Source: https://www.azcourts.gov/ccsguide/CaseSummariesIndex/2016-2018.aspx
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 20:39:29+00:00

Document:
Based on DNA evidence, Mark Henry Goudeau was arrested in September 2006 for some sexual assaults committed in 2005. Further investigation led police to suspect Goudeau was involved in a series of murders, kidnappings, sexual assaults, aggravated assaults, armed robberies, and various other crimes against thirty-three different victims in the Phoenix area on twelve separate dates between August 2005 and June 2006.
In a single indictment, the State charged Goudeau with 74 felonies, including nine first degree felony murders for which the State sought the death penalty. The trial court denied Goudeau’s pretrial motion to sever the counts for trial. The court granted the State’s request to divide the presentation of its guilt-phase evidence into thirteen chronological “chapters” corresponding to the dates on which various offenses were committed.
After a seventy-two day trial that spanned seven-and-a-half-months, the jury returned guilty verdicts on 67 of the counts charged, including all nine of the first degree murder charges.
For each murder conviction, the jury found that Goudeau had been previously convicted of both a life-or-death-eligible offense, (F)(1), and a serious offense, (F)(2), and also that he was on release from prison when he committed the murders, (F)(7)(a). The jury further found that Goudeau committed eight of the nine murders in an especially cruel manner, (F)(6), and four of them while committing another murder, (F)(8). In the penalty phase, during the testimony of his first mitigation witness, Goudeau decided to waive any further mitigation and thus presented no further evidence. He did, however, make an allocution statement. The jury ultimately returned death verdicts on all nine murder convictions after finding the mitigating evidence insufficiently substantial to call for leniency.
On automatic appeal, the Supreme Court affirmed the convictions and sentences.
The defendant challenged the (F)(8) aggravator as to two of the four victims. The (F)(8) aggravator exists if “[t]he defendant has been convicted of one or more other homicides . . . that were committed during the commission of the offense.” The jury could reasonably infer that the defendant, while seated in the back seat, kidnapped and robbed C and S at gunpoint, and killed them to facilitate his plan to rob them, sexually assault S, or eliminate witnesses .The evidence was sufficient to support a finding that the murders of S and C were motivationally-related and took place in a continuous course of criminal conduct.
During trial, the defendant presented limited mitigation evidence through his mental health expert that he suffered from adverse developmental factors that affected his culpability, including “probable fetal alcohol exposure,” learning disorders, genetic predisposition to substance abuse and psychological disorders, neglect, inadequate supervision, and exposure to community violence and drug abuse. The expert further opined that the defendant would not pose a danger in prison. On cross-examination, the State elicited evidence to rebut the alleged mitigating factors.
In October 2003, Aaron Brian Gunches was indicted on charges of first degree murder and kidnapping. The State noticed its intent to seek the death penalty. After the trial court found Gunches competent to stand trial and to waive his right to counsel, Gunches chose to represent himself. He then pleaded guilty to both counts.
In the aggravation phase, Gunches stipulated that he was previously convicted of a serious offense (attempted murder), an aggravating circumstance under A.R.S. § 13-751(F)(2). The jury also found as an aggravating circumstance under § 13-751(F)(6) that Gunches committed the murder in an especially heinous or depraved manner. Gunches presented virtually no mitigation evidence in the penalty phase, but did request leniency in allocution. The jury determined that he should be sentenced to death.
On direct appeal, this Court found that the jury’s finding of the (F)(6) aggravating factor was error and therefore vacated Gunches’s death sentence and remanded the case for a new penalty phase trial.
On remand during the second penalty phase, Gunches again waived his right to counsel and decided to not present any mitigation evidence. He did not request leniency in allocution. The jury determined that Gunches should be sentenced to death. His direct, automatic appeal to this Court followed.
...We must conduct this review even if, as here, the defendant does not argue that the jury‘s verdict was an abuse of discretion. ….Given the established aggravating circumstance under § 13-751(F)(2) based on Gunches’s uncontested prior conviction, the jury did not abuse its discretion in determining that there was no mitigation sufficiently substantial to call for leniency.
