STATE OF UTAH, Plаintiff, v. MIGUEL MATEOS-MARTINEZ, Defendant.
No. 20110431
SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF UTAH
May 3, 2013
2013 UT 23
Third District, Salt Lake. The Honorable Deno G. Himonas. No. 071906003
This opinion is subject to revision before final publication in the Pacific Reporter
Attorneys:
Samuel P. Newton, Ogden, for defendant
JUSTICE DURHAM authored the opinion of the Court in which CHIEF JUSTICE DURRANT, ASSOCIATE CHIEF JUSTICE NEHRING, JUSTICE PARRISH, and JUSTICE LEE joined.
JUSTICE DURHAM, opinion of the Court:
INTRODUCTION
¶1 Miguel Mateos-Martinez appeals his conviction and sentence of life without parole on a charge of aggravated murder. He argues that the prosecution’s decision to charge him with aggravated murder and the district court’s denial of his motion to amend the charge to murder violated his constitutional rights. He also argues that the aggravated murder statute unconstitutionally provides prosecutors with unbridled discretion to make charging decisions. Finally, he argues that the admission of victim impact testimony at his sentencing hearing violated his constitutional rights. We affirm.
BACKGROUND
¶2 On August 15, 2007, Mr. Mateos-Martinez entered a beauty salon in Salt Lake City where Faviola Hеrnandez was cutting a friend’s hair.1 Two younger siblings of Ms. Hernandez were also present. Mr. Mateos-Martinez displayed a gun, ordered everyone to get down on the floor, and demanded money. He instructed Ms. Hernandez to go to the back room and retrieve any money that might be there. She went into the back room, but she returned with a gun of her own. Mr. Mateos-Martinez shot her once in the chest and fled. Ms. Hernandez died within minutes.
¶3 Mr. Mateos-Martinez was eventually apprehended in Mexico and brought back to Utah by United States Marshals. As part of the extradition negotiations, the State agreed not to seek the death penalty. Mr. Mateos-Martinez was charged with aggravated murder, two counts of aggravated robbery, and two counts of aggravated assault. Prior to trial, he moved to amend the first count from aggravated murder to murder. After a hearing, the district court denied the motion.
¶4 A jury convicted Mr. Mateos-Martinez on all counts. At a subsequent hearing, the State stipulated to the defense’s request that one count of aggravated robbery be merged with the charge of aggravated murder. The district court judge then conducted sentencing proceedings. At these proceedings, the court heard victim impact testimony from Ms. Hernandez’s mother and sister. Defense counsel made no objection to this testimony
¶5 Mr. Mateos-Martinez timely appealed to this court. We have jurisdiction under
STANDARD OF REVIEW
¶6 “Constitutional issues, including questions regarding due process, are questions of law that we review for correctness.” Chen v. Stewart, 2004 UT 82, ¶ 25, 100 P.3d 1177.
ANALYSIS
¶7 Mr. Mateos-Martinez argues that the prosecution and the district court violated his constitutional rights by charging him with and trying him for aggravated murder instead of murder. He also argues that the content of the victim impact testimony at his sentencing hearing violated his constitutional rights.
I. DENIAL OF THE MOTION TO AMEND THE CHARGE
¶8 Mr. Mateos-Martinez suggests that the prosecution’s decision to charge him with aggravated murder and the district court’s denial of his motion to reduce the charge from aggravated murder to murder violated his constitutional rights. First, he argues that the charging decision violated both the Uniform Operation of Laws Clause of
A. Decision to Charge Mr. Mateos-Martinez with Aggravated Murder
¶9 “All laws of a general nature shall have uniform operation.”
¶10 Mr. Mateos-Martinez argues that the decision to charge him with aggravated murder was “a case of over-prosecution against people in his class.” To support this argument, he offers a list of eight other criminal defendants represented by the Salt Lake City Legal Defender Association. These defendants were apparently all charged with bоth murder and aggravated robbery, but in their cases the aggravated robbery charges were not used to increase the charge of murder to aggravated murder, as was done in Mr. Mateos-Martinez’s case.
