Opinion ID: 867212
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Anna's murder

Text: ¶ 18 Dr. Parks testified that Anna suffered at least ten blows to the head, causing two skull fractures. But he was not able to determine the order of the blows, nor could he determine which blow caused her death. Describing the neck wound, Dr. Parks stated that the bat went through the skin of Anna's lower neck, into her left chest cavity, breaking a rib in her lower chest cavity, and pushed through the body to her back, leaving a bulge in her back where the end of the bat came to rest. ¶ 19 Dr. Parks testified that the late Dr. Jones, who had conducted the autopsy of Anna, listed cerebral injuries as a cause of death, indicating that Dr. Jones did not consider the wound through the neck to be a cause of death. Dr. Parks stated that when the bat entered Anna's chest and neck area, it did not hit any major arteries or other blood vessels; thus, the neck wound alone would not have been fatal. But Dr. Parks could not determine whether Anna was alive when Wallace inserted the bat into her neck. When asked whether he thought the bat wound to Anna finished the act of killing her, he stated I don't exactly know. When asked whether it hastened the act of killing her, he stated it's possible it could have contributed. ¶ 20 Dr. Parks acknowledged that at the 2005 trial, he had testified that he could not conclude with certainty whether Anna sustained more injuries than were necessary to have caused her death. Based on the small amount of blood found in Anna's chest cavity, however, Dr. Parks opined, [i]f [Anna] was alive when the bat was placed [in her neck], she didn't live much longer after that or she was in the process of dying when the bat was inserted. He explained [s]he would not have been able to live too long and have such a small amount of blood accumulate. ¶ 21 Whether the evidence establishes that more injury than necessary to kill was inflicted on Anna is a close question. Dr. Parks never clearly expressed an opinion to that effect. But this Court can infer that Wallace did not have to stab Anna through the neck with the bat in order to kill her after already inflicting ten blows to her head. Although there is uncertainty about whether Anna was still alive when the neck wound was inflicted, the inquiry is not whether the victim was dead before further injury was inflicted, but rather whether more injury was inflicted than necessary to kill. See Bocharski, 218 Ariz. at 494 ¶ 86, 189 P.3d at 421. Dr. Parks indicated that the neck wound would not have been fatal, permitting an inference that the head injuries alone would have been. We find the evidence proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Wallace inflicted more injury on Anna than necessary to kill.
¶ 22 The more difficult question is whether the State proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Wallace continued to inflict injury after he knew or should have known that he had inflicted a fatal wound. Wallace stated that he hit Anna on the head because I thought she would die with one blow, that'd be it, like in the movies, it ain't that way, she looked me in the eye, she knew who was killing her. After Anna fell to the ground, Wallace said, she continued to moan and breathe. He stated, she wouldn't die. I broke a f   ing bat on her head and she was still moaning. I don't know what people are like when they are dead. I wanted to put her out of her misery man, and she wouldn't f   ing die. ¶ 23 Wallace also said that even after he jammed the bat piece through Anna's throat, she still wouldn't die. Before Gabriel's arrival, Wallace went to the shed to get a piece of steel to kill Gabriel because, he said, I didn't know how hard it was to kill a human being, I didn't want Gabe to go through what I put Anna through, I wanted her to die quick and she didn't. ¶ 24 The State argues that Wallace's self-serving statements about Anna's moaning and breathing and his difficulty killing her should be given little weight. But Wallace made the statements the day after the murders when he turned himself in to the police and freely admitted his crimes, providing many incriminating details without attempting to escape blame or minimize his actions. Indeed, Wallace's statements were the only direct evidence about how the murders occurred. ¶ 25 Wallace's observations that Anna was moaning before he stabbed her through the neck were supported by Dr. Parks's testimony. Dr. Parks was not able to determine whether Anna was alive when Wallace drove the bat through her neck. In addition, Dr. Parks agreed that Anna might have still been conscious during the striking of the blows to her head, and that she might have still been moving such that the person inflicting the blows would not realize that the person was, in fact, fatally injured. Referring to Wallace's next-day statement that Anna was breathing, moaning, making eye contact, and just wouldn't die, the defense asked, [i]s that medically logical and consistent with the injuries that you observed through your photos and [the autopsy] report? Dr. Parks responded [y]es. ¶ 26 On this record, we cannot find beyond a reasonable doubt that Bocharski 's actual or constructive knowledge requirement was met. Viewed as a whole, the evidence casts reasonable doubt on whether Wallace knew or should have known a fatal wound had been inflicted when he stabbed Anna in the neck. ¶ 27 Anna's murder is more akin to the clumsy and escalating attacks in Cañez and Anderson than to murders in recent cases in which the Court has found gratuitous violence. See State v. Bearup, 221 Ariz. 163, 173 ¶¶ 50-53, 211 P.3d 684, 694 (2009) (upholding especially heinous or depraved finding when defendant cut off victim's finger an hour after beating victim with an aluminum baseball bat, reasoning that the removal of the finger constituted either gratuitous violence or mutilation); [6] cf. State v. Gunches, 225 Ariz. 22, 26 ¶¶ 17-18, 20, 234 P.3d 590, 594 (2010) (finding insufficient evidence to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant, who shot victim four times, knew or should have known that he had already fired a fatal shot and yet continued to inflict violence). If Anna continued moaning and breathing before Wallace inflicted the neck wound, as the evidence suggests, a logical inference would be that Wallace's jamming of the piece of bat into her neck came in an attempt . . . to kill the victim, not to engage in violence beyond that necessary to kill. Wallace III, 219 Ariz. at 8 ¶ 37, 191 P.3d at 171 (quotations omitted); see also Gunches, 225 Ariz. at 26 ¶ 21, 234 P.3d at 594 (evidence that victim was still breathing before final shots were fired supported finding that defendant did not knowingly inflict gratuitous violence by firing final shots). ¶ 28 In sum, the evidence does not establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Wallace knew or should have known that he already had inflicted fatal wounds upon Anna before committing his final assault. We therefore cannot find heinousness or depravity, the sole aggravating factor in this case.