Opinion ID: 2614079
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Underlying Offense

Text: Defendant and the victim, Frank Ponciano, had been cellmates at the Arizona State Prison for approximately a week and a half before Ponciano's murder. On October 3, 1978, defendant missed lunch because he overslept. When he awoke, defendant was angry with Ponciano for failing to awaken him for lunch and for drinking his Kool-Aid. At approximately 5:00 a.m. on October 4, Officer Neal Malone was doing his usual security walk when defendant summoned him to defendant and Ponciano's cell. As Officer Malone approached, he saw someone lying on the lower bunk covered with a blanket from head to toe. Defendant said, Get this stinking son of a bitch out of my cell. I think he died last night. Defendant then lifted the blanket and put the lit end of his cigar against the sole of Ponciano's foot. When Ponciano did not react, Officer Malone had defendant remove the blanket that had been covering Ponciano. Officer Malone observed that the word Bonzai had been cut into Ponciano's back. Ponciano also had been stabbed numerous times. Shortly thereafter, Sergeant Richard Rovers arrived on the scene. He immediately entered the cell and checked the body, which was still warm in most places. Defendant was removed from the cell and strip searched, but no weapon was found on him. Officer Henry Stuhmer, who was present during the strip search, noted that there were no scratches, bruises, blood, or any other signs of a struggle on defendant's body. In addition, Officer Malone later testified that defendant did not seem unusual at the time, and he did not appear nervous or frightened. Meanwhile, correctional officers searched defendant and Ponciano's cell. The officers found strips of a torn bed sheet that had been tied together with a knot. In a box labelled Vickers, they also found a yellow toothbrush that had been fashioned into a weapon. Specifically, one end of the toothbrush had been curled into a loop and the other end had been filed down to a point. Officer Stuhmer observed some red stains and a hair on the toothbrush handle. After the search of defendant's cell was complete, Detective Tom Solis interviewed defendant. Before the interview, defendant was advised of his Miranda rights. Initially, defendant maintained that he did not know what happened to Ponciano. Eventually, however, he said that he might have done it, but that he could not remember. Defendant claimed that he had had bad dreams all night, and when he awoke, he saw that Ponciano had stab wounds and Bonzai cut into his back. During the course of the interview, however, defendant admitted that he had considered killing his cell partner, any cell partner and that Ponciano had angered him by drinking his Kool-Aid. Later that day, Kenneth Spillman, a psychology associate employed by the Department of Corrections, conducted a mental status examination of defendant. Spillman did not give defendant Miranda warnings before interviewing him. At the beginning of the interview, defendant reiterated most of what he told Detective Solis. But after defendant learned that Spillman was not tape-recording the conversation, he became much more talkative. When Spillman directly asked defendant whether he had killed Ponciano, defendant admitted that he had and that it was premeditated. Defendant further stated that, after the 3:30 a.m. security check on October 4, he began preparing to kill Ponciano. He admitted that he made a garrote out of a bed sheet, and he then described in detail how he strangled and stabbed Ponciano. Thomas Jarvis, M.D., performed the autopsy on Ponciano and determined that the cause of death was manual and ligature strangulation. Basically, Dr. Jarvis's conclusions regarding the cause of death were consistent with the description of the murder that defendant gave to Spillman.