Opinion
1 CA-CR 21-0234
07-26-2022
STATE OF ARIZONA, Appellee, v. CHRISTOPHER GARRY FIELDS, Appellant.
Arizona Attorney General's Office, Phoenix By Deborah Celeste Kinney Counsel for Appellee Maricopa County Public Defender's Office, Phoenix By Jesse Finn Turner Counsel for Appellant
Not for Publication - Rule 111(c), Rules of the Arizona Supreme Court
Appeal from the Superior Court in Maricopa County No. CR2018-154670-001 The Honorable Ronee Korbin Steiner, Judge
Arizona Attorney General's Office, Phoenix By Deborah Celeste Kinney Counsel for Appellee
Maricopa County Public Defender's Office, Phoenix By Jesse Finn Turner Counsel for Appellant
Judge Randall M. Howe delivered the decision of the court, in which Presiding Judge Jennifer B. Campbell and Judge James B. Morse Jr. joined.
MEMORANDUM DECISION
HOWE, JUDGE
¶1 Christopher Garry Wambach-Fields appeals his conviction and sentence for second-degree murder. For the following reasons, we affirm.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
¶2 On an evening in October 2018, a man arrived at Madison Park in Phoenix where a group of the homeless community was gathered. A few members of the group, including one woman, T.B., told the man, as they had previously, that he was not welcome there because he had sexually assaulted two women. T.B. was one of those women. The other woman, A.L., began crying upon seeing the man, and Fields was concerned about her. T.B. was Fields's close friend. Fields and other people soon after learned what the man had done to the women and were angry with him. Fields allegedly followed the man with a gun and shot him. Phoenix police officers responded to a shots-fired 9-1-1 call, and found the man's bullet-ridden body on the ground near a gazebo in the city park. The "word on the street" revealed that Fields was the shooter.
¶3 Several days after the shooting, Detective Matt Hamas interviewed witnesses T.B. and A.L., who were among a group of people at the park when the shooting occurred. He also interviewed J.H., a witness who implicated Fields as the shooter. Based on this information, Hamas drew a map indicating the relative positions of the victim's body, the gazebo, and J.H.'s location at the time of the shooting. On the map, Hamas indicated the shooting occurred on the opposite side of the gazebo from where the victim's body was discovered.
¶4 The grand jury indicted Fields on one count of second-degree murder and he pled not guilty. Fields was tried by a jury in January 2021. T.B. and A.L. testified that they were at the park on the night in question, but did not remember details of either the shooting incident or the statements they made when Detective Hamas interviewed them. Further, during T.B.'s cross-examination, she testified that Detective Hamas "spoonfed [her] answers" as he interviewed her. To refute this claim, the prosecution wanted to play the entire video of T.B.'s interview with Detective Hamas. The defense argued that the video contained hearsay. After hearing both sides, the court permitted the State to play redacted versions of both recorded video interviews. Although the redacted interviews were played for the jury in court, they were not admitted into evidence for the jury to review during deliberations.
¶5 A "couple minutes" after T.B.'s interview began playing for the jury, the prosecutor stopped it because "this is more inclusive than what the court's order was[.]" The video included T.B.'s statements about Fields stealing bikes and being involved in a stabbing incident at the park allegedly by a friend of Fields. Fields then moved for a mistrial, and the court denied the motion. The court also denied his request for a curative jury instruction. The court reasoned that a curative instruction would put "more emphasis on [the statements] than necessary." Fields agreed. The court noted that without a transcript of T.B.'s interview, it "wouldn't even have understood" the comment about Fields stealing bikes. Further, the defense did not hear the comment about his client when the interview was played for the jury. Later, Detective Hamas testified about a map that he drew of the park. He recognized that the map was "fairly consistent" with the park and the evidence collected but was not accurate about the location of the shooting.
¶6 The jury found Fields guilty. Fields then unsuccessfully moved for a new trial, arguing that the verdict was contrary to the weight of evidence, and that the prosecutor committed misconduct by playing the precluded portions of T.B.'s interview. At sentencing, the court imposed a 25-year prison term. Fields timely appealed from the judgment and sentence.
DISCUSSION
I. Perjury
¶7 Fields argues that the trial court erred in denying his motion for new trial based on prosecutorial misconduct because the State knowingly allowed Detective Hamas to commit perjury at trial when he testified on cross-examination that the map he drew during J.H.'s interview was "fairly consistent" with other evidence despite the map showing that the shooting occurred in a different location. According to Fields, Hamas similarly testified about the map during the grand jury proceedings in this case; thus, the State knew that his trial testimony was "false." See State v. Ferrari, 112 Ariz. 324, 334 (1975) (knowingly using perjured or false testimony to convict a defendant constitutes a denial of due process and is reversible error without a showing of prejudice). In 2020, our supreme court instructed that a distinction be made between prosecutorial "error" and "misconduct." See Matter of Martinez, 248 Ariz. 458, 470 ¶ 47 (2020) ("When reviewing the conduct of prosecutors in the context of 'prosecutorial misconduct' claims, courts should differentiate between 'error,' which may not necessarily imply a concurrent ethical rules violation, and 'misconduct,' which may suggest an ethical violation."). We review a denial of a new trial motion for abuse of discretion. State v. Waller, 235 Ariz. 479, 486 ¶ 22 (App. 2014).