¶11 He concedes that this list is not “a complete record of all relevant prosecutions in the state.” We need not determine whether it is even a representative record, however, because on its face the list fails to provide sufficient information about these other defendants for us to determine whether they are “persons similarly situated” to Mr. Mateos-Martinez—a requirement for any claim that the uniform operation of laws clause has been violated. The list provides only the names, case numbers, and races of the other defendants. We cannot tell whether they were charged, as was Mr. Mateos-Martinez, with multiple counts of aggravated robbery and with multiple other aggravated felonies. Further, we know nothing about the circumstances surrounding their crimes, and cannot determine their relative culpability, or discern what other factors may have informed the prosecutorial decision not to charge them with aggravated murder.
B. Aggravated Murder Statute
¶13 Mr. Mateos-Martinez argues in the alternative that the aggravated murder statute is unconstitutional on its face because it “offers prosecutors . . . unbridled discretion to choose arbitrarily whеther to file charges as aggravated murder (carrying as penalties capital punishment and life without parole) or as murder (carrying lower penalties).”
¶14
¶15 In Mohi, this court held that certain provisions of the Juvenile Courts Act violated that clause because it “permit[ted] two identically situated juveniles . . . to face radically different penalties and consequеnces without any statutory guidelines for distinguishing between them.” Id. at 998. The provisions gave prosecutors “direct-file” authority, under which “prosecutors [had] discretion to file some charges against juveniles directly in adult circuit or district court while leaving other similarly accused offenders in juvenile court.” Id. at 994. Upon determining that there was “no rational connection between the legislature’s objective of balancing the needs of children with public protectiоn and its decision to allow prosecutors total discretion in deciding which members of a potential class of juvenile offenders to single out for adult treatment,” id. at 1002, we held the provisions unconstitutional, id. at 1004.
¶16 Mohi is distinguishable from the instant case. Indeed, Mohi explicitly distinguishes itself from the facts before us:
The type of discretion incorporated in the [Juvenile Courts] Act is unlike traditional prosecutor discretion. Selecting a charge to fit the circumstances of a defendant and his or her alleged acts is a necessary step in the chain of any prosecution. It requires a lеgal determination on the part of the prosecutor as to which elements of an offense can likely be proved at trial. Moreover, such discretion is also beneficial to the public; it allows prosecutors to plea-bargain with offenders in some cases, saving the public the expense of criminal prosecutions. However, none of these benefits accompany the discretion to choose which juveniles to рrosecute in adult rather than in juvenile court. The elements of the offense are determined by the charging decision, and it is only the charging decision that is protected by traditional notions of prosecutor discretion.
Id. at 1002–03 (second emphasis added).
¶17 In our case, prosecutors exercised such “traditional prosecutor discretion” in choosing to charge Mr. Mateos-Martinez with aggravated murder. He committed murder in the course of multiple aggravated felonies аgainst multiple victims, including
II. SENTENCING HEARING
A. Constitutional Standards
¶18 Mr. Mateos-Martinez argues that the admission of inflammatory victim impact statements at his sentencing hearing violated the prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishments located in
¶19 “[T]he Eighth Amendmеnt does not bar, per se, victim impact evidence, but victim impact evidence may be inadmissible if the evidence is so prejudicial that it makes sentencing fundamentally unfair under the Due Process Clause.” State v. Ott, 2010 UT 1, ¶ 25, 247 P.3d 344 (citing Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U.S. 808, 823, 827 (1991)). Further, “evidence that addresses the defendant’s character or expresses the victim’s opinion of the appropriate sentence at the penalty phase of trial is inadmissible under the Eighth Amendment.” Id. (citing Payne, 501 U.S. at 830 n.2).
