After a jury convicted Mickey Wahl of manslaughter and the
trial judge sentenced him “to a presumptive prison term of 10.5 years”, he
appealed. State v. Wahl, 2015 WL 6687551 (Court of Appeals of Arizona
2015). You can, if you are interested,
read more about the case in the news stories you can find here, here and here.
The Court of Appeals begins its opinion by explaining that
in the fall of 2011, victim S.C. was
dating Wahl's former girlfriend, Susan. After Wahl's breakup with Susan, he dated
Jane, who had previously dated S.C. There was considerable animosity among and
between these couples because of their prior relationships with each other. On
December 11, 2011, S.C. and Susan were at a bar.
Wahl and Jane later arrived at the bar,
but only Jane went inside. Susan and Jane got into a physical altercation and
went out to the parking lot where the fight continued.
Wahl intervened, picking up Jane and
placing her in the passenger side of her truck. S.C. followed, arguing with
Wahl. Wahl got in the driver's side of the truck and at some point, S.C.'s arm
became trapped when Wahl rolled up his window. Despite S.C.'s arm being caught
in the truck, Wahl started driving away. Initially, S.C. ran alongside the
truck, but eventually his arm loosened from the window and he fell. S.C.'s head
was run over by the truck, and he died at the scene. Sheriff's deputies later
found Wahl at his home. He was charged with manslaughter and negligent
homicide, and convicted and sentenced as described above.
State v. Wahl, supra.
Wahl made a number of arguments in his appeal, but
this post examines only a few of them, the first of which involved the
prosecution’s introducing certain “electronic communications”. State
v. Wahl, supra. More precisely, in
Wahl’s appeal he initially argued that
text messages and Facebook posts
should have been precluded. He repeats the arguments made in his motion in limine that the electronic evidence was irrelevant, confusing, unfairly
prejudicial, and constituted evidence of prior bad acts or improper character.
We review a trial court's evidentiary rulings for abuse of discretion. State
v. Jones, 197 Ariz. 290, 4 P.3d 345 (Arizona Supreme Court 2000).
State v. Wahl, supra.
The Court of Appeals began its analysis of Wahl’s
evidentiary argument by noting that
[w]e first address Wahl's prior-acts
argument. Pursuant to Rule 404(b), Arizona Rules of Evidence, evidence of
`other crimes, wrongs, or acts is not admissible to prove the character of a
person in order to show action in conformity therewith.’
Other-act evidence may be admitted for
a proper purpose, such as to prove `motive, opportunity, intent, preparation,
plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident.’ Rule 404(b), supra. Even if a
proper purpose is found, however, the evidence must be relevant and the
probative value not substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair
prejudice. See Arizona Rules of Evidence 401, 402, and 403; State
v. Gulbrandson, 184 Ariz. 46, 906 P.2d 579 (Arizona Supreme Court 1995).
Although Wahl cites extensively
to Rule 404(b) and related `prior-acts’ cases, he focuses his
analysis on relevance and unfair prejudice. To the extent Wahl argues the
communications should not have been admitted because they contained evidence of
other acts, such as an incident in which Jane had been banned from the bar
where the incident took place, he overlooks testimony about those same acts.
Therefore, even if we were to assume it was error to admit the communications,
such error would be harmless given evidence to the same effect.
Additionally, although Wahl's text
messages contained inflammatory language directed at S.C. and Susan, they
were admitted for a proper purpose. As we discuss below in the context of
individual messages and acts, they were relevant to establishing Wahl's motive
and intent. See State v. Fulminante, 161
Ariz. 237, 778 P.2d 602 (Arizona Supreme Court (1988)) (evidence of prior
ill will between victim and defendant tends to show malice or motive). They
also rebutted Wahl's contention that he had not intended to injure S.C.
State v. Wahl, supra.
The court then explained that Wahl
generally argues the communications
were significantly more prejudicial than probative because they included
communications months before and after the incident, and because the text
messages were one-sided, missing Susan's half of every conversation. We
discuss each contention in turn.
State v. Wahl, supra.
The Court of Appeals also noted that the text messages at
issue
included S.C.'s and Wahl's
communications with Susan for two months before the incident, as well as and
Wahl's communications with Susan in January and February 2012. The Facebook
status posts and private messages also were posted in the preceding two months.
We address the communications in chronological order.
State v. Wahl, supra.
First, he argued that
several messages about a fight he had
with S.C. were irrelevant. In October 2011, Wahl and S.C. had a disagreement at
the bar, which resulted in Wahl physically throwing S.C. out of the bar. Wahl
and two of the state's witnesses testified about this disagreement. On October
19, 2011, Wahl posted a message on his Facebook page that stated, `Thank you
[S.C.], for helping me rid myself of [Susan], and I owe you a drink, for
throwing you out the bar on your face.’ He later posted, `I really felt bad,
about throwing him so far out the door . . .
lmao!’ Additionally, Wahl texted
Susan that he `felt . . . bad about throwing [S.C.] out on his face.’