In March 2001, Defendant Escalante-Orozco was employed as a live-in maintenance worker at the apartment complex where the victim lived; she was found dead in her apartment. The victim had been beaten, sexually assaulted, and stabbed to death. Around the same time, Defendant left the area without informing the apartment management. Defendant was arrested six years later. The State indicted him on one count of first degree murder, two counts of sexual assault and one count of burglary in the first degree, and sought the death penalty. During trial, the court dismissed one of the sexual assault charges, and the jury found Defendant guilty on all remaining counts.
The jury found that the homicide was especially cruel, A.R.S. § 13-751(F)(6) making the Defendant death-eligible. After considering mitigation evidence, the jury determined that Defendant should receive the death penalty. The trial court thereafter sentenced Defendant to death and imposed consecutive terms of imprisonment for the sexual assault and burglary convictions.
The Defendant appealed his conviction and resulting sentences for one count each of first-degree murder, sexual assault, and burglary in the first degree. The court affirmed the Defendant’s convictions and non-death sentences. However, “[T]o comply with the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Lynch v. Arizona, 136 S. Ct. 1818 (2016), [the Court vacated] the death sentence and remand[ed] for a new penalty phase.
At trial the Defendant objected to the jury instruction that if it imposed a life sentence, the trial court would decide between life imprisonment without the possibility of release of with the possibility of release after 25 years arguing (1) that the jury should not consider the potential for release and (2) that clemency, and not parole, was available under Arizona law. In accordance with Arizona decisions, the trial court denied Defendant’s objections and gave the then-approved instruction.
Defendant did not waive the Simmons issue by failing to argue that the State put “future dangerousness” at issue; he preserved the issue by objecting to the instruction; explained that the jury should not consider the possibility of release; provided an instruction that accurately described clemency as the only means of release available to him; and argued Simmons in his motion for new trial, all of which adequately indicated his concern.
Although the evidence introduced by the State may have a purpose other than “future dangerousness,” such as to rebut mitigation, by arguing that the Defendant “forfeited the right to live” and focusing on that evidence and the instant crime the State placed the Defendant’s future dangerousness at issue.
¶127 For all these reasons, the State placed [Defendant’s] future dangerousness at issue. In light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Lynch, the trial court erred by refusing to tell the jury that [the Defendant] was ineligible for parole. The error was not harmless.
Proving (F)(6) “physical pain and mental anguish” requires consideration of “[t]he entire murder transaction” and not only the final act of killing. Mental anguish includes a victim’s contemplation of her ultimate fate, which can be established by defensive injuries, and does not require that the victim be conscious for every wound, that a certain amount of time elapse, or that the order of the wounds be established. Additionally, the defendant either knew or should have known of the pain/mental anguish based on the violence of the struggle and the attack from the front. Evidence supported his awareness of his actions (rather than a dissociative state resulting from psychosis or drug use) as he made a plan to evade authorities.
JUDGMENT: Remanded for Resentencing (Penalty Phase).
Defendant accepted a thousand dollars to kill the victim in December 2000, the owner of a repair shop. On the day of the murder, in January 2001, defendant waited in his car for the shop to open. When the shop owner began unlicking the shop door, defendant approached and indicated to the owner he had repair work to be done. An upholstery worker joined the two men and all three went into the shop. Defendant killed the upholsterer and then his intended victim, the owner, with one shot each. He then shot each victim five more times.
Because he thought he had been seen driving away, Defendant sold his car and left the state. While Defendant was making various arrangements, his godmother overheard conversations in which he admitted murdering two men. A year later she told authorities, who located the defendant in Idaho where he was in federal custody for murdering two women. Defendant confessed to murdering the owner in exchange for a thousand dollars and to murdering the upholsterer to eliminate an eyewitness.
In January 2015, as trial was set to begin, Defendant plead guilty to two counts of first degree murder and one count of first degree burglary. A jury found four aggravating factors ((F)(1); (F)(2); (F)(5); (F)(8)), considered mitigation, and sentenced defendant to death. The judge imposed 10.5 years on the burglary conviction.
The Supreme Court determined the jury did not abuse its discretion in sentencing Hidalgo to death for each murder. It affirmed all convictions and sentences.