According to the record, Fields did not challenge the grand jury proceedings before trial by requesting a new finding of probable cause. See Ariz. R. Crim. P. ("Rule") 12.9(a). To the extent he makes such a challenge on appeal, the issue is therefore waived. State v. Smith, 123 Ariz. 243, 248 (1979).
¶8 The trial court did not abuse its discretion in rejecting Fields's perjury claim. All the evidence, including the map, showed that the murder occurred near the gazebo in the park. And although the map indicated that the shooting occurred on the other side of the gazebo, the precise location of the victim's body was not a material issue at trial. Accordingly, Hamas's testimony that the hand-drawn map was "fairly consistent" with other evidence was not perjured or otherwise false regarding a material issue. See A.R.S. § 13-2702(A)(1)("A person commits perjury by making . . . [a] false sworn statement in regard to a material issue, believing it to be false."). The trial court therefore did not abuse its discretion in denying Fields's new trial motion on this basis.
¶9 Nonetheless, Fields contends that the prosecutor erred by permitting Hamas's testimony regarding the map because Hamas testified in a "misleading[] and inappropriate" manner. No error occurred. While Hamas testified that the map was "fairly consistent" with other evidence, he explicitly acknowledged that the map was not accurate about the location of the shooting. We discern nothing misleading or inappropriate about Hamas's testimony.
II.T.B.'s Recorded Interview
¶10 Fields argues that the trial court erred by denying his motion for mistrial based on prosecutorial error that purportedly occurred when the prosecutor played two portions of T.B.'s recorded police interview that the trial court had ordered redacted. The unredacted statements included T.B.'s reference to Fields's stealing bikes the day of the murder and her comment regarding a prior stabbing at the park purportedly committed by a friend of Fields. Fields contends that the court abused its discretion by finding that the error would not influence the jury. He also contends that the court should have granted his request for "some type of" remedial jury instruction. But the court did not abuse its discretion.
¶11 To prevail on a claim of prosecutorial misconduct, a defendant must demonstrate that "(1) misconduct is indeed present; and (2) a reasonable likelihood exists that the misconduct could have affected the jury's verdict, thereby denying defendant a fair trial." State v. Moody, 208 Ariz. 424, 459 ¶ 145 (2004) (citations omitted). "Prosecutorial misconduct 'is not merely the result of legal error, negligence, mistake, or insignificant impropriety, but, taken as a whole, amounts to intentional conduct which the prosecutor knows to be improper and prejudicial, and which he pursues for any improper purpose with indifference to a significant resulting danger of mistrial.'" State v. Aguilar, 217 Ariz. 235, 238-39 ¶ 11 (App. 2007) (quoting Pool v. Superior Court, 139 Ariz. 98, 108-09 (1984)). Here, the record reflects that, although the prosecutor erred by not redacting T.B.'s precluded interview statements, the error did not rise to the level of misconduct that resulted in the denial of a fair trial. Indeed, the prosecutor himself stopped the recording when he first noticed that the improper statements had not been redacted.
¶12 Additionally, the record does not indicate that the improperly presented evidence resulted in prejudice. As the trial court correctly noted, T.B.'s comment about Fields stealing bikes was barely discernible on the recording, and her statement regarding Fields's friendship with someone who was connected to an unrelated previous stabbing at the park was not relevant in this case, nor prejudicial to Fields. The court stated that it "wouldn't even have understood" the comment about Fields stealing bikes. The jurors did not see the transcript. The defense did not even hear the comment about Fields stealing bikes when T.B.'s interview was played for the jury. As a result, the trial court acted within its discretion in denying the mistrial motion. State v. Jones, 197 Ariz. 290, 304 ¶ 32 (2000) (decision whether to grant a mistrial is discretionary with the trial judge who "is in the best position to determine whether the evidence will actually affect the outcome of the trial").
¶13 Regarding the trial court's denial of Fields's request to provide the jury a curative instruction, the court reasoned that such an instruction would improperly draw the jury's attention to one isolated comment that the jurors likely did not hear (the bike-stealing comment) and another matter that was ancillary and confusing (Fields's friendship with someone apparently connected to an unrelated stabbing). Significantly, when the court announced its decision not to give an instruction, Fields agreed with the court. The court did not abuse its discretion. See State v. Bolton, 182 Ariz. 290, 309 (1995) (decision to give a jury instruction reviewed for abuse of discretion).
III. Motion for New Trial
¶14 Challenging the trial court's denial of Fields's post-verdict motion for new trial, he argues that the verdict was contrary to the weight of evidence. See Rule 24.1(c)(1). He specifically contends that the trial court improperly assigned more weight to T.B.'s recorded interview statements than to her trial testimony. In making this argument, Fields merely asks this court to reweigh evidence, which we will not do. State v. Fischer, 242 Ariz. 44, 52 ¶ 28 (2017). Such a task is exclusively within the trial court's province. See id. at 51 ¶ 24 ("The [trial] judge should assess the strength of the evidence, considering the credibility of the witnesses and conflicting testimony.").
CONCLUSION
¶15 For the foregoing reasons, we affirm.