Vincent Scott Vigil v. Aristedes W. Zavaras and the Attorney General of the State of Colorado

298 F.3d 935, 2002 U.S. App. LEXIS 14772, 2002 WL 1614091
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
DecidedJuly 23, 2002
Docket01-1023
StatusPublished
Cited by28 cases

This text of 298 F.3d 935 (Vincent Scott Vigil v. Aristedes W. Zavaras and the Attorney General of the State of Colorado) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Vincent Scott Vigil v. Aristedes W. Zavaras and the Attorney General of the State of Colorado, 298 F.3d 935, 2002 U.S. App. LEXIS 14772, 2002 WL 1614091 (10th Cir. 2002).

Opinion

EBEL, Circuit Judge.

Vincent Scott Vigil, the Petitioner Appellant, is currently serving a twenty-four-year sentence in Colorado state prison for committing sexual assault in the first degree and committing a violent crime with a deadly weapon while committing first-degree sexual assault. Vigil seeks a writ of habeas corpus from this court, arguing that his Sixth Amendment rights were violated when the jury that convicted him considered evidence beyond that produced at trial. The United States District Court for the District of Colorado denied Vigil relief, but issued a certificate of appealability pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2253, and this appeal followed. Exercising jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 2253, we affirm.

*937 I. Background

Sometime between 4:00 a.m. and 4:28 a.m. on the morning of July 2, 1982, a man appeared outside the bedroom window of seventeen-year-old Christina Wagner, identified himself as Scott, told Wagner that her former boyfriend, Cesar Pedraza, was “hurt,” and asked Wagner to come outside and help Pedraza. Wagner did not actually see the person outside her window. Once the man identified himself as Scott, however, she recognized the voice as belonging to Vigil, who was Pedraza’s ex-roommate and who had known Wagner for approximately two years. 1 Wagner then got out of bed, changed out of her night clothes, put on underwear, jeans, and a sweatshirt, picked up a wet washcloth and a towel, arid proceeded out the backdoor of her home. Once outside, Wagner walked around the side of the house and moved toward the front of the home, at which point she saw a Jeep that she believed to belong to Vigil and to contain the allegedly injured Pedraza. 2 Wagner testified that as she passed the driveway, Vigil startled her by emerging from a nearby bush. Wagner said “hi” to Vigil and then proceeded toward the Jeep.

According to Wagner, Vigil then approached her from behind “put his arm around [her] neck and a knife to [her] throat” and “walked [her] ... to between the neighbor’s trees,” telling her in the process that if she screamed, he would kill her. Wagner further testified that Vigil pushed her to the ground and told her to take off her jeans, which Wagner then pulled to her knees. Vigil then removed Wagner’s underpants, as well as a tampon she had been wearing, and raped Wagner, Wagner testified. Twice during the assault, Wagner screamed and attempted to fight off Vigil; Vigil responded to Wagner’s resistance by strangling her, and eventually Wagner passed out. Three neighbors testified that they heard screams near the Wagner residence sometime between 4:25 a.m. and 4:28 a.m. on July 2.

As Vigil points out in his briefs on appeal, the prosecution’s case depended heavily upon Wagner’s testimony and circumstantial evidence. Not surprisingly, Vigil attacked both during the trial. First, he emphasized that despite running a series of tests, the prosecution never produced physical evidence linking Vigil to the crime. In addition, Vigil’s defense counsel emphasized that the medical personnel who examined Wagner hours after the attack did not find any evidence conclusively indicating that sexual penetration occurred during the assault, a required element for first degree sexual assault. Vigil’s defense counsel also emphasized problems with Wagner’s credibility, noting, for instance, how she claimed to have seen Vigil’s face clearly when he jumped out of the bush, but also acknowledged that it was very dark outside at the time of the attack and that a neighbor’s trees .obstructed most.of the streetlight.

During his defense, Vigil also emphasized the issue of timing. Vigil produced undisputed testimony that he spent the evening of July 1 and early morning hours *938 of July 2 with two acquaintances, David Busman and James Balsbaugh, going to several bars and dance clubs in the southeast Denver area. According to uncontra-dicted evidence, Vigil, Busman, Balsbaugh, and two women they had met earlier that evening arrived at the Village Inn Restaurant at 2:50 a.m. Busman testified that he, Balsbaugh, and Vigil left the restaurant at 4:00 a.m., and the waitress that served Vigil and his friends also testified that the group left the Village Inn sometime after four o’clock in the morning. After departing the restaurant, Vigil dropped off Bus-man and Balsbaugh at Busman’s home, which is 12.7 miles from the Village Inn and 3.6 miles from Wagner’s home.

At trial, and on appeal, Vigil agreed that Wagner had been assaulted on July 2 in some manner and that the assault occurred sometime between 4:25 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. 3 Vigil contended, however, that he could not possibly have left the Village Inn at 4:00 a.m., driven over twelve miles to Busman’s house, dropped off Busman and Balsbaugh, driven another 3.6 miles to Wagner’s home, knocked on Wagner’s window, waited for Wagner to change her clothes and walk outside, grabbed Wagner from behind, removed her jeans and undergarments, and then sexually assaulted her by 4:25 a.m. or 4:28 a.m. To bolster this claim, Vigil introduced testimony from a defense investigator who stated that it took him twenty minutes to drive from the Village Inn to Busman’s house at 4:00 a.m., going the posted speed limit. In addition, Vigil testified that he, Busman, and Bals-baugh left the Village Inn between 4:05 a.m. and 4:10 a.m. and arrived at Busman’s home at 4:25 a.m., and that he returned to his own home at 4:35 a.m. Vigil’s mother also testified in her son’s defense, explaining that Vigil arrived home near 4:35 a.m. 4

By contrast, evidence presented by the prosecution suggested that Vigil could have left the Village Inn, dropped off Bus-man and Balsbaugh, arrived at Wagner’s home, and sexually assaulted Wagner before 4:28 a.m. Busman, for instance, testified that Vigil dropped off him and Bals-baugh at 4:15 a.m., or within a few minutes on either side of 4:15 a.m. In addition, two police officers explained that it took them eight minutes to drive from the Busman home to the Wagner residence, which, if one accepted Busman’s testimony that Vigil dropped him off at 4:15 a.m., would mean that Vigil could have arrived at Wagner’s home at 4:23 a.m., leaving him five minutes “to knock on [Wagner’s] window” [and] “to have her get dressed [and] come out.” Finally, the prosecution suggested in its closing arguments that, contrary to the suggestion made by the defense investigator, people traveling on empty roads at 4:00 a.m. drive faster than the posted speed limit, thereby insinuating that Vigil could have driven from Busman’s home to Wagner’s house in less than eight minutes.

Ultimately, the jury rejected Vigil’s defenses and found him guilty of criminal sexual assault in the first degree. Shortly after the jury’s verdict, Vigil filed a motion seeking a judgment of acquittal or, in the *939 alternative, a new trial.

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Bluebook (online)
298 F.3d 935, 2002 U.S. App. LEXIS 14772, 2002 WL 1614091, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/vincent-scott-vigil-v-aristedes-w-zavaras-and-the-attorney-general-of-the-ca10-2002.