Hidalgo’s federal convictions for murdering two women in 2002 were punishable by a sentence of life imprisonment or death; either conviction establishes the (F)(1) aggravator.
To prove the (F)(2) aggravator, the State must establish that the defendant has been “previously convicted of a serious offense, whether preparatory or completed.” Because the legislature did not amend the statute to permit consideration of offenses concurrently committed or charged until 2003, two years after the murders, the State erred when if argued that the concurrent first degree burglary supported the (F)(2) aggravator.
However, Hidalgo’s federal convictions for murdering two women in 2002 were punishable by a sentence of life imprisonment or death; either conviction would establish the (F)(1) aggravator.
The Court gives “extraordinary weight” to the multiple murders aggravating circumstance.
To prove the pecuniary gain aggravator, the state must show that “the expectation of pecuniary gain is a motive, cause, or impetus for the murder and not merely a result of the murder.” The State proved the (F)(5) aggravator because Hidalgo confessed that he accepted $1000 in exchange for murdering one of the victims.
The pecuniary gain aggravator is “especially strong” in the case of a contract killing.
To prove the multiple homicides aggravator, the state must show that the murders were “temporally, spatially, and motivationally related, taking place during one continuous course of criminal conduct.” Hidalgo plead guilty to murdering the victims within minutes of one another inside the auto-body shop. He admitted having accepted money to killing one victim and to killing the other in order to eliminate an eyewitness. His confession established the (F)(8) aggravator.
Defendant presented several witnesses who explored his difficult and abusive childhood, which included physical and sexual abuse by his parents and extended family, gang affiliation, poverty, juvenile incarceration, and drug use. He was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (“ADHD”), conduct disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (“PTSD”), and antisocial personality disorder (“APD”). Defendant presented evidence that while in prison he renounced his gang affiliation and participated in educational and self-improvement programs. Defendant expressed remorse and a desire to be rehabilitated.
In 2010, Rushing and his victim, Shannon Palmer, were imprisoned in the Lewis Prison Complex. They were temporarily housed together in an isolation cell after each expressed safety concerns with his prior assigned housing. In September, Rushing killed Palmer using a razor blade and a bludgeoning weapon while in their cell. There were no witnesses.
The State indicted Rushing on one count of first-degree premeditated murder and sought the death penalty. The jury found three aggravating factors: (1) Rushing had been previously convicted of another offense for which life imprisonment or death could be or was imposed, see A.R.S. § 13-751(F)(1); (2) Rushing committed the offense in an especially heinous or depraved manner, see id. § 13-751(F)(6); and (3) Rushing committed the offense while in custody of the state department of corrections, see id. § 13-751(F)(7)(a). After considering mitigation evidence, the jury determined that Rushing should receive the death penalty.
The Supreme Court determined the jury did not abuse its discretion in sentencing Rushing to death for each murder. The Court affirmed all convictions but remanded for resentencing based on Simmons error.
Gratuitous violence can be established when a defendant is determined to have “(1) inflicted more violence than that necessary to kill, and (2) continued to inflict violence after he knew or should have known that a fatal action had occurred.” Rushing argues there was insufficient evidence to establish that he “knew or should have known that a fatal action had occurred.” However, circumstantial evidence (no defensive wounds; location of blood near bed; no indication of struggle) establishes that Defendant’s final act of severing the victim’s genitalia – which took a period of time – indicates that Defendant would have become aware the victim was no longer alive.
JUDGMENT: Convictions affirmed; remanded for resentencing.
During a routine traffic stop in Glendale on the morning of February 19, 2007, Hulsey was the front-seat passenger in a car. Officer Goitia, who initiated the traffic stop, asked the three occupants for identification. At this time Officer Holly walked over to the passenger side of the car. Officer Goitia then approached Hulsey and asked about the identification Hulsey provided.
Hulsey became agitated and Officer Goitia told him to get out of the car so that he could pat Hulsey down for weapons for the officers’ safety. Hulsey stepped out of the car and as the pat-down commenced, he took a step back, reached into his waistband, and pulled out a gun. Hulsey aimed at the officers and started firing. Hulsey and Officer Goitia exchanged gunfire as the officer ran for cover and Hulsey ran from the scene. Officer Holly died of a gunshot wound to the head.
