Abeyta v. State

137 So. 3d 305, 2014 WL 1716333, 2014 Miss. LEXIS 223
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedMay 1, 2014
DocketNo. 2013-KA-00495-SCT
StatusPublished
Cited by23 cases

This text of 137 So. 3d 305 (Abeyta v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Abeyta v. State, 137 So. 3d 305, 2014 WL 1716333, 2014 Miss. LEXIS 223 (Mich. 2014).

Opinion

CHANDLER, Justice, for the Court:

¶ 1. A Harrison County jury convicted Ryan Abeyta of the murder of his mother, and the Circuit Court of Harrison County sentenced him to life in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections. Abeyta appeals, arguing that he was entitled to a jury instruction on heat-of-passion manslaughter, that the evidence of deliberate design was insufficient to support the verdict, and that the trial court abused its discretion by admitting gruesome photographs of the victim. We find [309]*309that Abeyta’s issues are without merit and affirm the judgment of the trial court.

FACTS

¶ 2. On October 10, 2010, Abeyta, age twenty-nine, was living with his mother, Pamela Santiago, in Gulfport, Mississippi. According to Pamela’s best friend and neighbor, Sheila Ford, Abeyta was a heavy drug and alcohol user who routinely took Santiago’s debit and credit cards to purchase drinks at a nearby bar. Ford testified that she visited Santiago on the morning of October 10. During the visit, Santiago noticed that her debit card was missing. Ford said that Santiago was upset because Abeyta’s unauthorized use of the debit card had been a persistent problem. After Ford left, Abeyta returned home and had a conversation with his mother about the debit card. Then, he brutally beat her and strangled her to death.

¶ 3. A fitness walker discovered Santiago’s body wrapped in a sheet in the woods near the Biloxi River. The forensic pathologist, Dr. Paul McGarry, conducted an autopsy of Santiago. He identified the cause of death as asphyxia from strangulation. He testified that he found evidence of blunt-force trauma to Santiago’s face, neck, and upper chest. She had been struck five to six times in the face, and three to four times in the side and back of the head. Her neck, face, and eyes showed the classic signs of manual strangulation, and her chest bore bruises indicative of being pressed against a surface and strangled. Santiago had defensive wounds.

¶4. A video of Santiago at Walmart showed she was alive at 1:53 p.m. on October 10. Ford testified that, a little after 3:00 p.m. that day, Abeyta came over and he was sweaty and crying. He hugged her, said “I’m sorry,” and asked her for money. At about 6:30 p.m., Ford observed Abeyta and another man outside Abeyta’s residence.

¶ 5. The police searched Santiago’s home. They found drops of dried blood in an office. In other rooms, they found white powder, syringes, marijuana residue, empty alcohol bottles, and sleeping pills. The police developed Abeyta as a suspect, and Detective Kelly Clark called him. He said that a mob from New Mexico had killed his mother and had threatened to kill him next if he did not return their money. He told Clark that he was in Louisiana and would drive back to Mississippi to meet the police. But Abeyta never turned himself in; by tracking his mother’s cell phone, the police located him in Alabama, where he was arrested by a United States Marshal’s task force. Abey-ta was driving his mother’s car.

¶ 6. On October 12, 2011, Detective Jason Gouin interviewed Abeyta after securing his waiver of rights. Initially, Abeyta blamed his mother’s death on a mob from New Mexico. Later, he admitted he had strangled her to death. He stated that he had been shooting cocaine. His mother was sitting behind her desk in her office, and he talked to her about the debit card. He said she was upset because he had taken the card and was drinking so much, and he “lost it” and choked her. Abeyta said that he sat with the body for awhile, then wrapped it in a sheet. He stated that he called a friend who agreed to help him dispose of the body. That evening, he and the friend put Santiago’s body in her car, drove to the woods, and dumped the body.

¶ 7. Abeyta’s trial testimony varied from his statement to Gouin. Abeyta testified that, when he returned home on October 10, his mother asked him about the debit card, and he admitted that he had taken it. He testified that he went to his room and shot cocaine. Later, he was [310]*310in the living room drinking, and he had a “conversation with the devil” in which he contemplated killing Santiago. He went to his mother’s office and apologized to her for taking the debit card. He testified that then, he blacked out, and when he came to he discovered that he had killed his mother. Abeyta testified that at first he was so distraught he tried to overdose on cocaine, but ultimately he decided to cover up the crime.

¶8. The jury found Abeyta guilty of murder.

DISCUSSION

I. WHETHER THE TRIAL COURT ERRED BY DENYING A JURY INSTRUCTION ON HEAT-OF-PASSION MANSLAUGHTER.

¶ 9. Abeyta argues that the trial court erroneously denied his requested jury instruction on the lesser-included offense of heat-of-passion manslaughter. See Miss.Code Ann. § 97-3-19(3) (Rev. 2006) (providing that manslaughter is a lesser-included offense of murder). On review of the denial of a jury instruction, this Court “review[s] the jury instructions as a whole ‘to determine if the jury was properly instructed.’ ” Flowers v. State, 51 So.3d 911 (Miss.2010) (quoting Rubenstein v. State, 941 So.2d 735, 787 (Miss.2006)). “A party has the right to have the jury instructed on all material issues presented by the evidence; generally, an instruction should be granted if it correctly states the law, is supported by the evidence, and is not repetitious.” Pauley v. State, 113 So.3d 557, 564 (Miss.2013). A party is entitled to a jury instruction on a lesser-included offense if the instruction has an evidentiary foundation. Batiste v. State, 121 So.3d 808, 844 (Miss.2013). The trial court must grant a lesser-included-offense instruction unless the trial judge — and ultimately this Court — can say, considering the evidence and all reasonable inferences that can be drawn therefrom in the light most favorable to the accused, that no reasonable jury could find the defendant guilty of the lesser-included offense. Id. (quoting Anderson v. State, 79 So.3d 501, 505 (Miss.2012)).

¶ 10. Mississippi Code Section 97-3-35 provides that “[t]he killing of a human being, without malice, in the heat of passion, but in a cruel or unusual manner, or by the use of a dangerous weapon, without authority of law, and not in necessary self-defense, shall be manslaughter.” Miss.Code Ann. § 97-3-35 (Rev.2006). “Heat of passion” is

[a] state of violent and uncontrollable rage engendered by a blow or certain other provocation given, which will reduce a homicide from the grade of murder to that of manslaughter. Passion or anger suddenly aroused at the time by some immediate and reasonable provocation, by words or acts of one at the time. The term includes an emotional state of mind characterized by anger, rage, hatred, furious resentment or terror.

Batiste, 121 So.3d at 844 (quoting McCune v. State, 989 So.2d 310, 319 (Miss.2008)). That the accused subjectively experienced passion and anger is not enough to reduce a killing to manslaughter.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
137 So. 3d 305, 2014 WL 1716333, 2014 Miss. LEXIS 223, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/abeyta-v-state-miss-2014.