As with the Rule
404(b) argument, evidence of a prior disagreement between the victim and
the defendant is relevant. See State v. Fulminante, supra (existence
of prior ill will renders commission of crime more probable); see
also State v. Hardy, 230 Ariz. 281, 283 P.3d 12 (Arizona Supreme
Court 2012) (`Evidence of prior argument with or violence toward a victim
is . . . admissible to show motive or intent’). Further, Wahl does not identify
how the risk of unfair prejudice would outweigh this probative value. Rather,
the messages, which appear to be adverse to Wahl and probative of the state's
theory of the case, were prejudicial `in the sense that all good relevant
evidence is,’ but not unfairly prejudicial. State v. Shurz, 176
Ariz. 46, 859 P.2d 156 (Arizona Supreme Court 1993).
State v. Wahl, supra.
Next, the Court of Appeals took up Wahl’s argument that
any text messages about an incident in
which Jenny was excluded from the bar were irrelevant because `there was
no evidence that either [Wahl] or [Jane] knew, or should have known, that
[S.C.] and [Susan] would be [there] the night of [S .C.'s death].’ One of the
state's witnesses testified that in November 2011, Jane was banned from the bar
after she backed into a car in the parking lot. Wahl texted Susan a vague
message about the incident, implying that he knew Jane had hit the car.
Additionally, the state introduced earlier
Facebook messages between Wahl and Jane that intimated Jane had been banned
from the bar even before she hit the other car, but that Wahl and Jane thought
it would be `funny’ to try to go to the bar anyway, apparently to make Susan
angry.
State v. Wahl, supra.
The Court of Appeals did not buy Wahl’s argument regarding
the text messages:
These messages were relevant because
they suggested Jane should not have been at the bar the night S.C. died. The
state contended that Wahl and Jane planned to get together and go to the bar
out of spite. Combined with the Facebook messages, the text messages had the
tendency to show that Jane and Wahl may have gone to the bar to see if they
could harass Susan and S.C., making them relevant to Wahl's intent. Further,
the messages contradicted Jane's trial testimony that she was not banned from
the bar.
Wahl's argument that he and Jane did
not believe Susan would be there does not diminish the relevance of the
messages. Further, Wahl does not identify anything prejudicial about the
messages, other than the fact that they predate S.C.'s death. The probative
value is not substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, and
the trial court did not err by admitting them. Arizona Rules of Evidence -
Rule 403.
State v. Wahl, supra.
As noted above, Wahl also made other arguments, but since
they did not directly address the admissibility and/or use of electronic
evidence, this post skips those arguments and outlines Wahl’s final argument,
which was that “there was insufficient evidence to support the jury's verdict.”
State v. Wahl, supra. If you are interested, the chapter you can
find here explains what a motion based on the argument that the evidence
presented at trial is insufficient to support a conviction involves, and what
it seeks to accomplish.
The Court of Appeals began its analysis of Wahl’s argument
by noting that he claimed
there was insufficient evidence to
support the jury's verdict. We examine such a claim to determine whether
`substantial evidence’ supports the jury's verdict. State v. Lopez, 230
Ariz. 15, 279 P.3d 640 (Arizona Court of Appeals 2012). Substantial evidence is
`”such proof that reasonable persons could accept as adequate and sufficient to
support a conclusion of defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”’ State
v. West, 226 Ariz. 559, 250 P.3d 1188 (Arizona Supreme Court 2011), quoting State
v. Mathers, 165 Ariz. 64, 796 P.2d 866 (Arizona Supreme Court 1990).
State v. Wahl, supra. Since this is a criminal case, the verdict
had to be based on evidence that proved Wahl’s guilty beyond a reasonable
doubt.
It then went on to point out that,
[v]iewing the facts in the light most
favorable to sustaining the jury's verdict, State v. Payne, 233
Ariz. 484, 314 P.3d at 1239 (Arizona Supreme Court 2013), there is sufficient
evidence to support a guilty verdict on the manslaughter charge. A person
commits manslaughter by `[c]ommitting second degree murder as prescribed in §13–1104, subsection A upon a sudden quarrel or heat of passion resulting from
adequate provocation by the victim.’ Arizona Statutes § 13–1103(A)(2). A person
commits second-degree murder when, without premeditation, the person either
intentionally causes the death of another person or recklessly engages in
conduct that creates a grave risk of death and thereby causes the death of
another person, while manifesting extreme indifference to human life. Arizona
Statutes § 13–1104(A)(1), (3).
State v. Wahl, supra.
The court then proceeded to issue its ruling on Wahl’s
evidentiary argument, holding that
[e]yewitness V.P. testified that S.C. had
approached Wahl in the truck, and the two of them began fighting. S.C.'s arm
was then pinned in Wahl's rolled-up window while Wahl drove off, speeding up to
the point where S.C. could no long run next to the truck. S.C. eventually fell
and was run over by the truck, and Wahl did not stop.
Testimony by several other witnesses
and evidence of Wahl's Facebook and text message history established Wahl did
not like S.C. because he had dated Susan, and that they had a disagreement
months earlier. From that evidence, reasonable jurors could find Wahl
intentionally or recklessly had caused S.C.'s death. Sufficient evidence
supported the jury's verdict.
State v. Wahl, supra.
For these and other reasons, the court affirmed “Payne’s
convictions and sentences.” State v. Wahl, supra.
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