State Of Washington, V Glenn T. Hansen

Court of Appeals of Washington·Decided July 7, 2015·No. 45961-2·Unpublished

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IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON

DIVISION II

STATE OF WASHINGTON, No. 45961 -2 -II

UNPUBLISHED OPINION

Respondent, I

V.

GLENN T. HANSEN,

BJORGEN, J. — Glenn T. Hansen appeals from his conviction for second degree

trafficking in stolen property, entered following a bench trial, and from the sentence imposed. Hansen argues that the trial court should not have considered his statements to the investigating

officer because the State failed to independently establish the corpus delicti of the crime and that without those statements, insufficient evidence supports the conviction. We agree with Hansen on both points. Therefore, we reverse Hansen' s conviction and remand for dismissal of the charge with prejudice. With this resolution, it is not necessary to address Hansen' s other claims.

FACTS

On July 26, 2013, Hansen sold six pieces of "750 MCM" heavy -gauge copper wire, totaling 346 pounds and about 150 feet, to Butcher' s Scrap & Metal, a metal recycler in Hoquiam, for $865. Hansen arrived at Butcher' s with an associate, later identified as Eric Maki.

He and Maki had worked together in the salvage business for about five years and had often

stripped and sold large quantities of wire. Hansen provided his driver' s license as identification,

and Butcher' s kept a copy. A Butcher' s employee became suspicious and called the Hoquiam police. Detective David Blundred visited Butcher' s, obtained a copy of the receipt, photographed the wire, and took a sample.

On August 9, 2013, Tyrone Palmer, an employee of the Bank of the Pacific, visited

Carlson' s Mill," a vacant sawmill the bank owned about five miles south of the town of Neilton.

Palmer saw that someone had opened the concrete lids of certain underground vaults on the mill

premises, and that no wire remained in the conduits to which the vaults provided access, which

ran from a transformer to the mill' s dry kiln. When Palmer had last visited the mill, on July 6, 2013, he had not noticed any problem with the vaults. Palmer had never looked inside the vaults before, however, and had no personal knowledge that the conduits ever contained any wire. Palmer informed Grays Harbor County Sheriff' s Deputy Sean Gow, who visited the mill with Palmer and took photographs.

Grays Harbor County Sheriff' s Detective Sergeant Brad Johansson visited Hansen shortly thereafter to ask " about the wire that had been sold to Butcher' s Scrap Metal." Verbatim Report

of Proceedings ( VRP) at 64- 65. Hansen' s home was about four miles from Carlson' s Mill.

Hansen immediately asked to go get dressed so Johansson could take him to jail. Johansson replied that he just wanted to talk and that Hansen was not under arrest. Hansen then said that

he knew that he made a mistake, and he wasn' t going to contest what he had done, and Johansson] might as well go ahead and take him to jail," adding that he would take responsibility for what he had done. VRP at 65.

Johansson placed Hansen under arrest and gave him the Miranda' advisements. While

they waited for another officer to arrive to take Hansen to jail, Hansen told Johansson the following story about how he had acquired the wire:

Hansen] said that Mr. Maki had called him late at night ... and asked him to pick Maki] up ... south of Carlson' s Mill on Highway 101, and they were just south of Highway 101. [ Hansen] pulled over, Mr. Maki was on the side of the road, he had

all the wire on the side of the road, hidden in the brush, and then they loaded the wire up, put it in his car, and took it back to his house.... [ T] hey then sold it at Butcher' s ... the next day.

VRP at 68. Johansson asked whether the wire came from a different vacant sawmill, where

Hansen had recently done salvage work, and Hansen denied it.

Johansson then confronted Maki with Hansen' s story. After Maki " vehemently denied"

it, Johansson interviewed Hansen and Maki together. VRP at 69. Hansen immediately admitted that he had lied, but invoked the right to counsel when asked why.

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

The State charged Hansen with second degree trafficking in stolen property. 2 Hansen

stipulated that he made his statements to Johansson voluntarily and after being properly advised of his rights, and the court found them admissible pursuant to CrR 3. 5. During the hearing at which the trial court accepted the stipulation, however, defense counsel made clear that he

Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, 86 S. Ct. 1602, 16 L. Ed. 2d 694 ( 1966).

2 Although the information identified the charge as second degree trafficking in stolen property, and the statutory provision cited, RCW 9A.82. 055, requires the State to prove only that the defendant recklessly trafficked in stolen property, the information alleged that Hansen " did knowingly traffic in stolen property," conduct amounting to first degree trafficking in stolen property. Clerk' s Papers at 1; RCW 9A.82. 050. The State never filed an amended information. Because we hold the evidence insufficient to sustain even the lesser charge, the apparent error has no bearing on our resolution of this appeal.

wished to preserve a corpus delicti challenge to the admission of Hansen' s statements, and the

court noted that the stipulation applied only to admissibility under CrR 3. 5.

Hansen pled not guilty, waived his jury rights, and proceeded to trial. Immediately before trial, the court inquired as to the admissibility of Hansen' s pretrial statements, and defense counsel again raised the corpus delicti issue:

We day we did that, Your Honor was ... the judge entered an order.... The

at the time, I said we were preserving the issue of admissibility under corpus delicti.... And the only issue that I preserved [ at the pretrial hearing] was basic admissibility of any statement under corpus delicti.

VRP at 3- 4. Defense counsel did not raise a corpus delicti challenge when Johansson testified to

Hansen' s statements, however, or subsequently argue the issue.

At trial, a Butcher' s employee, Palmer, and various law enforcement officials testified to

the facts as set forth above. Two employees of Grays Harbor Public Utility District (PUD) testified that, according to their records, at least some of the conduits leading to the mill' s dry kiln had once contained insulated 750 MCM copper wire and that they had removed similar wire from the PUD substation serving the mill in February or May 2013. The PUD employees made

clear that they did not remove any wire from the mill' s conduits.

Commercial electrician Brad Jones testified that Palmer asked him to inspect the mill and prepare an " estimate on the cost of replacement, and what exactly it would take to get ... the dry kilns back up and running." VRP at 28. Jones testified that 750 MCM copper wire is commonly used in industrial sites throughout Washington.

Maki testified that the night before he and Hansen visited Butcher' s, he stayed in a tent

on Hansen' s property. Hansen arrived the day of the sale with the wire in the trunk of his vehicle and asked Maki to strip the insulation from it. Maki had often worked with Hansen to salvage much larger quantities and thought this " unremarkable." VRP at 56, 59. Maki did not recall if

Hansen ever said where he obtained the wire, but maintained that his and Hansen' s salvage work

had always been " legal" and " clean." VRP at 61.

The defense argued in closing that the State had presented " no evidence that this wire was stolen," let alone that Hansen knew it was stolen when he sold it to Butcher' s. VRP at 71- 77. Defense counsel argued that Hansen' s statements to Johansson established at most that he

later realized maybe he made a mistake and [ decided to] take responsibility," VRP at 76, but

never specifically argued that the court should not consider the statements under the corpus delicti rule.

The trial court found that the State had proved each element of the charge beyond a

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