Opinion ID: 2624500
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Trial Court's Refusal to Allow Evidence of Inconsistent Theories of Guilt

Text: Defendant next argues the trial court erred in not allowing him to ask the prosecutor or the defense counsel from the first trial questions regarding the prosecution's theory at that trial about how the killer placed the victim's body within the Buchanans' van when he transported it to Pine Valley. He argues the theory in the first trial differed significantly from that of the penalty retrial, and exposure of the alleged differences, and therefore exposure of the weaknesses in the prosecution's case, was relevant to his defense of lingering doubt. Exclusion of this evidence, he argues, violated his rights to due process, a fair trial, and a reliable penalty verdict. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that the proffered evidence was irrelevant. Defendant's lingering doubt defense rested in large part on his challenges to the prosecution's forensic evidence. He presented evidence at the penalty retrial regarding the efforts of his investigators and attorneys to recreate the scene in which the decapitated body was placed in the van in the only position they assumed was possible for the body to have deposited the blood where it was found under the couch seat; their conclusions that such placement would have left injuries and marks on the body; and evidence that the body did not have such injuries and marks. Defendant offered the opinion of Criminalist Joseph Orantes that, based on the patterns of blood within the van, the lack of particular markings that should have been left on the body had it been pressed against the wheel well or spare tire, the small number of fibers found on the body, and the configuration of the seats and wheel well within the van, the victim's body could not have been transported in the van on top of the wheel well, as described by prosecution Criminalist Brandon Armstrong, because the body would not fit on the wheel well and allow the couch seat to be lowered to a seated position. Orantes offered his opinion that the amount and placement of blood in the wheel well was more consistent with the perpetrator's having transported only the victim's head in the van. Defendant offered a theory that the real killer or killers transported the body to Pine Valley in another vehicle and put the head and hands under the van's couch seat while en route to dispose of them in a separate location, but shortly thereafter abandoned the van when it ran out of gas; defendant was merely unlucky enough to have stolen the van after it had been abandoned on Tait Street by the killers. The prosecution's theory at the penalty retrial was that defendant transported the victim's body to Pine Valley in the Buchanans' van. Criminalist Brandon Armstrong testified the blood left in the van and on defendant's shoe was consistent with that of the victim; the blue fibers found on the victim's abdomen, feet and exposed bone were consistent with the carpet in the van; and the patterns of blood inside the van were consistent with the victim's body being placed on top of the wheel well or spare tire inside the van during transportation. In his opinion, there was enough room to place a body on top of the spare tire in the space beneath the couch seat to allow the couch seat to be fully lowered to a seated position, in effect concealing the body inside the van. Defendant contended that this theory in the penalty retrial, that the body was placed on top of the wheel well or spare tire, differed significantly from that in the first trial, where, defendant asserts, the prosecution theorized the body was laying on its stomach in the van.... And the neck and shoulders were raised up against the wheel well. That is why the blood is there. The prosecution objected when defendant attempted to ask both Frank Sexton, the prosecutor in the first trial who testified for the prosecution in the penalty retrial, and Thomas Ryan, defense counsel in the first trial who testified for defendant at the penalty retrial, questions regarding the prosecution's theory in the first trial about how the killer placed the body inside the van. The court found the proffered evidence to be irrelevant and sustained the objections. (13) Defendant now argues the court erred in not allowing him to expose the inconsistent theories of guilt between the first trial and the penalty retrial. He cites as authority U.S. v. GAF Corp. (2d Cir. 1991) 928 F.2d 1253, 1260, which held, Confidence in the justice system cannot be affirmed if any party is free, wholly without explanation, to make a fundamental change in its version of the facts between trials, and then conceal this change from the final trier of the facts. The trial court did not err. Contrary to defendant's argument, the evidence in the first trial was not substantially different from that in the penalty retrial, nor did the prosecution present inconsistent theories of guilt in the two trials. The prosecution's argument that the killer transported the body in the van did not rely on a precise determination of how he placed the body within the van. The prosecutor in the penalty retrial acknowledged as much in closing argument when he stated, We don't know exactly howwe don't know exactly what was done with the head or the hands, nobody has ever seen them. And it's very possible, in fact likely, that the body, the head and the hands were all transported in that van. There's no reason whatsoever that you couldn't lay the body out there, put the head there and maybe one of the hands.... Did the body rest on the spare tire? Again we don't know for sure. There's some indication that it did. The prosecution's theories in the first trial and the penalty retrialthat the killer transported the body to Pine Valley in the vanremained consistent. The evidence at the first trial and the penalty retrialBrandon Armstrong's testimony that the blood in the van was that of the victim and the fibers on the victim's body were from the vanremained consistent. The prosecution did not make a fundamental change in its version of the facts between trials. The court did not, therefore, err in refusing to allow evidence or argument regarding inconsistent theories of guilt.