Hulsey was charged with first degree murder of a law enforcement officer, attempted murder of a law enforcement officer, and misconduct involving weapons. The State sought the death penalty. The jury found Hulsey guilty on both counts and that the State had proven two aggravating factors justifying a death sentence: that Hulsey was previously convicted of a serious offense, A.R.S. § 13-751(F)(2), and that Officer Holly was an on duty peace officer killed in the line of duty.
After considering mitigation evidence, the jury found a death sentence appropriate and the court imposed that sentence.
The Defendant appealed his conviction and resulting sentences. The Arizona Supreme Court affirmed the Defendant’s convictions and non-death sentences. However, “consistent with Lynch v. Arizona (Lynch III), 136 S. Ct. 1818 (2016), vacate[d] his death sentence and remand[ed] for new penalty phase proceedings.” The Supreme Court determined the jury did not abuse its discretion in sentencing Hulsey to death for the murder.
To prove the (F)(2) aggravator, the State must establish that the defendant has been “previously convicted of a serious offense, whether preparatory or completed.” This aggravating factor, conviction for the attempted murder of Officer Goitia, arose out of the gunfire that resulted in the death of Officer Holly, and that conviction was then used as an (F)(2) aggravating factor. The Court found “there exists no prohibition of a crime, or crimes, concurrently constituting elements of the crime and qualifying aggravating factors.” citing State v. Burns, 237 Ariz. at 23 ¶ 88 (holding circumstances of crime at issue may concurrently be used as aggravators); and Goudeau, 239 Ariz. at 470 ¶ 220 (holding (F)(2) aggravator found through “contemporaneously committed predicate crime supporting” conviction at issue constitutional).
A.R.S. § 13-751(F)(10), which makes the killing of a police officer in the line of duty an aggravating circumstance, is constitutional. The (F)(10) factor neither arbitrarily nor irrationally distinguishes between a peace officer and a non-peace officer in violation of equal protection and due process principles. The Court citing State v. Cruz, 218 Ariz. 149, 169–70 ¶¶ 128–32 (2008), noted it previously addressed and rejected this claim, and declined to revisit that decision.
This is a companion case to State v. Forde, 233 Ariz. 543, 552, ¶ 2, 315 P.3d 1200, 1209 (2014). Forde was the leader of an anti-immigrant group, the Minutemen American Defense. She and two accomplices (one of whom was this defendant, Jason Bush) gained entry to the Flores home in Arivaca, Arizona, by claiming they were law enforcement officers. When pressed for identification, Bush shot Raul “Junior” Flores and his wife, Gina, killing Junior; Gina survived. When their daughter, Brisenia, awoke, crying – Bush also shot the 9 year-old daughter. Evidence at an accomplice’s home led authorities to Bush, who was arrested and questioned. Although initially denying involvement, he eventually confessed, drawing a diagram showing the location of the deceased victims when he shot them.
Bush was convicted of two counts of first degree murder, two counts of aggravated assault, and one count each of first-degree burglary, attempted first-degree murder, armed robbery, and aggravated robbery. The jury found three aggravating factors for each murder – (F)(2) (prior serious offense), (F)(8) (multiple homicides) – and also (F)(9) (victim under age 15) for the child’s murder; the jury sentenced Forde to death.
The Supreme Court determined the jury did not abuse its discretion in sentencing Bush to death for each murder. The Court affirmed all convictions but remanded for resentencing based on Simmons error.
The Court found sufficient evidence supporting the aggravating circumstances, (1) as to Brisenia, that Bush “was an adult at the time” he murdered Brisenia, who “was under fifteen years of age,” A.R.S. § 13-751(F)(9); and (2) as to the murders of Brisenia and her father, that Bush committed multiple homicides on the same occasion and that he had been convicted of another serious offense “committed on the same occasion as the homicide[s],” which are aggravating circumstances under § 13-751(F)(2) and (8).
(Because the murders occurred after August 1, 2002, the court reviewed the death sentences to “determine whether the trier of fact abused its discretion in finding aggravating circumstances and imposing a sentence of death.” A.R.S. § 13–756(A) (2010).and found no abuse of discretion).
