State v. Peterson

2020 UT App 47, 462 P.3d 421
CourtCourt of Appeals of Utah
DecidedMarch 26, 2020
Docket20180550-CA
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 2020 UT App 47 (State v. Peterson) 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. Peterson, 2020 UT App 47, 462 P.3d 421 (Utah Ct. App. 2020).

Opinion

2020 UT App 47

THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS

STATE OF UTAH, Appellee, v. TIMOTHY JAMES PETERSON, Appellant.

Opinion No. 20180550-CA Filed March 26, 2020

Third District Court, West Jordan Department The Honorable Katie Bernards-Goodman No. 171403640

Emily Adams, Attorney for Appellant Sean D. Reyes and Christopher D. Ballard, Attorneys for Appellee

JUDGE DAVID N. MORTENSEN authored this Opinion, in which JUDGES GREGORY K. ORME and KATE APPLEBY concurred.

MORTENSEN, Judge:

¶1 Timothy James Peterson was convicted of aggravated kidnapping, aggravated assault, and failure to stop at a law enforcement officer’s command after he repeatedly struck his wife throughout an hours-long car ride, prevented her from escaping, and fled when an officer intervened. Peterson challenges his conviction for aggravated kidnapping with a claim of insufficient evidence and his conviction for aggravated assault with a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. We affirm both convictions. State v. Peterson

BACKGROUND

¶2 In September 2017, Peterson and his wife (Wife) were separated but remained married. One evening, in hopes of reconciling, Wife accompanied Peterson to a recording studio in Salt Lake City. Both Peterson and Wife drank alcohol at the studio, even though Wife was on probation and was not permitted to imbibe. Between 8:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m., Peterson became angry with Wife and told her to get in his car, which she willingly did. As Peterson drove away, he struck Wife in the head multiple times. The car slowed as it reached an overpass and Wife exited the car and attempted to walk away. Peterson pulled the car next to her and “convinced” her to get back in the car by threatening her, telling her to “get back in the car before this becomes a scene,” and “physically pushing [her] back into the car.” Wife testified that she was frantic and that a couple thoughts occurred to her: she wanted to avoid law enforcement because she had been drinking, and she knew that she “couldn’t run or [Peterson would] probably still try to get [her] back in the car.” Wife testified that Peterson “forced [her] back into the car.”

¶3 Peterson resumed driving and hitting Wife. Wife told Peterson to stop hitting her, pleaded with him to stop hitting her, and even offered to have sex with him if he would stop hitting her. At one point, while Peterson drove on the freeway at 75 miles per hour, Wife, in her drunken desperation, attempted to throw herself from the car to escape. Peterson grabbed her by the neck and arm to hold her in the car. Peterson forced Wife to stay in the car for hours and endure the beatings until they arrived at a park in Bluffdale at around 3:00 a.m. Wife was in and out of consciousness during the ordeal. On arriving at the park, Peterson “pulled [Wife] out of the car,” forced her over to a water fountain, and told her to “clean [her]self up.”

¶4 Later, an officer noticed Peterson’s vehicle at the park. The officer saw Peterson just inside the car at the rear passenger- side door, punching something in the back seat. The officer

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called to Peterson, who glanced back at the officer and then returned his attention to the back seat of the car. The officer again called out to Peterson, instructing Peterson to turn and face him. As Peterson turned to look at the officer, Wife scrambled out of the rear driver-side door of the car, “stumbling and screaming for [the officer] to save her.” Wife ran to the officer’s vehicle and attempted to get in, all the while crying, “Help me; save me.” Peterson began walking to the front of his car. The officer commanded Peterson, “Don’t move; don’t go.” Peterson then fled on foot from the officer. The officer attempted to pursue Peterson but lost sight of him. The officer returned to the vehicles to tend to Wife and observed she was “disfigured. . . . Her head was misshapen,” she was covered in both dried and fresh blood, “she was bleeding from her nose, her eyes, her ears. . . . Her clothing was saturated in blood . . . everything was just covered in blood.”

¶5 Wife was taken to the emergency room and treated for her injuries. The emergency-room physician found that twelve of Wife’s teeth were shattered, that she sustained fractures to her nasal bone, that she had a splayed lip, and that she suffered a concussion. Wife later reported also having a shattered bone behind one ear, with 85% hearing loss in that ear, as well as two black eyes, a fractured skull, five broken ribs, a lot of bruising, scratch marks, and persistent vision problems.

¶6 Peterson was arrested a few days after the incident and charged with one count each of the following offenses: Aggravated Kidnapping—Domestic Violence related; Aggravated Assault Serious Bodily Injury—Domestic Violence related; Mayhem; and Failure to Stop at the Command of a Law Enforcement Officer. At trial, after the State rested, Peterson moved for a directed verdict on the aggravated kidnapping charge, arguing that Wife was willingly in the car. The court denied the motion. The jury convicted Peterson on the aggravated kidnapping, aggravated assault, and failure to stop charges.

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¶7 After trial, Peterson moved to merge the aggravated kidnapping charge into the aggravated assault charge under the then-available common-law merger doctrine. The court denied the motion and sentenced Peterson to concurrent terms of fifteen years to life for the aggravated kidnapping, one to fifteen years for the aggravated assault, 1 and up to one year on the failure to stop conviction. Peterson appeals.

ISSUES AND STANDARDS OF REVIEW

¶8 Peterson raises two issues on appeal. 2 First, Peterson contends that the trial court erred in denying his motion for a

1. The Sentence, Judgment, Commitment identifies the aggravated assault offense as “Aggravated Assault Targeting Law Enforcement W/ Bodily Injury.” On appeal, Peterson asks this court to remedy the discrepancy as an illegal sentence under rule 22(e) of the Utah Rules of Criminal Procedure. The State concedes the error, but argues that it should be remedied under rule 30 of the Utah Rules of Criminal Procedure. After reviewing the record, we note that the error is only in the description of the offense in the Sentence, Judgment, Commitment. “[A]n error made in recording the judgment is clerical,” and the appropriate remedy is rule 30(b). State v. Watring, 2017 UT App 100, ¶ 13, 400 P.3d 1148; see also Utah R. Crim. P. 30(b). We encourage Peterson to make the appropriate motion to the trial court, which is able to remedy the error at any time. See State v. Cady, 2018 UT App 8, ¶ 41 n.9, 414 P.3d 974.

2. Peterson also filed a rule 23B motion under the Utah Rules of Appellate Procedure for a remand to supplement the record to pursue a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel regarding an alleged failure by trial counsel to move to disqualify the entire Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office for an alleged conflict of interest by a single prosecutor. Peterson claims that a (continued…)

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directed verdict, arguing there was insufficient evidence to support the aggravated kidnapping charge. “We will uphold a trial court’s denial of a motion for directed verdict based on a claim of insufficiency of the evidence if, when viewed in the light most favorable to the State, some evidence exists from which a reasonable jury could find that the elements of the crime had been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.” State v. Gonzalez, 2015 UT 10, ¶ 27, 345 P.3d 1168 (cleaned up).

¶9 Second, Peterson argues that his trial counsel provided constitutionally ineffective assistance with regard to the motion to merge the aggravated kidnapping and aggravated assault offenses.

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Bluebook (online)
2020 UT App 47, 462 P.3d 421, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-peterson-utahctapp-2020.