Opinion ID: 4549439
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: failure to give a jury instruction

Text: UNDER LAFFERTY ¶122 Drommond next protests the admission of evidence of his previous ―uncharged crimes,‖ arguing that it violated his rights under the United States Constitution—the right to due process and the right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. He maintains that the jury should have received an instruction prohibiting it from considering those crimes unless the jury found that the crimes had been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.16 The State contends that such an instruction is not __________________________________________________________ 16 Drommond also argues that the evidence of the ―uncharged crimes‖ violated his state constitutional rights—his rights under article I, sections 7, 9, and 12. But Drommond has failed to carry his burden of persuasion on appeal for these arguments because they were inadequately briefed. See Bank of Am. v. Adamson, 2017 UT 2, ¶ 13, 391 P.3d 196. Drommond cites these constitutional (continued . . .) 34 Cite as: 2020 UT 50 Opinion of the Court necessary because the evidence merely gave context to the crime for which Drommond had pleaded guilty, and wasn‘t evidence of unrelated, uncharged crimes. We agree with the State and hold that the trial court didn‘t abuse its discretion in refusing to give the jury instruction that Drommond advocates for. ¶123 Drommond objects specifically to evidence (1) that he asked Carlson to get him a gun so they could start a ―bounty hunter service‖ and intimidate people who owed Drommond money; (2) that he, two or three weeks before the murder, wanted Carlson and Hansen to break into Reed‘s house and scare her out of dating another man; (3) that he, on the day before the homicide, asked Hansen to break into Reed‘s house and scare her into not getting married to her fiancé; and (4) that he told his cellmate, Buchanan, that he wanted Reed‘s sister to be severely hurt or killed ―so that she could not take care of his children.‖ ¶124 Utah‘s capital sentencing statute allows the admission of aggravating or mitigating evidence that enables the court or jury body to appropriately sentence a defendant. See UTAH CODE § 76-3-207(2)(a). That evidence includes ―the nature and circumstances of the crime,‖ the defendant‘s ―character, background, history, and mental and physical condition,‖ ―the victim and the impact of the crime on the victim‘s family,‖ and ―any other facts in aggravation or mitigation of the penalty that the court considers relevant to the sentence.‖ Id. This wideranging information allows the court or jury to sentence the defendant based on the defendant‘s history, character, ―violent propensities and future dangerousness.‖ State v. Lafferty, 749 P.2d 1239, 1259 (Utah 1988), adhered to on reconsideration, 776 P.2d 631 (Utah 1989), and overruled on other grounds by Met v. State, 2016 UT 51, ¶¶ 89–90, 388 P.3d 447. ¶125 Drommond correctly asserts that, before the jury can consider other criminal activity as an aggravating factor, the jury must first be ―convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the provisions and a few cases but does not provide sufficient ―development of that authority‖ or sufficient ―reasoned analysis based on that authority.‖ Angilau v. Winder, 2011 UT 13, ¶ 27, 248 P.3d 975 (citation omitted); see also Smith v. Four Corners Mental Health Ctr., Inc., 2003 UT 23, ¶ 46, 70 P.3d 904 (declaring an appellant‘s brief inadequate when it ―merely cite[d] a few cases‖ and ―provide[d] very little analysis‖). 35 STATE v. DROMMOND Opinion of the Court accused did commit the other crime.‖ Id. at 1260. So ―when the prosecution introduces evidence of aggravating factors in the form‖ of another crime that hasn‘t resulted in a conviction, ―the sentencing jury must be instructed (i) as to the elements of the other crime regarding which the evidence was adduced and (ii) that it is not to consider evidence of that crime as an aggravating factor unless it first finds that the prosecution has proven all the elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.‖ Id. ¶126 The issue here, however, is whether the evidence that Drommond protests was used as evidence of other criminal activity and as an aggravating factor. We find that it wasn‘t. A beyond-a-reasonable-doubt instruction was thus unnecessary. ¶127 The facts of Lafferty illustrate that point. In Lafferty, the defendant was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder. Id. at 1241. During the penalty-phase trial, the State introduced evidence that the defendant ―had assaulted several people in jail while he awaited his trial.