Opinion
A-13937
07-03-2024
ISAAC GUTHRIE, Appellant, v. STATE OF ALASKA, Appellee.
Quinlan Steiner, Attorney at Law, under contract with the Public Defender Agency, and Terrence Haas, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant. Kenneth M. Rosenstein, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Criminal Appeals, Anchorage, and Treg R. Taylor, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.
UNPUBLISHED See Alaska Appellate Rule 214(d)
Appeal from the Superior Court, First Judicial District, Trial Court No. 1PW-20-00147 CR Prince of Wales, M. Jude Pate, Judge.
Appearances:
Quinlan Steiner, Attorney at Law, under contract with the Public Defender Agency, and Terrence Haas, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant.
Kenneth M. Rosenstein, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Criminal Appeals, Anchorage, and Treg R. Taylor, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.
Before: Allard, Chief Judge, and Wollenberg and Terrell, Judges.
SUMMARY DISPOSITION
Isaac Guthrie was convicted of one count of third-degree assault for recklessly causing physical injury by attacking his roommate, Yodar Farrell, with a baseball bat. The jury acquitted Guthrie of other assault charges against Farrell related to this same incident.
AS 11.41.220(a)(1)(B).
Guthrie was acquitted of two counts of second-degree assault and one additional count of third-degree assault. AS 11.41.210(a)(1) and AS 11.41.220(a)(1)(B), respectively.
Guthrie now appeals his conviction. On appeal, Guthrie argues that the trial court abused its discretion by admitting at trial a text message sent by his girlfriend, Sandi Medina, accusing Guthrie of starting the incident. We find no reversible error and affirm Guthrie's conviction.
The incident in this case took place one evening when Guthrie, Medina, and Farrell, among others, were spending time together at Farrell's house, where Guthrie was renting a room. Late in the evening, an altercation occurred between Guthrie and Farrell, resulting in Guthrie's assault charges.
During trial, Medina was called as a witness on behalf of the defense. Medina testified that at one point earlier in the evening, when she exited Guthrie's room, Farrell came out of his bedroom with a baseball bat "look[ing] really mean" but then went back into his bedroom when he saw Medina. Medina was scared, and Guthrie escorted her out of the house. The altercation between Guthrie and Farrell occurred sometime after Guthrie returned inside.
On cross-examination, the prosecutor attempted to ask Medina about a text message she sent to Guthrie after she found out about the altercation in which she asserted, "You started it. I know you did." Guthrie objected on hearsay grounds, but the trial court agreed with the prosecutor that the text message was admissible as a prior inconsistent statement. The trial court found that Medina's testimony had painted Farrell as the initial aggressor, and that her assertion that Guthrie "started it" was inconsistent with that testimony. The parties agreed to instruct the jury that it could only consider this statement to impeach Medina, not as evidence that Guthrie was the initial aggressor.
Guthrie now appeals, arguing that Medina's text message was not inconsistent with her testimony at trial.
But the superior court's finding that Medina's testimony had implied that Farrell was the initial aggressor is supported by the record. Medina testified that when she came out of Guthrie's room earlier in the evening, Farrell immediately exited his own room with a baseball bat and "looked really mean," but then retreated when he saw it was Medina. One reasonable interpretation of this evidence is that Farrell came out of his room looking to start a fight with Guthrie, but he returned to his room when he realized Medina was not Guthrie. Medina also testified that she had known Farrell her entire life and she had "never been afraid of him like [she] was that day." The court heard the testimony and could reasonably conclude that Medina's text message accusing Guthrie of starting the fight was inconsistent with her testimony on the stand.
See Van Hatten v. State, 666 P.2d 1047, 1050-51 (Alaska App. 1983) (endorsing the view that a prior statement is inconsistent "whenever a reasonable [person] could infer on comparing the whole effect of the two statements that they had been produced by inconsistent beliefs" (quoting 4 J. Weinstein & M. Berger, Weinstein's Evidence § 801(d)(1)(A)[01], at 801-88 - 801-89 (1981))), abrogated on other grounds by Adams v. State, 261 P.3d 758 (Alaska App. 2011); see also Alaska R. Evid. 613(a).
In any event, even assuming the court abused its discretion in admitting the text message, any error was harmless. Medina testified that she was not present when the incident occurred and that she did not see what actually happened. Given this lack of personal knowledge, the court rightly limited the statement to impeachment purposes, limiting the jury's consideration of the text message to "whether it tends to show inconsistency" with Medina's testimony. The court expressly instructed the jury that it was "not permitted to consider [Medina's text message] as evidence that Isaac Guthrie was the initial aggressor in the fight with Yodar Farrell." And, ultimately, the jury's acquittal on two of the counts against Guthrie demonstrates a careful consideration of the evidence. We therefore conclude that admission of the text message did not appreciably affect the verdict.
See Alaska R. Evid. 701 ("If the witness is not testifying as an expert, the witness's testimony in the form of opinions or inferences is limited to those opinions or inferences which are (a) rationally based on the perception of the witness and (b) helpful to a clear understanding of the witness's testimony or the determination of a fact in issue."); Kitchens v. State, 898 P.2d 443, 449-50 (Alaska App. 1995); see also Stumpf v. State, 749 P.2d 880, 895 (Alaska App. 1988) (holding that impeachment testimony which was otherwise admissible as prior inconsistent statements overemphasized the witness's opinion of the defendant's guilt and was therefore inadmissible, though nevertheless finding the error harmless).
See Jeffries v. State, 169 P.3d 913, 924 (Alaska 2007) ("Erroneously admitted evidence is deemed harmless if 'it did not appreciably affect the jury's verdict.'" (quoting Love v. State, 457 P.2d 622, 634 (Alaska 1969))).
The judgment of the superior court is AFFIRMED.