Opinion ID: 2621170
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Impaired Capacity

Text: ¶ 41 If [t]he defendant's capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law was significantly impaired, but not so impaired as to constitute a defense to prosecution, the court can consider the impaired capacity as a mitigating circumstance. A.R.S. § 13-703.G.1 (2001). A defendant bears the burden of establishing the existence of any statutory mitigating circumstance by a preponderance of the evidence. Because the statute is written in the disjunctive, proof of either attribute is sufficient to find G.1. See State v. Rossi, 154 Ariz. 245, 251, 741 P.2d 1223, 1229 (1987). The judge first should consider proffered evidence to determine whether it satisfies the statute, and, if it does not, evaluate the evidence as a non-statutory mitigating factor. See, e.g., State v. Vickers, 129 Ariz. 506, 515-16, 633 P.2d 315, 324-25 (1981). ¶ 42 The defendant argues that his behavior and the testimony of his wife, sister, mother, and brother prove by a preponderance of the evidence that he was significantly impaired at the time of the murder. Kara Sansing testified that her husband sounded hyped up and anxious on the telephone when he called her to plan the attack. She further testified that when she arrived home the defendant was not acting himself and described the defendant as cold, in another world, and spaced out during the commission of the crime. Finally, Kara testified that she had observed her husband on drugs previously and had never seen him react as he did on the day of the murder. The defendant's sister described her brother as someone taken by the drugs he had been doing. She described his demeanor as nervous and uptight. The defendant's mother stated that the defendant had let drugs take over his life. The defendant's older brother agreed that drugs just took over his life. ¶ 43 The State argues the defendant's actions before and after the murder reveal that his abuse of crack cocaine prior to the murder did not so significantly impair his ability to appreciate his conduct as to establish the G.1 mitigator. The State does not, however, contest the use of the information as non-statutory mitigating evidence. In arguing the defendant did not establish the statutory factor, the State points out that the defendant planned his attack and then phoned his wife to discuss it. After the murder, the defendant repeatedly looked out the window to determine whether anyone had seen him. After beating and binding the victim, the defendant moved the victim's truck so it would not be seen in front of his house. Shortly after the murder, the defendant completed two drug transactions. When Ms. Calabrese's church telephoned, the defendant lied about his address. In addition, the defendant cleaned the club used to beat the victim, and hid it in a box in his bedroom. The next morning, the defendant fled to his sister's home and told her what he had done. While it is undisputed that the defendant had ingested crack cocaine on the day of the murder and for several days prior to the crime, the evidence regarding his actions before, during, and after shows he maintained the ability to appreciate the wrongfulness of his actions and to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law within the meaning of G.1. ¶ 44 The sentencing judge concluded that [t]he defendant's actions before, during and after the murder, demonstrate[d] that neither his capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct nor his capacity to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law was significantly impaired at the time he murdered Trudy Calabrese. See State v. Rienhardt, 190 Ariz. 579, 591-92, 951 P.2d 454, 466-67 (1997) (when evidence shows that the defendant took steps to avoid prosecution shortly after the murder, the claim of impairment fails). Upon review of the evidence, we agree that the defendant did not establish the existence of the statutory mitigating circumstance by a preponderance of the evidence. We also agree that the sentencing judge properly considered the evidence as non-statutory mitigation but that the lack of causal nexus justifies giving this factor limited mitigating value.