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State v. Martinez

Court of Appeals of Arizona, Second Division
Sep 6, 2024
2 CA-CR 2024-0047 (Ariz. Ct. App. Sep. 6, 2024)

Opinion

2 CA-CR 2024-0047

09-06-2024

The State of Arizona, Appellee, v. Graciela Heidi Martinez, Appellant.

Kristin K. Mayes, Arizona Attorney General Alice M. Jones, Deputy Solicitor General/Section Chief of Criminal Appeals By Phillip A. Tomas, Assistant Attorney General, Phoenix Counsel for Appellee. James L. Fullin, Pima County Legal Defender By Robb P. Holmes, Assistant Legal Defender, Tucson Counsel for Appellant.


THIS DECISION DOES NOT CREATE LEGAL PRECEDENT AND MAY NOT BE CITED EXCEPT AS AUTHORIZED BY APPLICABLE RULES. NOT FOR PUBLICATION See Ariz. R. Sup. Ct. 111(c)(1); Ariz. R. Crim. P. 31.19(e).

Appeal from the Superior Court in Pima County No. CR20214340001 The Honorable Richard E. Gordon, Judge

Kristin K. Mayes, Arizona Attorney General Alice M. Jones, Deputy Solicitor General/Section Chief of Criminal Appeals By Phillip A. Tomas, Assistant Attorney General, Phoenix Counsel for Appellee.

James L. Fullin, Pima County Legal Defender By Robb P. Holmes, Assistant Legal Defender, Tucson Counsel for Appellant.

Judge Eckerstrom authored the decision of the Court, in which Presiding Judge Gard and Judge O'Neil concurred.

MEMORANDUM DECISION

ECKERSTROM, Judge.

¶1 Graciela Martinez appeals from her convictions and sentences for vulnerable adult abuse, assault, and disorderly conduct. She argues that the trial court erred in denying her motion for a judgment of acquittal on the vulnerable adult abuse count. For the following reasons, we affirm.

Factual and Procedural Background

¶2 We view the facts in the light most favorable to sustaining the jury's verdicts and resolve all reasonable inferences against Martinez. See State v. Fierro, 254 Ariz. 35, ¶ 2 (2022). In 2021, Martinez lived with her adult son, N.M. He has cerebral palsy, requires a wheelchair, and has highly limited speech abilities. Martinez was N.M.'s primary caregiver.

¶3 One afternoon, while passing by Martinez's apartment, a neighbor noticed that N.M. "was on the floor face first, face down," with Martinez sitting nearby. The neighbor told his fiancee what he had seen. Sometime later, the fiancee encountered Martinez outside the apartment. Martinez had been drinking and was behaving "frustrated" and "upset." The fiancee then also saw N.M. on the floor of Martinez's apartment. Around that time, Martinez began "throwing paint everywhere" inside her apartment and drank from "a cup of water with paint and liquor in it." Later, a third witness saw Martinez, outside her apartment, choking and hitting a different neighbor. This behavior precipitated intervention by an employee of the apartment complex and, sometime after 6 p.m., a call to the police.

¶4 Responding officers entered Martinez's apartment, where they found N.M. "strapped to a wheelchair, lying on his back." A chair had been "lodged" in the broken "backrest of his wheelchair," which was missing a footrest and at least one wheel. After restoring N.M. to an upright position, officers remained nearby because they were concerned N.M.'s movements might cause the broken wheelchair to tip over again. Police identified no injuries to N.M., but he was transported to the hospital for further evaluation, which indicated he was "in no apparent distress and had no signs of trauma."

¶5 Martinez was charged with vulnerable adult abuse, two counts of assault, and three counts of disorderly conduct. During a jury trial, after the conclusion of the state's case, Martinez moved for a judgment of acquittal under Rule 20, Ariz. R. Crim. P., as to four of the counts: the vulnerable adult abuse count, one of the assault counts, and two of the disorderly conduct counts. The trial court granted Martinez's Rule 20 motion as to the challenged assault count and one of the disorderly conduct counts. It denied the motion as to the vulnerable adult abuse count and the other challenged disorderly conduct count. The following day, Martinez renewed her Rule 20 motion as to the vulnerable adult abuse count. The court denied the renewed motion.

