Court Opinion

ID: 9558754
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:16:23.024476+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:34.460298
License: Public Domain

ALLEN G. MINKER, Court of Appeals Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur with the majority’s affirmance of the convictions but write separately because I believe the death sentence in this case is flawed and the matter should be remanded for a new sentencing.
In State v. Rossi (Rossi II), 154 Ariz. 245, 741 P.2d 1223 (1987), this court remanded for resentencing because the trial judge erroneously refused to take into account a mitigating circumstance: that the defendant’s capacity to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law was significantly impaired by drug addiction. I believe that the trial judge’s refusal in this case to weigh defendant’s drug and alcohol use on the day of the murders requires the same result as in Rossi II. A.R.S. § 13-703(G)(1) requires that the trial judge weigh as a mitigating circumstance that “the defendant’s capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law was significantly impaired, but not so impaired as to constitute a defense to prosecution.” Rossi II holds that either the capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or the capacity to conform conduct to the requirements of the law constitutes a mitigating circumstance. The burden is upon the defendant to prove this mitigating circumstance by a preponderance of the evidence. 154 Ariz. at 251, 741 P.2d at 1229.
The record in the present case reveals that Milo Stanley had a long history of substance abuse, including abuse of alcohol, marijuana, amphetamines, LSD, and cocaine. He had previously undergone substance abuse counseling. On the day of the shootings, defendant began drinking at noon and during the day used alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine. At the sentencing hearing, defense counsel proffered numerous mitigating circumstances. The trial judge found five of these entitled to consideration as against three aggravating factors, but not impairment from alcohol and cocaine use. I believe the trial court erroneously applied psychiatric testimony *533regarding insanity in refusing to consider alcohol and cocaine use.
The trial judge reviewed the testimony of four mental health experts who testified during the trial. The trial judge concluded,
Psychiatric testimony supports the conclusion that defendant did not suffer from any mental disease or defect whether associated with alcohol and drugs or not that could be said to cause the defendant to act as he did. Rather, the conclusion is appropriate that defendant was in control of his mental faculties sufficient to have refrained from killing his wife and daughter. He simply chose not to so refrain.
In my view, the problem with basing conclusions as to the proffered mitigating circumstance on the psychiatric testimony is that the testimony was not directed at the effect of alcohol and drugs but at mental illness. The defendant had pleaded insanity as a defense to the killings. The three psychiatrists and one psychologist testified at the jury trial only and not at the sentencing hearing. Under Arizona law, voluntary intoxication is no defense to a homicide. State v. Neal, 143 Ariz. 93, 98, 692 P.2d 272, 277 (1984). Therefore, the effect of substance abuse on the day of the killings was not something defense counsel would be inclined to develop. In fact the judge instructed the jury that:
In connection with this definition of insanity, let me interject here that a defendant cannot be found legally insane when, because of his voluntary use of alcohol and/or drugs, he has a temporary episode of mental incapacity so as to be unable to know right from wrong or to not know the nature and quality of his acts. Moreover, a person cannot be found legally insane when he experiences a temporary episode of mental incapacity so as to be unable to know right from wrong or not know the nature and quality of his acts when this episode is caused by a combination of the voluntary use of alcohol and/or drugs and a preexisting mental condition.
A.R.S. § 13-703(G)(1), in fact, is specific that mitigating circumstances may be found in an episode of mental incapacity inadequate to rise to a legal defense.
Four experts were called as witnesses during the trial. The defense called two psychiatrists. Dr. Bindelglass testified that the defendant committed the homicides while having a psychotic dissociative reaction. He testified that the defendant’s ability to fully appreciate what was going on and to control his behavior were markedly impaired. He also observed the defendant as having schizophrenic symptoms with paranoid delusions and hallucinations. He described the schizophrenic symptoms as consistent with chronic drug abuse. He testified the defendant had a long history of alcohol and drug abuse and that such long-standing abuse produces “a certain degree of dysfunction.”
Dr. Garcia-Bunuel, the other psychiatrist, testified that Stanley had been an abuser of alcohol and other drugs, and at the time of the offenses was under the influence of alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine. His testimony was that Stanley did not meet the test of legal insanity under M’Naghten1 He testified he believed there was a possibility that Stanley acted while having a dissociative reaction, but that it was unlikely.
The first of the two experts called by the State was Dr. Stewart, a psychologist. The prosecutor asked Dr. Stewart whether he had an opinion as to whether the defendant, on the date of the crimes, was suffering from a mental disease or defect. Dr. Stewart answered: “It was my opinion that he was, and that the nature of that disease or defect would be probably a multiple drug dependency, including alcohol and other various drugs that he had been taking for an extended period of time.” The prosecutor then asked Dr. Stewart his opinions as to whether the defendant under*534stood the nature and quality of his actions and whether he understood his actions were wrong per M’Naghten. He answered in the affirmative, although he added that Stanley’s understanding would have been clearer had he not been under the influence.
