Opinion ID: 3133191
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Appeal to the court of appeals

Text: On appeal Sanders argued that the superior court had erred by refusing to allow him to introduce Bacod’s statement at trial.10 The court of appeals concluded that 8 Different second-degree murder theories were used for the lesser-included second-degree murder offenses under Counts I and II and the second-degree murder offenses charged directly in Counts III and IV. 9 The jury was instructed that justified self-defense was a complete defense to first-degree murder, second-degree murder, and manslaughter. If the jury believed Sanders killed Moore in justified self-defense, it would have found Sanders not guilty of all charges related to Moore’s death. Instead, the jury found Sanders guilty of the second-degree murder of Moore under two theories. The jury also was instructed that heat of passion was a defense to the lesser included second-degree murder theories but not the direct second-degree murder charges. The jury found Sanders guilty of all second-degree murder offenses, demonstrating that it did not believe Sanders killed Moore or Richards in the heat of passion. 10 See Sanders v. State, Mem. Op. & J. No. 5991, 2013 WL 6229377, at  (Alaska App. Nov. 27, 2013). Sanders also argued that the superior court erred by allowing the State to introduce his girlfriend’s and his brother’s false statements to the police: Detective Huelskoetter testified that Sanders’s girlfriend said that Sanders’s (continued...) -10- 7058 the superior court “did not abuse [its] discretion” by finding Bacod’s statement inadmissible, stating: Bacod told the police that Richards said to her that they were going to go over to Sanders’s residence to confront him. Bacod added that she thought the confrontation was likely to be violent. .... In the present case, Sanders offered Bacod’s out-of-court statements for the purpose of proving that Richards and Moore went to Sanders’s house intending to use violence to retrieve money from Sanders or his brother. But even according to Bacod, Richards never said that she or Moore intended to use violence; instead Richards said that they wished to talk to Sanders about the money. In Bacod’s statements to the police, she acknowledged that the possibility of violence was only her speculation, or her after­ the-fact gloss on her conversation with Richards.[11] Like the superior court, the court of appeals quoted Ryan v. State for the proposition that “evidence admitted under the residual hearsay exceptions must possess ‘particularized guarantees of trustworthiness’ making it ‘so trustworthy that adversarial testing would add little to its reliability.’ ”12 The court added, “[T]here was essentially 10 (...continued) brother fired a rifle inside the apartment; he also testified that Sanders’s brother said that Moore fired at Sanders first. Id. at , -6. The State labeled both statements “lies” in its closing argument while questioning Sanders’s veracity and whether Moore was the first aggressor. The court of appeals concluded that the admission of these statements was error, but was harmless. See id. at , . 11 Id. at , . 12 Id. at  (quoting 899 P.2d 1371, 1375 (Alaska App. 1995)). -11- 7058 no evidence regarding Bacod’s potential motivation for contacting the police.”13 The court of appeals upheld the trial judge’s ruling.14 Regarding Sanders’s argument that the exclusion of Bacod’s statement violated his due process right to present a defense, the court of appeals stated, “[I]n general, a trial court does not commit error by properly applying the evidence rules.”15 The court of appeals then concluded: “We have previously pointed out the lack of reliability of Bacod’s recorded statement to establish the proposition for which it was offered. We conclude that the trial court’s proper application of the evidence rules did not unfairly limit Sanders’s ability to present a defense.”16 Chief Judge Mannheimer concurred with the court’s opinion, writing separately to point out that Sanders wished to introduce Richards’s statement to prove Moore’s future actions.17 Chief Judge Mannheimer cited the Commentary to Rule 803(3) (the state of mind hearsay exception) to explain that the Rule “does not allow a litigant to introduce one person’s statement about their current mental state (including their current plans) for the purpose of proving another person’s future actions.”18 This 13 Id. 14 Id. 15 Id. 16 Id. 17 See id. at -10 (Mannheimer, C.J., concurring). 18 Id. at  (emphasis in original). -12- 7058 provided, in his view, an additional reason that the contested statements were not admissible.19