¶6 Thereafter, the jury found Martinez guilty of vulnerable adult abuse, the remaining assault count, and one count of disorderly conduct for which she had conceded guilt during her closing argument. It found her not guilty on the other count of disorderly conduct. The trial court sentenced Martinez to time served on the assault and disorderly conduct counts. For the vulnerable adult abuse count, it suspended the imposition of sentence and placed Martinez on a three-year term of probation. This appeal followed. We have jurisdiction pursuant to A.R.S. §§ 12-120.21(A)(1), 13-4031, and 13-4033(A)(1).

Discussion

¶7 Martinez argues the trial court erred by denying her motion for a judgment of acquittal "because the evidence was insufficient to prove that [she] knowingly or intentionally placed her son in a position of potential harm by her conduct." The "question of sufficiency of the evidence is one of law," which we review de novo. State v. West, 226 Ariz. 559, ¶ 15 (2011). We must decide whether the state presented evidence that "reasonable persons could accept as sufficient to support a conclusion of a defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt." State v. Spears, 184 Ariz. 277, 290 (1996). In so doing, we may not "reweigh evidence or reassess the witnesses' credibility." State v. Buccheri-Bianca, 233 Ariz. 324, ¶ 38 (App. 2013). If jurors could reasonably differ as to whether the evidence establishes the necessary facts, that evidence is sufficient as a matter of law. See State v. Davolt, 207 Ariz. 191, ¶ 87 (2004).

¶8 To show Martinez committed vulnerable adult abuse under A.R.S. § 13-3623(B)(1), as charged in the indictment, the state was required to prove that she knowingly or intentionally either caused N.M., a vulnerable adult, "to suffer physical injury or abuse" under "circumstances other than those likely to produce death or serious physical injury" or, while maintaining care or custody of N.M., "cause[d] or permit[ted]" his "person or health" to be injured or caused or permitted him "to be placed in a situation" in which his "person or health" was endangered. "Abuse," in the context of a vulnerable adult, means "[i]ntentional infliction of physical harm," "[i]njury caused by criminally negligent acts or omissions," "[u]nlawful imprisonment," or "[s]exual abuse or sexual assault." § 13-3623(F)(1). "Endanger" means to expose to danger, "includ[ing] a potential harm." State v. Mahaney, 193 Ariz. 566, ¶ 13 (App. 1999).

¶9 The state correctly does not argue that the evidence supports a finding or inference that N.M. sustained a physical injury on the day of the incident. To the contrary, a responding officer testified that he identified no injury to N.M.'s person, and the parties stipulated that N.M. was "in no apparent distress and had no signs of trauma" after being transported to the hospital. The evidence is likewise insufficient to support an inference that N.M. experienced any of the statutory definitions of abuse under § 13-3623(F)(1), requiring actual physical harm, injury, unlawful imprisonment, or sexual abuse or assault. Thus, to sustain the conviction, we must agree that the state presented sufficient evidence that Martinez either knowingly or intentionally caused or permitted N.M. to "be placed in a situation" in which his "person or health" was endangered while he was in her care or custody. § 13-3623(B)(1). We agree the evidence presented at trial was sufficient to allow the jury to reasonably reach that conclusion. See Spears, 184 Ariz. at 290; Davolt, 207 Ariz. 191, ¶ 87.