Payne overturned Booth v. Maryland, which held the Eighth Amendment barred victim impact evidence. However, to the extent Payne overruled Booth, Booth retained viability for its holding that victim impact evidence that addresses the defendant’s character or expresses the victim’s opinion of the appropriate sentence at the penalty phase of trial is inadmissible under the Eighth Amendment.
Id. (citations omitted).
¶20 Both Payne and Booth limit their holdings to capital sentencing proceedings. Payne, 501 U.S. at 817 (“This Court held [in Booth] by a 5-to-4 vote that the Eighth Amendment prohibits a jury from considering a victim impact statement at the sentencing phase of a capital trial.” (emphasis added)); Booth v. Maryland, 482 U.S. 496, 508 – 09 (1987) (“The admission of these emotionаlly charged opinions as to what conclusions the jury should draw from the evidence clearly is inconsistent with the reasoned decisionmaking we require in capital cases. . . . We conclude that the introduction of a [victim impact statement] at the sentencing phase of a capital murder trial violates the Eighth Amendment . . . .” (emphases added)).
¶21 To reiterate: while Booth held that the Eighth Amendment prevents the introduction of any victim impact evidence at the sentencing phase of a capital sentencing hearing, Payne overruled that absolute bar and limited it to a prohibition on “victim impact evidence that addresses the defendant’s character or expresses the victim’s opinion of the appropriate sentence at the penalty phase of trial.” Ott, 2010 UT 1, ¶ 25.
¶22 The State argues that our decision in Ott is distinguishable in two ways. First, the State suggests that Mr. Mateos-Martinez’s sentencing proceeding was not a capital sentencing proceeding, and therefore that the doctrine of Payne simply does not apply. Second, the State argues that because Mr. Mateos-Martinez was sentenced by a judge, rather than by a jury (as was the case in Ott), this court should apply a rebuttable presumption that judges are not influenced by inappropriate or irrelevant information.
¶23 For his part, Mr. Mateos-Martinez first argues that the Eighth Amendment analysis of Payne should be extended to sentencing proceedings where life without possibility of parole (LWOP) is the maximum sentence available to the sentencing authority. Second, he argues that the identity of the sentencing authority is irrelevant.
¶24 We agree with the State that Ott is distinguishable from the instant case. We understand Payne to apply only to capital sentencing proceedings; the proceedings in Ott were, as we explain below, capital. Today we hold that the Eighth Amendment doctrine of Payne, which establishes an absolute bar on certain types of victim impact testimony, does not apply to sentencing proceedings where death is not an option.
¶25 First, we address the differences between the proceedings in Ott and those in the case before us today. In Ott, we referred to Mr. Ott’s sentence of LWOP as having emerged from a “capital sentencing hearing.” Id. ¶ 26. This determination informed our determination that Payne applied to that case. See id. ¶ 25. Mr. Ott, in fact, entered a guilty plea “in exchange for the State’s agreement not to pursue the death penalty,” id. ¶ 9, and Mr. Mateos-Martinez argues that this fact makes his case indistinguishable from Ott’s, since in both cases the State agreed not to seek the death sentence and the sentencing authority never had the option to impose death.
¶26 But as a matter of statutory definition, at all relevant times leading up to Mr. Ott’s sentencing, all aggravated murder charges wеre designated “capital,” whether or not the prosecution ever requested the imposition of capital punishment. The criminal code has since been amended,4 and now defines aggravated murder as a “capital felony” only if the state has filed “a notice of intent to seek the death penalty.” Compare
¶27 The new version of the aggravated murder statute differs from the old in more than just the label it applies. Although the State in Mr. Ott’s case never asked for the death penalty, the sentencing decision in that case—a choice between LWOP and a lesser sentence—was made by a jury. Ott, 2010 UT 1, ¶ 10. But the same bill that amended the aggravated murder statute created a new statutory section in the sentencing chapter of the criminal code. Aggravated Murder Amendments, ch. 275, §§ 2, 3, 2007 Utah Laws 1152–53. This section provides that “[a] person who has pled guilty to or been convicted of first degree felony aggravated murder under Section 76-5-202 shall be sentenced by the сourt. . . . The sentence under this section shall be life in prison without parole or an indeterminate prison term of not less than 25 years and which may be for life.”