‖ Id. at 1258. On appeal, we held that the jury could not rely on the assaults as an aggravating factor for sentencing unless it was convinced that the defendant committed them. Id. at 1260. ¶128 Lafferty thus applies when the State uses evidence of other, unrelated criminal activity as ―important information about the accused‘s violent propensities and future dangerousness‖ or as ―evidence of a defendant‘s past criminal behavior so that the jury [can] have an accurate picture of the defendant‘s background, history, and character.‖17 State v. Maestas, 2012 UT 46, ¶ 287, 299 __________________________________________________________ 17 See also Maestas, 2012 UT 46, ¶¶ 1, 278–79 (applying Lafferty in a death-penalty case in which the defendant had been convicted of committing aggravated murder during an aggravated burglary and the State had introduced evidence that the defendant had committed previous aggravated burglaries that were not related to the crime for which the defendant was sentenced); Arguelles, 2003 UT 1, ¶¶ 1, 22, 111 (applying Lafferty in an aggravated murder case because the State presented evidence of the defendant‘s past crimes); State v. Taylor, 818 P.2d 1030, 1031–35 (Utah 1991) (applying Lafferty in a first-degree murder case in which the defendant had raped and killed a young girl and the State presented evidence that the defendant, as a juvenile, (1) had sexual intercourse with his younger sister against her will, (continued . . .) 36 Cite as: 2020 UT 50 Opinion of the Court P.3d 892. No case has held, however, that Lafferty applies any time the jury hears evidence of conduct that could constitute other criminal activity. Context matters. ―[E]vidence may be relevant in several different contexts.‖ State v. Carter, 888 P.2d 629, 654 (Utah 1995), superseded on other grounds by UTAH CODE § 76-3-207(2)(a)(iii) (1999). Evidence may, for example, be relevant to whether one committed a crime unrelated to the one for which the person is being sentenced (and thus relevant to future dangerousness or propensity for criminal activity), but it may also be relevant as evidence showing the nature and circumstances of the crime for which the person is being sentenced. We hold that Lafferty applies to the former use but not to the latter. In other words, Lafferty‘s beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard does not apply when the State uses evidence merely to show the nature and circumstances of the crime for which the defendant is being sentenced—even if that evidence might be criminal activity in and of itself. ¶129 We must now determine whether Lafferty‘s beyond-a- reasonable-doubt standard applies here. The State, at Drommond‘s penalty-phase trial, didn‘t argue that the above evidence was evidence of crimes distinct from the aggravated murder for which he was being sentenced. Neither did it argue that the above evidence supported a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. Rather, the State presented the evidence as part of the circumstances of the murder. The evidence showed what Drommond did before the murder and informed the jury about Drommond‘s lack of remorse afterward. It showed how he got the murder weapon and his fixation on Reed dating another (2) burglarized a home, and (3) sexually abused a six-year-old neighbor girl and evidence that the defendant, as an adult, (1) was convicted of burglary and carrying a concealed weapon and (2) molested young girls at a public swimming pool); State v. Parsons, 781 P.2d 1275, 1276, 1279, 1283 (Utah 1989) (applying Lafferty in a death-penalty case in which the defendant had been convicted of first-degree murder after stabbing his victim to death and the State introduced as evidence of aggravating circumstances that the defendant murdered the victim ―as a person on parole who knowingly possessed or had a firearm under his control or custody‖ in violation of a Utah criminal statute). 37 STATE v. DROMMOND Opinion of the Court man in the weeks preceding the murder. The evidence wasn‘t used to claim that Drommond had a history of criminal activity or that he had committed similar crimes and so had a propensity for violence; the evidence was entwined with the crime for which Drommond had pleaded guilty and merely informed the jury about ―the nature and circumstances of the crime.‖ See UTAH CODE § 76-3-207(2). The evidence thus wasn‘t ―other . . . criminal activity‖ used ―as an aggravating factor,‖ Lafferty, 749 P.2d at 1260, in favor of a sentence of life without parole. So, Lafferty doesn‘t apply to the evidence, and the trial court didn‘t err by refusing to give the Lafferty beyond-a-reasonable-doubt instruction.18 ¶130 In sum, the State didn‘t seek to prove that Drommond committed other crimes and to use those crimes as an aggravating factor. So the trial court didn‘t abuse its discretion by refusing to give a beyond-a-reasonable-doubt jury instruction under Lafferty.