¶10 As noted above, in the context of § 13-3623, to endanger "means to subject to potential harm." Mahaney, 193 Ariz. 566, ¶ 18; see also State v. Allen, 253 Ariz. 306, ¶ 78 (2022) (endanger means to subject victim to potential harm "more than the ordinary danger to which" victim exposed daily). This "possible danger" standard requires a lesser showing than a demonstration that harm was likely or probable. Mahaney, 193 Ariz. 566, ¶¶ 14-17. For example, we have found the evidence sufficient to support a finding of endangerment when children were exposed to possible dangers from sleeping "in close proximity to animals which appeared to be diseased" and residing barefoot while "[un]protected from scrap lumber with protruding nails." State v. Deskins, 152 Ariz. 209, 210-11 (App. 1986); see also State v. Nereim, 234 Ariz. 105, ¶¶ 2-3, 16-18 (App. 2014) (even if victim unharmed and "unrattled," defendant's acts of driving while intoxicated and colliding with parked vehicle "translated into real risks for his passenger," the minor victim).

¶11 Martinez argues that there was a "complete lack of evidence" that she had "endangered her son in any way." She maintains that her act of "drinking alcohol to the point of intoxication did not expose her son to potential harm as long as he was provided for." She further argues that, to the extent N.M.'s having been found face down on the floor or the "poor condition and instability of his wheelchair could be construed as endangering him," the state presented "no evidence that these conditions were caused by intentional or knowing acts rather than" arising as a "result of stressed economic circumstances."

¶12 Although we acknowledge that the evidence presented at trial might support the inferences Martinez urges, we must affirm so long as jurors could reasonably differ as to whether the evidence establishes the necessary facts. See Davolt, 207 Ariz. 191, ¶ 87. And we are not at liberty to substitute our interpretation of the evidence for the jury's findings. See Buccheri-Bianca, 233 Ariz. 324, ¶ 38 (appellate court does not reweigh evidence). Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to sustaining the jury's verdict and resolving all inferences against Martinez-as we must, Spears, 184 Ariz. at 290-we conclude the evidence was sufficient here. Multiple witnesses testified that N.M. had been lying on the floor, face-first, while Martinez had exited and re-entered the apartment. Although N.M.'s positioning may have occurred as a consequence of his wheelchair being in a state of disrepair, the evidence showed that Martinez had re-entered the apartment and, without repositioning N.M. from his face-down position, had begun "throwing paint everywhere" while continuing to drink alcohol.

¶13 N.M. was apparently returned to his wheelchair at some point before police arrived. But the officers who encountered N.M. testified that his wheelchair had been positioned precariously on a kitchen chair, had a broken backrest and no footrest, and was unstable because it lacked a front wheel. From this, the jury could reasonably infer that, at best, Martinez knew the wheelchair was unstable because she attempted to stabilize it after N.M. had already fallen out of the wheelchair that afternoon. At worst, the evidence might circumstantially demonstrate that N.M. was not "placed there in a position for comfort," but rather that a chair was "knocked over against him"-an interpretation the trial court advanced when denying the renewed motion for a judgment of acquittal. Finally, we agree with Martinez that her intoxication does not alone support any finding of endangerment. However, the jury could reasonably infer that she left N.M. in an unstable wheelchair and engaged in protracted intoxicated behavior outside of the apartment, where she could not quickly help N.M. if the chair tipped over again. This, in turn, supports the inference that she left him in a position of potential harm. See Mahaney, 193 Ariz. 566, ¶ 18. Thus, the facts presented at trial are sufficient to sustain the trial court's denial of Martinez's Rule 20 motion.

Disposition

¶14 For the foregoing reasons, we affirm Martinez's convictions and sentences.


Summaries of

State v. Martinez

Court of Appeals of Arizona, Second Division
Sep 6, 2024
2 CA-CR 2024-0047 (Ariz. Ct. App. Sep. 6, 2024)
Case details for

State v. Martinez

Case Details

Full title:The State of Arizona, Appellee, v. Graciela Heidi Martinez, Appellant.

Court:Court of Appeals of Arizona, Second Division

Date published: Sep 6, 2024

Citations

2 CA-CR 2024-0047 (Ariz. Ct. App. Sep. 6, 2024)