Given the aggravating circumstances and the mitigation presented, a reasonable juror could conclude that the mitigating circumstances were not sufficiently substantial to call for leniency. Accordingly, the jury did not abuse its discretion in returning death verdicts for Bush’s murders of Brisenia and Junior Flores.
On August 31, 2009, Sanders beat his live-in girlfriend’s three-year-old daughter to death. Sanders admitted disciplining the victim with a belt but claimed her death was accidental. The medical examiner testified that the victim’s injuries were too severe to be explained as discipline.
A jury convicted Sanders of first degree murder and two counts of child abuse. The jury found three aggravating factors: (1) Sanders had been previously convicted of a serious offense, see A.R.S. § 13-751(F)(2); (2) Sanders committed the offense in an especially heinous, cruel or depraved manner, see § 13-751(F)(6); and (3) Sanders was an adult and the victim was under fifteen years of age, see § 13-751(F)(9). After considering Sanders’ mitigating evidence, the jury determined that the appropriate sentence was death.
The Supreme Court determined the jury did not abuse its discretion in sentencing Sanders to death for each murder. The Court affirmed all and sentences, even against a Simmons challenge, holding that the trial court did not err in failing to give a parole-ineligibility instruction because the State had not placed “future dangerousness” at issue.
The Court rejected the argument that double jeopardy prohibits the use of predicate felonies as “capital sentencing aggravators,” upholding that State using his conviction for child abuse as both the predicate felony for felony murder and as an aggravating circumstance under A.R.S. § 13-751(F)(2) against a Double Jeopardy challenge.
The Court rejected the defendant’s argument that the (F)(2) aggravator violates the Eighth Amendment because it fails to genuinely narrow the field of death-eligible defendants.
Defendant challenged the “especially cruel” prong of the (F)(6) aggravator as unconstitutionally vague, both on its face and as applied. Although the (F)(6) aggravator is vague on its face, the jury instructions may “[provide] a sufficiently ‘narrowed construction’ ... to the facially vague statutory terms.” The instructions given contained both narrowing factors (the victim consciously suffered physical or mental pain and that the defendant knew or should have known that the victim would suffer).
The Court rejected the defendant’s argument that the (F)(9) aggravator “fails to adequately and rationally narrow those defendants subject to the death penalty” as required by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, citing State v. Nelson (“It is difficult to imagine an aggravating factor less susceptible than (F)(9) to a challenge on the grounds of vagueness or overbreadth.”). The Court further recognized that the legislature had a compelling basis for creating the (F)(9) aggravator and setting the age at fifteen (“[T]he legislature determined that the young and old are especially vulnerable and should be protected. It is not irrational for the legislature to conclude that murders of children and the elderly are more abhorrent than other first-degree murders.”).
Even assuming the defendant proved each mitigating circumstance, a reasonable juror could conclude they were not sufficiently substantial to call for leniency, and thus the jury did not abuse its discretion.
In August 2011, Acuna shot Edgar S. and Perla M. multiple times, while the couple was leaving a Baskin Robbins ice cream shop, in retaliation for Edgar S. testifying against Acuna during a criminal proceeding in 2008 that resulted in Acuna being sentenced to prison. Edgar sustained multiple bullet wounds, and Perla was hit in her upper back. She survived, ultimately undergoing two surgeries. Edgar died from his injuries.
Acuna was convicted after trial of first degree murder, attempted first degree murder, discharge of a firearm at a structure, and misconduct involving weapons. The jury found two aggravating circumstances: (1) that Acuna had been previously convicted for another serious offense (the attempted first degree murder of Perla); and (2) that he murdered Edgar in retaliation for testimony in a court proceeding; A.R.S. § 13-751(F)(2), (F)(12), respectively. Considering these factors and the mitigation evidence, the jury sentenced Acuna to death for Edgar’s murder. For the other convictions, the trial court imposed concurrent prison sentences, the longest for 15.75 years, to be served consecutively to the death sentence.
The Defendant appealed his conviction and resulting sentences. The Arizona Supreme Court affirmed the Defendant’s convictions, non-death sentences, and death sentence. The Supreme Court determined the jury did not abuse its discretion in sentencing Acuna to death for the murder.

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