaining the convictions. State v. Cotten, 228 Ariz. 105, n.1, 263 P.3d 654, 656 n.1 (App. 2011). In November 1996, Gary T. was killed by a bomb that had been placed on the passenger seat of his car. Although Pamela Phillips, Gary's former spouse, was considered one of several possible suspects in the killing, law enforcement officials identified no evidence conclusively linking her or anyone else to the crime, and the case remained unsolved for nearly ten years.

¶3 Phillips and Gary had dissolved their marriage in November 1993, but Phillips remained the owner and beneficiary of a policy insuring Gary's life for $2million.¹ Phillips moved from Tucson to Aspen, Colorado, in May 1994. In Aspen, Phillips became friends with her neighbor, Young; he acted as her business consultant and helped her develop a website for a company she planned to start. Young and Phillips also periodically had an intimate relationship.

¶4 Young left Aspen suddenly in March or April of 1996. Sometime in April, apparently after Young had left, Aspen Police detective James Crowley attempted to interview Young as the suspect in a "fraud case." Phillips's attorney had reported the fraud to the police, and Phillips initially had wanted to assist in pursuing the charges but a few weeks later had refused to cooperate. Unable to locate Young, Crowley obtained a search warrant for his house. The warrant specified Crowley could search for "computer equipment, computers, computer files, optical storage, business documents and things related to the fraud case." After gathering additional evidence from several financial institutions, Aspen police obtained a warrant for Young's arrest in August 1996.

¶5 In October 1996, a few weeks before Gary was killed, law enforcement officers found a van Young had rented from the Aspen airport parked near Young's parents' house in California. Because the van had been reported stolen, local police impounded it and contacted the Aspen Police Department. Crowley searched the van and found numerous documents in Young's name. When Crowley later learned about Gary's murder, he remembered he had seen a map of Tucson and paperwork from Gary and Phillips's marital dissolution among the documents in the van. The van also contained alist of the names of some of Gary's friends and family members and a note with more identifying information about two of the people on the list, as well as evidence that in July 1996, under an assumed name, Young had stayed in a hotel in the same area of Tucson where Gary had lived. Crowley contacted the Pima County Sheriff's Department (PCSD) with the information he had obtained. PCSD, however, was unable to locate Young.

¶6 Young eventually was arrested in Florida in 2005 on the Colorado fraud warrant. Searches of his residence, hotel room, storage unit, and vehicle, as well as of a laptop computer seized during his arrest, revealed evidence that Young regularly had been receiving money from Phillips since Gary's death. Specifically, Young had maintained loan amortization schedules showing payments made on a debt of $400,000 owed to him. A forensic accountant examined that evidence, as well as Young's and Phillips's bank statements and Federal Express shipping records, and concluded the loan schedules were consistent with payments Phillips had been making to Young out of the proceeds of the life insurance policy. He also concluded the two had attempted to conceal the transactions.

¶7 Additionally, Young had recorded hours of telephone conversations with Phillips in which they exhaustively discussed the payments. During those conversations, they referred to their financial dealings both explicitly and implicitly as an illegal arrangement, and they expressed concern about detection. The two discussed news stories about Gary's death, and in one conversation when Phillips told Young she would not send him more money, he threatened that she would go to prison for murder. Finally,the jury heard testimony from a fellow jail inmate of Young's that Young had confessed to being responsible for Gary's death.

¶8 Young and Phillips each were charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. Young was convicted of both charges and sentenced to two life terms of imprisonment. This timely appeal followed.

Sufficiency of Evidence

¶9 Young argues there was insufficient evidence supporting his convictions. We review the sufficiency of evidence de novo. State v. Bible, 175 Ariz. 549, 595, 858 P.2d 1152, 1198 (1993). In doing so, we determine whether there is substantial evidence supporting the conviction. State v. Mathers, 165 Ariz. 64, 67, 796 P.2d 866, 869 (1990). "Substantial evidence is that which reasonable persons could accept as sufficient to support a guilty verdict beyond a reasonable doubt." State v. Rodriguez, 192 Ariz. 58, ¶ 10, 961 P.2d 1006, 1008 (1998); accord Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979). If reasonable jurors could fairly disagree about whether evidence establishes a fact at issue, the evidence is considered substantial. Rodriguez, 192 Ariz. 58, ¶ 10, 961 P.2d at 1008.

¶10 Relying on cases from other jurisdictions, Young contends that when a case is based entirely on circumstantial evidence, the government must disprove every reasonable theory of innocence consistent with the evidence. See, e.g., United States v. Marable, 574 F.2d 224, 228-29 (5th Cir. 1978); Daniels v. State, 777 So. 2d 1113, 1116 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2001). Although that once was the law in Arizona, it is no longer. See State v. Olivas, 119 Ariz. 22, 23, 579 P.2d 60, 61 (App. 1978); accord State v.Harvill, 106 Ariz. 386, 391, 476 P.2d 841, 846 (1970). Rather, our supreme court has held that "the probative value of direct and circumstantial evidence are intrinsically similar; therefore, there is no logically sound reason for drawing a distinction as to the weight to be assigned each." Harvill, 106 Ariz. at 391, 476 P.2d at 846. And here, there was sufficient evidence from which the jury could have found Young first conspired with Phillips to kill Gary and then carried out the killing.

¶11 Young contends the evidence established only that he was blackmailing Phillips and that no evidence connects him to Gary's murder. He contends the evidence that he was in Tucson the summer before Gary was killed only shows that he "[was] investigating [Gary]'s hiding assets in order to avoid paying child support on behalf of Phillips." But the jury was entitled to draw different inferences from that evidence. See State v. Arce, 107 Ariz. 156, 161, 483 P.2d 1395, 1400 (1971) ("It was the function of the jury to decide what reasonable inferences could be drawn from the evidence."). Moreover, a fellow inmate testified that Young had confessed to killing Gary. And some of Young's own statements in his recorded conversations with Phillips suggest he was responsible for Gary's death. In one conversation, for example, he told her that he had "tried to help [her] on something that was . . . beyond what anybody else in the world would probably do" and now she is "living off the benefits of it." There was sufficient evidence, both circumstantial and direct, from which a reasonable jury could have concluded Young conspired to commit, and then committed, the murder.

Pre-Indictment Delay

¶12 Young argues the trial court erred in denying his motion to dismiss the case for pre-indictment delay. He argues his due process rights were violated by the nearly twelve-year delay between when the state identified him as a suspect and his indictment in 2008. We review a court's ruling on a motion to dismiss an indictment for an abuse of discretion, State v. Pecard, 196 Ariz. 371, ¶ 24, 998 P.2d 453, 458 (App. 1999), but we review constitutional issues de novo. See State v. Gay, 214 Ariz. 214, ¶ 4, 150 P.3d 787, 790 (App. 2007).

¶13 "To establish that pre-indictment delay has denied a defendant due process, there must be a showing that the prosecution intentionally delayed proceedings to gain a tactical advantage over the defendant or to harass him, and that the defendant has actually been prejudiced by the delay." State v. Broughton, 156 Ariz. 394, 397, 752 P.2d 483,...