State v. Hall

665 P.2d 101, 136 Ariz. 219, 1983 Ariz. App. LEXIS 436
CourtCourt of Appeals of Arizona
DecidedApril 5, 1983
Docket1 CA-CR 5754
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 665 P.2d 101 (State v. Hall) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Arizona primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Hall, 665 P.2d 101, 136 Ariz. 219, 1983 Ariz. App. LEXIS 436 (Ark. Ct. App. 1983).

Opinion

OPINION

KLEIN SCHMIDT, Judge.

Appellant John Richard Hall was tried in absentia to a jury and convicted of two counts of aggravated assault, class 3 felonies, in violation of A.R.S. § 13-1204(A)(2). Because the indictment charged the use of a deadly weapon and the jury returned verdicts finding the use of a deadly weapon, appellant was sentenced under the enhanced punishment provisions of A.R.S. § 13-604(G). He received concurrent sentences of twelve years imprisonment.

The facts are that on the afternoon of February 11, 1981, the victim was hitchhik *221 ing from Flagstaff to Phoenix and was picked up by a man driving a brown Chevrolet van with a motorcycle in the back. After riding for a short distance, the victim realized that the driver was intoxicated and therefore requested that he be permitted to drive the remainder of the trip. The driver, who identified himself to the victim as “John,” agreed and the van proceeded toward Phoenix with the victim driving. En route, John’s behavior became erratic. On several occasions he threatened to kill the victim and twice fired pistol shots close to the victim’s head.

When they arrived in Phoenix, the victim stopped at a service station under the pretense of buying gas and was able to escape. He ran a few blocks from the service station, hailed a police officer in a patrol car and returned to the service station whereupon a John Hall, the same man from whom the victim had fled, was arrested and eventually indicted.

The person arrested and indicted was ultimately released on bond, did not appear for trial, and the trial proceeded in absentia.

At trial the victim described the incidents of February 11, 1981, and said that his assailant introduced himself as John. He described the assailant as being around 40 years of age, with a weather-beaten face, sunken eyes, and longish hair. He identified photographs taken at the service station of the van but no photographs of the appellant were shown to him nor was there any additional testimony by the victim which identified appellant as the assailant.

The arresting officers testified that the man arrested at the service station carried identification in his wallet bearing the name John Richard Hall. Additionally, they testified that the motorcycle was registered to a man named John Richard Hall. However, no fingerprints or photographs of the man arrested and booked were identified at trial. In short, the only evidence produced at trial identifying appellant as the assailant was the fact that a long-haired, weather-beaten, sunken-eyed man of about 40, named John Richard Hall, committed the crimes. The appellant contends that this was insufficient evidence of his identity as the perpetrator to convict.

It is axiomatic that the burden is always on the state to prove all of the elements of the crime and the identity of the person who committed the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. State v. Dutton, 83 Ariz. 193, 318 P.2d 667 (1957).

We recognize that under State v. Pennye, 102 Ariz. 207, 427 P.2d 525 (1967) name identity alone is not sufficient to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Here, however, there is more than an identity of names. Since the man arrested was only out of the victim’s sight for a few moments the state proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the John Richard Hall, approximately 40, sunken-eyed, weather-beaten and with long hair, who was arrested in the presence of the victim and who had been with the victim from commission of the crime to time of arrest, was the same man who committed the crime. The real question is not whether the evidence was sufficient' to convict the John Richard Hall described but whether the John Richard Hall who was sentenced is the same person as the man initially arrested for the crime. About that there is no doubt.

The John Richard Hall who was originally arrested was released on a bond posted by Dorothy Lee Hall, the wife of John Richard Hall, the man ultimately sentenced. William Kiger, counsel appointed for the John Richard Hall who was arrested, also appeared for the John Richard Hall who was sentenced. The judge who heard the description of the perpetrator at trial also saw the man sentenced and presumably the descriptions matched. When the judge asked if there was any legal cause why sentence should not be pronounced counsel for Mr. Hall responded in the negative. The man sentenced never objected to being sentenced or so much as intimated that he would later claim that he was not the person convicted of the crime. Had he done so it would have been incumbent upon the state to demonstrate at that time that the *222 man sentenced was the same person who was initially arrested.

If the circumstances and nature of the crime and the all but continuous observation of the perpetrator by the victim had been different the state’s proof might well have been insufficient. Here, however, there is no question but that the jury convicted a specific man and that he is the person who was sentenced.

There is one Arizona case on point that merits comment. In State v. Corrales, 119 Ariz. 381, 580 P.2d 1235 (1978) Division 2 of this court upheld a conviction obtained on a trial in absentia where there was no in-court identification of the defendant who had consistently given the name “Ignacio Castillo Corrales.” Pour policemen testified to the physical description of the person arrested. While the details of that description and the circumstances of the arrest do not appear in the report of the case the evidence presented was held sufficient to support the conviction.

Appellant also claims that the trial court erred in finding that his absence was voluntary and in proceeding to trial in his absence. A defendant has a constitutional right to be present in the courtroom at every critical stage of the proceedings against him. Illinois v. Allen, 397 U.S. 337, 90 S.Ct. 1057, 25 L.Ed.2d 353 (1970); State v. Bohn, 116 Ariz. 500, 503, 570 P.2d 187, 190 (1977). This right is not absolute however, and may be waived if the defendant voluntarily absents himself. Taylor v. United States, 414 U.S. 17, 94 S.Ct. 194, 38 L.Ed.2d 174 (1973); State v. Bohn, supra.

Rule 9.1, Ariz.R.Crim.P., provides that the trial court may infer that absence is voluntary if the defendant had personal notice of the time of the proceeding, his right to be present at it, and received a warning that the proceeding would go forward in his absence should he fail to appear. State v. Tudgay, 128 Ariz. 1, 623 P.2d 360 (1981).

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Bluebook (online)
665 P.2d 101, 136 Ariz. 219, 1983 Ariz. App. LEXIS 436, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-hall-arizctapp-1983.