¶28 The State’s two arguments for distinguishing Ott—that Ott dealt with a capital sentencing proceeding, while this case does
¶29 For these reasons, the Eighth Amendment’s absolute ban on victim impact evidence that addresses the defendant’s character or expresses the victim’s character or expresses the victim’s opinion of the appropriate sentence, established by Booth and limited by Payne, does not apply to Mr. Mateos-Martinez’s sentencing proceeding. Accordingly, we must consider whether to extend that absolute ban to noncapital sentencing proceedings conducted by a judge pursuant to
¶30 Mr. Mateos-Martinez urges that we extend the ban against these types of victim impact evidenсe to all sentencing proceedings where LWOP is an available penalty. To support this position, he refers us to Ott. But, as noted above, that case examined proceedings that were statutorily deemed “capital.” He further argues that the United States Supreme Court has recently suggested that LWOP implicates similar Eighth Amendment concerns to those treated in Booth and Payne, citing Graham v. Florida, 130 S. Ct. 2011, 2027 (2010) (“It is true that a death sentence is unique in its severity and irrevocability, yet life without parоle sentences share some characteristics with death sentences that are shared by no other sentences.” (emphasis added) (internal quotation marks omitted)). But Graham considered LWOP only in the context of juvenile defendants. Id. at 2017–18 (“The issue before the Court is whether the Constitution permits a juvenile offender to be sentenced to life in prison without parole for a nonhomicide crime.”). Graham does not hold that LWOP is identical to death in its constitutional implications and does not discuss victim impact testimony. As such, we do not understand Graham to establish an absolute ban on the presentation of certain types of victim impact testimony in noncapital sentencing proceedings for adult offenders.
¶31 Our reluctance to extend the Eighth Amendment per se ban to noncapital proceedings is strengthened by the identity of the sentencing authority in this case. Mr. Mateos-Martinez was sentenced by a judge. “A sentencing judge is not required to articulate whether specific information was inappropriate for consideration, and the mеre introduction of potentially improper information is not sufficient to establish reliance.” State v. Moa, 2012 UT 28, ¶ 40, 282 P.3d 985. Judges “are presumably conditioned by education, training and experience to render service of a professional character under a discipline which should involve a high degree of integrity.” Ellis v. Gilbert, 429 P.2d 39, 41 (Utah 1967); see also State v. Joubert, 455 N.W.2d 117, 130 (Neb. 1990), cert. denied, 499 U.S. 931 (1991) (“Booth is . . . distinguishable from this case in that the sentence in Booth was imposed by a jury of laypersons and, here, the sentences were imposed by a panel of jurists. . . . [I]t is presumed that judges disregard evidence which should not have been admitted.”)
B. Ineffectiveness of Counsel and Plain Error
¶33 In light of our conclusion that the federal Constitution does not preclude the admission of victim impaсt testimony in noncapital cases, there is no basis on which we could hold that defense counsel’s failure to object to the testimony constituted ineffective assistance of counsel. Nor, obviously, can we deem the trial court’s admission of such evidence plain error.
¶34 Mr. Mateos-Martinez does advance general arguments in his brief regarding the relevance of the testimony and its highly inflammatory character, citing
¶35 As noted above, we reject Mr. Mateos-Martinez’s Eighth Amendment claims today. Evidentiary, statutory, or other constitutional problems thаt may exist with victim impact testimony of this kind in noncapital cases are open questions for another day.
CONCLUSION
¶36 Mr. Mateos-Martinez has not shown that the district court erred in denying his motion to amend the charge against him from aggravated murder to murder. Further, we hold that the introduction of the victim impact testimony in this case did not violate the Eighth Amendment; therefore, its admission could not have been plain error, nor could it have been ineffective assistance of counsel to fail to object to it. The conviction and sentence are affirmed.
____________