State v. Cox

826 P.2d 656, 179 Utah Adv. Rep. 24, 1992 Utah App. LEXIS 9, 1992 WL 17837
CourtCourt of Appeals of Utah
DecidedJanuary 31, 1992
Docket910058-CA
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 826 P.2d 656 (State v. Cox) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Utah primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Cox, 826 P.2d 656, 179 Utah Adv. Rep. 24, 1992 Utah App. LEXIS 9, 1992 WL 17837 (Utah Ct. App. 1992).

Opinion

OPINION

GREENWOOD, Judge:

Defendant Chuck Cox appeals from his convictions of burglary, a second degree felony, in violation of Utah Code Ann. § 76-6-202 (1990), and theft, a third degree felony, in violation of Utah Code Ann. § 76-6-404 (1990). We reverse and remand for a new trial because the trial court failed to remove a prospective juror for cause.

FACTS

In November 1989, defendant and two friends, Ronnie Wells and Dustin Bisset, went on a firewood gathering trip in the La Sal Mountains in San Juan County. When their truck ran out of gas, they abandoned it and walked out of the mountains. Defendant and Wells returned the next day to *658 retrieve the truck. Wells, who later testified for the State, claimed that during the second trip to the mountains, he and defendant stopped at a cabin owned by David Bierschied to use the telephone. Wells testified that no one was inside the cabin. He stated that defendant went around to the side of the cabin and returned with two hunting bows. Wells did not see defendant actually go into the cabin. Wells testified that defendant later gave him the bows in lieu of payment on a debt. At Wells’s request, his wife pawned the bows at a pawn shop in Grand Junction, Colorado.

The San Juan County Sheriff investigated the theft and burglary of Bierschied’s cabin and recovered a knife taken from the cabin. Officers obtained the knife from an informant, Michael Beeson, who claimed Wells gave it to him. Beeson stated that either Wells or defendant told him the knife had been taken in a burglary. Defendant, Wells, and Wells’s wife were charged with various offenses. The charges against Wells’s wife were eventually dropped and Wells pled guilty to class A misdemeanor theft. Defendant was charged with burglary, a second degree felony, and theft, a third degree felony.

At defendant’s trial, Bierschied testified that he owned the cabin in the La Sal Mountains. He testified that no one lived in the cabin on a daily basis and that it was occupied less than fifty percent of the time. Bierschied said his permanent residence was in Moab, but he spent two or three days a week at his cabin. He identified the bows and knife as his and stated that the items had been in his cabin the last time he was there.

Defendant testified that he and Wells did not stop at the cabin and that he did not take the bows or knife missing from Biers-chied’s cabin. James Franklin, an occasional employer of defendant, testified that in November 1989, he overheard a conversation in which Wells asked defendant to look over some hunting bows Wells’s father had sent to him and that defendant declined. Defendant’s friend, Tina Plumb, testified that during this same conversation, she heard her brother, Michael Beeson, ask defendant if he had a knife he wanted to sell. She stated that defendant said he did not, and that Wells then took a knife from his pocket and offered it to Beeson.

Following the jury trial, defendant was convicted of both charges. The trial court denied defendant’s motion for a new trial. This appeal followed.

ISSUES

Defendant asserts the following arguments on appeal: (1) the trial court erred in failing to excuse a potential juror for cause; (2) the trial court erred in excluding evidence offered to show Wells’s bias; (3) the burglary charge was improper because the cabin is not a dwelling; (4) the trial court erred in excluding defendant’s jury instructions and using an improper reasonable doubt instruction; (5) defendant’s right to a fair trial was violated when he was transported from the jail to the courthouse lobby in shackles; (6) the trial court erred in denying his motion for a new trial; and (7) the cumulative effect of the trial court’s errors prejudiced defendant’s right to a fair trial.

JUROR BIAS

Defendant argues that the trial court erred in failing to dismiss a prospective juror, Rhea Austin, for cause. During voir dire, Austin revealed that her brother-in-law was the Chief of Police in Blanding, Utah, one of two primary municipalities in San Juan County. The court also discovered that the prosecutor had served as Austin’s attorney in some private matters as recently as one month prior to defendant’s trial. The court’s inquiry of Austin during voir dire was as follows:

THE COURT: Have you or any members of your family worked for any police departments?
MS. AUSTIN: My brother-in-law is the chief of police in Blanding.
THE COURT: Your brother-in-law. I see. Do you talk to him about his work quite often?
MS. AUSTIN: No.
*659 THE COURT: Do you think the fact that your brother-in-law is the chief of police in Blanding — do you think that fact would make you want to give more or less weight to the testimony of a police officer — because of that fact, or do you think you could give it the fair weight you think it’s entitled to receive regardless whether it’s a police officer or not?
MS. AUSTIN: Yes.
THE COURT: You don’t think that would bother you?
MS. AUSTIN: No.
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THE PROSECUTOR: Your Honor, I have just been handling a case for Mrs. Austin. I am no longer an attorney on that case, but it’s probably been in the last month that I’ve had that association. Maybe you’ve already gone through that or you’re going to go through it later, but you might want to inquire into that.
THE COURT: Well, of course, we’ll get to that eventually. But you say you have had that relationship with Mrs. Austin. Mrs. Austin is Mr. Halls presently your lawyer? Do you have a present ongoing attorney-client relationship with him?
MS. AUSTIN: He’s not doing anything for me right now.
THE COURT: But he has in the past?
MS. AUSTIN: He has in the past.
THE COURT: How long ago was that?
MS. AUSTIN: Well, likfe he said, it’s probably just been a month since the last time.
THE COURT: I see. But that matter has been concluded. Did that involve some private matters — business matters and that sort of thing?
MS. AUSTIN: Yes.
THE COURT: It wasn’t a criminal investigation or anything of that sort?
MS. AUSTIN: No.
THE COURT: In other words, it was involved in a private attorney-client relationship?
MS. AUSTIN: That’s right.
THE COURT: Was there anything in that, Mrs. Austin, that would make you want to give more or less weight to what he’s advocating in this case?
MS.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
826 P.2d 656, 179 Utah Adv. Rep. 24, 1992 Utah App. LEXIS 9, 1992 WL 17837, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-cox-utahctapp-1992.