The second expert called by the State, Dr. Gerstenberger, a psychiatrist, stated that in his opinion the defendant understood the nature and quality of his actions and that he was capable of understanding his actions were wrong. Dr. Gerstenber-ger was never asked for any opinion regarding whether alcohol and drug use on the day in question, or before, impaired the defendant’s capacity to conform his conduct to the law. Both Drs. Stewart and Gerstenberger testified that they did not believe the defendant was in a dissociative state at the time of the shootings.
Rather than support the finding that the defendant’s capacity was not impaired, it appears that the expert testimony — where it was directed to substance abuse — does the opposite. The fact that it justifies the jury’s rejection of an insanity defense is an entirely separate, and even competing, question.
In Rossi II, this court had before it a defendant who had said earlier on the day of the crime that he planned to go to the victim’s house under the pretext of selling a typewriter and kill anyone who got in his way. Rossi did go to the victim’s house, did work a pretended sale, and then followed the victim into his bedroom. Rossi hit the victim with a blackjack and then shot him twice in the chest. The victim then pleaded with Rossi, “You have my money, you shot me, what more do you want?” Rossi then leveled his gun at the victim and fired a shot into his mouth.
Rossi’s crime gave evidence of a cold, deliberate design — absent the drug issue. Stanley’s crimes by contrast appear to be without lengthy prior thought, acting initially out of marital feud and passion.
There are parallels between the mitigation evidence in the two cases. The majority opinion here points out Stanley’s appearance to a store clerk the night of the two shootings and his actions to conceal the crimes. In Rossi II, two witnesses — one Rossi’s neighbor and one Rossi’s girlfriend — testified Rossi did not appear under the influence before or after the crimes. There was testimony that Rossi acted rationally just after the crime. He related in detail to the neighbor what happened. He did things to cover up his crime, like removing a license plate and fingerprints.
The evidence in favor of mitigation for Rossi came from three mental health doctors — and Rossi’s known cocaine habit. Evidence in favor of mitigation for Stanley comes from the mental health experts, from his long term abuse of drugs, and from statements made. When Stanley confessed the killings to the police, he stated he was “drunk out of my gourd.” At the sentencing hearing, the defendant’s father testified that a local policeman said the defendant was “stoned out of his mind” on the night of the shootings. Reverend Jones testified at the sentencing hearing as to the quantities of alcohol and cocaine Stanley had used.
In Rossi II, this court, after reviewing the evidence for each side, concluded, “Neither appellant’s evidence nor the State’s evidence is above reproach.” 154 Ariz. at 251, 741 P.2d at 1229. I would apply the same to the instant case. But the primary error, in my view, is attempting to apply the experts’ opinions on the insanity issue to the question of mitigation. They involve different factual questions. Moreover, they verified Stanley’s long-standing substance abuse and his being under the influence on the night of his crimes.
In making his findings, the trial judge also stated,
[I]n the presentence report, Reverend Jones relates the defendant told him that over a six-hour period defendant consumed only four to six wine coolers and eight to ten lines of cocaine. This is simply not enough of either substance, combined or separate, to impair a person over a six hour period sufficiently to meet the requirements of subsection (G)(1).
*535There was no expert testimony as to such a conclusion. In addition, what Reverend Jones testified to at the pre-sentence hearing was that within six hours of the shootings, defendant, according to him, drank four six-packs of wine coolers and sniffed eight to ten lines of cocaine.
The surrounding facts of these homicides show that it is unlikely the defendant formed the intent to kill at the time his wife and children entered the car. It is more likely that the defendant, who had an ongoing argument with his wife, formed the intent to kill suddenly, upon being told that she would leave him. Given this factual background, the influence of alcohol and cocaine use prior to the shootings is not an insignificant matter. I believe it is essential in making the fact-finding determination regarding substance impairment that the findings be based on the existing testimony given particularly as to this issue. The record in this case shows that alcohol and drug abuse on the day in question did impair Stanley’s ability to conform his conduct to the law. In light of the trial judge’s finding that five other mitigating circumstances existed, and that three aggravating circumstances existed, the refusal of the trial judge to weigh this additional circumstance cannot be considered harmless.
While neither alcohol intoxication nor cocaine intoxication is in any sense a defense to the defendant’s actions, and while this case may illustrate the necessity of society to defend itself from the effects of alcohol and drug abuse, the consideration of alcohol and cocaine use does bear on the issue of whether the defendant should receive the death penalty. I would remand this matter to the trial judge with instructions to resentence the defendant, taking into account the testimony of the effects of the defendant’s substance abuse on his ability to control his impulses and actions on the day of the murders.

. The M'Nagkten test for criminal insanity is whether the defendant understood the nature and quality of his actions and whether he understood that what he was doing was wrong. State v. Cano, 103 Ariz. 37, 41, 436 P.2d 586, 590 (1968); M’Naghten's Case, 10 Clark & Fin. 200, 8 Eng. Reprint 718 (1843).