Opinion
No. 1 CA-CR 20-0216
02-18-2021
STATE OF ARIZONA, Appellee, v. MIGUEL ANGEL PARGAS-RAMIREZ, Appellant.
COUNSEL Arizona Attorney General's Office, Phoenix By Eliza Ybarra Counsel for Appellee Maricopa County Public Defender's Office, Phoenix By Mikel Steinfeld Counsel for Appellant
NOTICE: NOT FOR OFFICIAL PUBLICATION. UNDER ARIZONA RULE OF THE SUPREME COURT 111(c), THIS DECISION IS NOT PRECEDENTIAL AND MAY BE CITED ONLY AS AUTHORIZED BY RULE. Appeal from the Superior Court in Maricopa County
No. CR2018-163139-001
The Honorable Laura M. Reckart, Judge
AFFIRMED
COUNSEL Arizona Attorney General's Office, Phoenix
By Eliza Ybarra
Counsel for Appellee Maricopa County Public Defender's Office, Phoenix
By Mikel Steinfeld
Counsel for Appellant
MEMORANDUM DECISION
Judge James B. Morse Jr. delivered the decision of the Court, in which Presiding Judge D. Steven Williams and Judge Jennifer B. Campbell joined. MORSE, Judge:
¶1 Miguel Pargas-Ramirez appeals his conviction and sentence for aggravated assault. For the following reasons, we affirm.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
¶2 We view the facts in the light most favorable to sustaining the jury verdicts and resolve all reasonable inferences against Pargas-Ramirez. State v. Payne, 233 Ariz. 484, 509, ¶ 93 (2013).
¶3 Pargas-Ramirez lost his job in November 2018. This led to financial stress and marital discord and, in December, his wife decided to leave him. After telling Pargas-Ramirez, she asked the police to perform a welfare check on him because she was afraid he would harm himself.
¶4 Officers Russell, Atkin, and two others responded and spoke with Pargas-Ramirez, who denied any plans to harm himself. The officers initially believed intervention was unnecessary, but Pargas-Ramirez became visibly upset and had a heated argument with his wife after his wife and daughter arrived. As the officers attempted to intervene, Pargas-Ramirez ran into the home. Officers Russell and Atkin followed because the daughter was inside. Pargas-Ramirez grabbed two knives from the kitchen and ran back toward the officers. A melee ensued, during which Pargas-Ramirez stabbed himself with a knife. Officer Russell was cut on his finger during the melee. Ultimately all four officers, a taser, and a sedative were necessary to restrain Pargas-Ramirez and deliver him to a hospital. There, Pargas-Ramirez told a crisis counselor that he attempted to commit "suicide by cop."
We refer to the officers using pseudonyms. --------
¶5 The State charged Pargas-Ramirez with (Count 1) assaulting officer Russell by recklessly injuring him and (Count 2) assaulting officer Atkin by intentionally placing him in reasonable apprehension of imminent physical injury. See A.R.S. § 13-1203(A)(1), (2).
¶6 At trial, Pargas-Ramirez's daughter testified. She described how Pargas-Ramirez ran into the house, grabbed two steak knives from the kitchen counter and was pushing them toward his stomach when officer Russell grabbed Pargas-Ramirez from behind. The daughter then testified that during the ensuing struggle Pargas-Ramirez asked the officers to "end his life," but the court sustained the State's hearsay objection over defense counsel's assertion that it was "a party admission." Later, the daughter tried to testify that Pargas-Ramirez "was yelling at [the officers] telling them to shoot him, to kill him." The State objected and moved to strike, which the court granted.
¶7 The jury convicted Pargas-Ramirez of assaulting officer Russell but acquitted him of assaulting officer Atkin. The court sentenced Pargas-Ramirez to 12 years imprisonment. Pargas-Ramirez timely appealed. We have jurisdiction pursuant to Article 6, Section 9, of the Arizona Constitution, and A.R.S. §§ 12-120.21(A)(1), 13-4031, and -4033(A)(1).
DISCUSSION
¶8 Pargas-Ramirez challenges the superior court's exclusion of his daughter's testimony that he asked the officers to "end his life." He asserts the statement was admissible under six different evidentiary theories. The State asserts that Pargas-Ramirez failed to preserve these theories. However, we need not decide whether Pargas-Ramirez preserved this issue or whether the court erred by excluding the testimony because any error was harmless.
¶9 "Harmless error review places the burden on the state to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the error did not contribute to or affect the verdict or sentence." State v. Henderson, 210 Ariz. 561, 567, ¶ 18 (2005).
¶10 At trial, Pargas-Ramirez did not dispute that he injured officer Russell. Instead, defense counsel argued that Pargas-Ramirez only intended to kill himself, did not intend to injure the officers, and officer Russell's injury was incidental to the officer's attempt to stop Pargas-Ramirez from committing suicide. The trial evidence allowed Pargas-Ramirez to make this argument to the jury and he did so, albeit unsuccessfully. See State v. Romero, 240 Ariz. 503, 510, ¶ 15 (App. 2016) (considering the opportunity to present a defense in harmless-error analysis); see also State v. Bible, 175 Ariz. 549, 588 (1993) (noting that on harmless-error review we assess the effect of "the error in light of all of the evidence" presented). The jury found that Pargas-Ramirez recklessly caused officer Russell physical injury. See A.R.S. § 13-105(10)(c) ("'Recklessly' means . . . that a person is aware of and consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the result will occur or that the circumstance exists.").
¶11 The jury acquitted Pargas-Ramirez of intentionally placing officer Atkin in reasonable apprehension of imminent physical injury. Whether officer Russell was injured when Pargas-Ramirez charged at him or when the officer tried to stop Pargas-Ramirez from stabbing himself, there was no dispute that Pargas-Ramirez caused an injury to officer Russell. Under either scenario, Pargas-Ramirez created a substantial and unjustifiable risk of injury when he continued to try to kill himself with a knife while officer Russell attempted to stop him. The evidence was overwhelming. See Bible, 175 Ariz. at 588-89 (finding harmless error where evidence of guilt was overwhelming). Further, the daughter's testimony that Pargas-Ramirez asked the officers to kill him does not negate or address any element of the charged offense. Nor does her testimony make either the State's or the defense's version of events more or less likely. See Romero, 240 Ariz. at 509, ¶ 14 ("In determining whether evidentiary errors are harmless, courts also consider whether the error involved the admission or exclusion of primary evidence."). Indeed, the daughter's excluded testimony is consistent with both Pargas-Ramirez's theory that he made the request after the altercation, and with the State's theory that Pargas-Ramirez attempted "suicide by cop" by charging the officer with a knife. See State v. Dunlap, 187 Ariz. 441, 456 (App. 1996) (finding error harmless, in part, when excluded evidence was subject to multiple inferences).
¶12 Thus, we conclude that even with the exclusion of the daughter's testimony, "the guilty verdict actually rendered in this trial was surely unattributable to the error." Bible, 175 Ariz. at 588 (quoting Sullivan v. Louisiana, 508 U.S. 275, 279 (1993)).
CONCLUSION
¶13 For the foregoing reasons, we affirm.