State v. MENDOZA-TAPIA

273 P.3d 676, 229 Ariz. 224, 631 Ariz. Adv. Rep. 4, 2012 WL 1108290, 2012 Ariz. App. LEXIS 48
CourtCourt of Appeals of Arizona
DecidedApril 3, 2012
Docket1 CA-CR 09-0809
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 273 P.3d 676 (State v. MENDOZA-TAPIA) 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. MENDOZA-TAPIA, 273 P.3d 676, 229 Ariz. 224, 631 Ariz. Adv. Rep. 4, 2012 WL 1108290, 2012 Ariz. App. LEXIS 48 (Ark. Ct. App. 2012).

Opinion

OPINION

THOMPSON, Presiding Judge.

¶ 1 Noe Mendoza-Tapia appeals his convictions and sentences on one count each of kidnapping and theft by extortion, both class two felonies and dangerous offenses. He argues that the evidence was insufficient to prove the use of a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument in the theft by extortion, that the judge reversibly erred in refusing to order a retroactive competency hearing, and that the court miscalculated his presentence incarceration credit. For the reasons that follow, we affirm his convictions and sentences, but remand for recalculation of his presentence incarceration credit.

¶ 2 A grand jury indicted Mendoza-Tapia, Jhonnatan Ochoa-Suarez, and Eulalio Plas-cencia-Moreno each on one count of kidnapping and one count of theft by extortion, both class two felonies and dangerous offenses. 1 The judge severed Mendoza-Tapia’s trial from the trial of Ochoa-Suarez and Plaseen-cia-Moreno. The evidence introduced at Mendoza-Tapia’s trial, viewed in the light most favorable to supporting his convictions, 2 was as follows. On the afternoon of October 15, 2007, Mendoza-Tapia forced the victim to lie face down in the backseat of the victim’s vehicle by threatening him, first, with a knife, and then, with a gun. Another of the accomplices drove the vehicle to a vacant house in central Phoenix. The kidnappers blindfolded the victim, beat him, and tied him up.

¶ 3 The kidnappers then called the victim’s wife and threatened to kill the victim if she did not pay them a ransom. The victim’s wife testified: “They told me I had to get the money. If not, they were going to kill him. And the first thing that was going to — that I was going to find by the door of my house was going to be his head.” The kidnapping victim testified that, when the kidnappers put him on the phone with his wife, he told her “[t]o do what she was told to do, because they were hitting me.”

¶ 4 Police arrested Mendoza-Tapia and two others after observing them acting suspiciously in a parked vehicle near the place where police had arranged to drop off the ransom. Police found a loaded handgun under the passenger seat in which Mendoza-Tapia was seated, and another under the *227 driver’s seat. Mendoza-Tapia directed police to the house where they found the victim alone, blindfolded, tied up, and beaten about the face. Mendoza-Tapia told police he had been hired to act as a lookout at the house where the victim was held, and to pick up the ransom, and that he had made three or four calls to the victim’s wife directing her to the ransom site.

¶ 5 The jury convicted Mendoza-Tapia of kidnapping and theft by extortion, and found each to be a dangerous offense. 3 The jury found the existence of aggravating circumstances. The judge sentenced Mendoza-Ta-pia to an aggravated term of fifteen years on the kidnapping conviction, a class two dangerous felony, and an aggravated term of twelve years on the theft by extortion conviction, also a class two dangerous felony, both sentences to be served consecutively. Mendoza-Tapia timely appealed.

Conviction for Theft, a Class Two Dangerous Felony

¶ 6 Mendoza-Tapia argues that the state offered insufficient evidence to convict him of a class two felony for theft by extortion, to find that it was a dangerous offense, and to prove the aggravating circumstance of “use of a gun or a deadly weapon” during this offense. He argues first that this court should apply the law of the case doctrine and find dispositive its 2009 decision that the same evidence offered at the trial of defendant Jhonnatan Ochoa-Suarez was insufficient to prove that the kidnappers threatened use of a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument in the ransom calls. See State v. Ochoa-Suarez, 1 CA-CR 08-0503, 2009 WL 2525274 (Ariz.App. Aug.18, 2009) (mem. decision). 4 He argues alternatively that if this court declines to apply the law of the case doctrine, it should nevertheless find that insufficient evidence supported the conviction, sentencing enhancement, and aggravating circumstance.

¶ 7 We find the law of the case doctrine inapplicable, because this ease involves a different defendant, a different judge, and a different trial. See State v. Bocharski, 218 Ariz. 476, 489, ¶ 60, 189 P.3d 403, 416 (2008) (noting that law of the ease rule applies to rulings “in the same case, provided the facts and issues are substantially the same as those on which the first decision rested” (emphasis added)); State v. Whelan, 208 Ariz. 168, 171, ¶ 10, 91 P.3d 1011, 1014 (App.2004) (rejecting application of law of the case doctrine to two separate actions). Furthermore, the state conceded in Ochoar-Suarez that the evidence failed to support a conviction of theft by extortion. Ochoa-Suarez, 1 CA-CR 08-0503 at 3, ¶ 13. The state makes no such concession here.

¶ 8 We accordingly review de novo the sufficiency of the evidence to support the conviction. State v. West, 226 Ariz. 559, 562, ¶ 15, 250 P.3d 1188, 1191 (2011). In reviewing the sufficiency of evidence, we view the facts in the light most favorable to upholding the jury’s verdict, and resolve all conflicts in the evidence against Mendoza-Tapia. See State v. Girdler, 138 Ariz. 482, 488, 675 P.2d 1301, 1307 (1983). “Reversible error based on insufficiency of the evidence occurs only where there is a complete absence of probative facts to support the conviction.” State v. Soto-Fong, 187 Ariz. 186, 200, 928 P.2d 610, 624 (1996) (citation omitted). “A conviction ‘may rest solely on circumstantial proof,’ but mere ‘[speculation concerning possibilities is an insufficient basis’ to sustain a conviction.” State v. Garcia, 227 Ariz. 377, 379, ¶ 9, 258 P.3d 195, 197 (App.2011) (citations omitted).

¶ 9 Theft by extortion is a class two felony if the defendant “knowingly obtain[s] or seek[s] to obtain property ... by means of a *228 threat to ... [e]ause physical injury to anyone by means of a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument.” A.R.S. § 13 — 1804(A)(1), (C) (Supp.2010). 5 Theft by extortion is a class four felony if the defendant seeks to obtain property by threatening to cause physical injury, but not by means of a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument. A.R.S. § 13-1804(A)(2), (C).

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

State v. Hill
Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2025
State v. Brown
Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2024
State v. Sills
Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2024
State v. Roman
Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2022
Bennie v. Johnson
Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2022
State v. Evans
506 P.3d 819 (Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2022)
Schwartzkopf v. Schwartzkopf
Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2021
Strojnik v. Brnovich
Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2021
Ward v. Smith
Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2021
Citibank v. Lambert
Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2021
State v. Axton
Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2020
State v. Clark
Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2020
Alcott v. Killebrew
Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2020
Marceaux v. Baker
Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2019
Capital One v. Castronova
Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2018
State v. Chavarria
Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2018
State v. Laakmann
Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2014
State v. Garcia
Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2014
State of Arizona v. Amy Kay Gustafson
311 P.3d 258 (Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2013)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
273 P.3d 676, 229 Ariz. 224, 631 Ariz. Adv. Rep. 4, 2012 WL 1108290, 2012 Ariz. App. LEXIS 48, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-mendoza-tapia-arizctapp-2012.