Pinder v. State

367 P.3d 968

John R. PINDER, Appellant,

v.STATE of Utah, Appellee.

No. 20121038.

Supreme Court of Utah.

July 21, 2015.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 18, 2015.

Brent Gold, Park City, Andrew Parnes, Ketchum, Idaho, for appellant.

Sean Reyes, Att'y Gen., Ryan D. Tenney, Brett J. DelPorto, Ass't Att'y Gen., Salt Lake City, for appellee.

Associate Chief Justice LEE authored the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice DURRANT, Justice DURHAM, Justice PARRISH, and Judge CHRISTIANSEN joined. Due to his retirement, Justice NEHRING did not participate herein; Court of Appeals Judge MICHELE M. CHRISTIANSEN sat. Justice DENO G. HIMONAS became a member of the Court on February 13, 2015, after oral argument in this matter, and accordingly did not participate.

Associate Chief Justice LEE, opinion of the Court:

¶ 1 John Pinder was convicted of two counts of aggravated murder and related crimes in 2000. We affirmed those convictions in State v. Pinder, 2005 UT 15, 114 P.3d 551. Pinder subsequently filed a petition for relief under the Post–Conviction Remedies Act (PCRA). The district court dismissed Pinder's PCRA claims on summary judgment, and this appeal followed.

¶ 2 Pinder asserts two sets of claims for relief. First, he presents testimony from two new witnesses, purportedly to establish that he was not the killer. Second, he asserts that the State knowingly introduced perjured testimony and fabricated evidence at trial, in violation of his right to due process. Pinder challenges the district court's dismissal of those claims. And he also finds error in the court's refusal to grant his motions for discovery and to amend his PCRA pleadings.

¶ 3 We affirm. Pinder's newly discovered evidence claims fail on their merits, as he has failed to demonstrate that a reasonable jury could not enter a judgment of conviction in light of the new testimony he identifies. The due process claims, on the other hand, are procedurally barred. And finally, there was no abuse of discretion in the denial of Pinder's discovery motion and motion to amend.

I

¶ 4 John Pinder owned a sprawling ostrich ranch in Duchesne County. He and his ranch-hand, Filomeno Ruiz, were accused (and ultimately convicted) of murdering June Flood and Rex Tanner. Flood and Tanner also worked on Pinder's ranch.

¶ 5 According to the evidence at trial,¹ Ruiz staged a fight with his girlfriend, Mandy Harris, on the day of the alleged murder. The purpose of the staged fight was to get Harris away from the ranch. Ruiz called 911 during this staged altercation. Harris left after the police showed up. And the 911 call was recorded by the local dispatch.

¶ 6 That evening, Pinder, his girlfriend Barbara DeHart, Ruiz, and Pinder's employees Joe Wallen and David Brunyer (along with Brunyer's wife) gathered around a campfire to drink. At some point the conversation turned to the "shrunken heads" that Pinder and DeHart had seen at a curiosity shop in Seattle. Eventually Pinder spoke of his hopes to someday acquire one. Pinder said to Ruiz, "let's go get some heads." Ruiz responded with a question: "four or two?" Pinder replied, "two."

¶ 7 After grabbing a baseball bat, Pinder and Ruiz drove to the home where Flood and Tanner resided. Pinder violently assaulted Flood and Tanner, kidnapped them, and then shot them both with a 10 mm pistol. Pinder and Ruiz then left the murder scene and later returned with ammonium nitrate and dynamite, packed the bodies with the explosives, and set them off.

¶ 8 Pinder later got others to help him hide the remains. Following a day of bulldozing the blast site, Pinder and Ruiz dropped several black garbage bags of body parts into a barrel and set them ablaze. Pinder, DeHart, and Ruiz then met with the Brunyers for dinner, after which Pinder and Ruiz returned to the lake to collect more parts for burning.

¶ 9 Tuesday morning, at Pinder's behest, Ruiz and Brunyer went to the Flood home armed with a bottle of alcohol and some rags to remove fingerprints and tidy up. After returning, Brunyer complained about the smell of the Flood residence, to which Pinder quipped, "[T]hat's because [Tanner] shit his pants when I shot him." Pinder, Ruiz, and Brunyer then spent the day bulldozing and gathering more body parts for disposal. After coming across Tanner's wrist watch, Pinder callously joked that it must have been a Timex, because "it was still ticking." Eventually the bulldozer ran out of gas. And when they went to get more, Brunyer asked Pinder why he killed Flood and Tanner, to which Pinder replied, "[T]hey were liars, thieves and maggots, and now they're vaporized ... no one will miss them anyway." Upon arriving home that evening, Brunyer's daughter could see he was upset. He recounted the gruesome tale to his daughter. She took notes and then taped them to the inside of her dresser drawer after having Brunyer read over and approve them.

¶ 10 By Thursday, October 29th, Pinder and DeHart had left the state, eventually arriving in Cataldo, Idaho. That Sunday, DeHart contacted her daughter Melissa Cowles and told her that over the last couple of days Pinder "had admitted to killing some people on the ranch"; that they had been "[c]leaning up the evidence"; that she had found "a bag of ... what looked like bloody hair and scalp" in Pinder's truck, which she then threw away; and that they had "thrown the murder weapon off [a] bridge and into the river." DeHart had said they were "like Bonnie and Clyde, always on the run." That same day DeHart called her father, Bernie Knapp, and told him "she helped clean blood and mess out of [John Pinder's] truck," that "they had some bloody clothing and items in bags that they had [tossed in dumpsters in] little towns on the way up on their trip," and that they "either had gotten rid of a gun or were in the process of getting rid of a gun."

¶ 11 Meanwhile, back at the ranch, an investigation was underway. One of Flood's friends reported her missing, and police officers searched the Flood residence. Police discovered the home in utter disarray, with blood on the bed sheets and the backrest of a chair in the living room. They also found a pair of excrement-stained pants in the bathroom. After leaving the home, the investigating officer saw and approached Brunyer, who was standing nearby. Brunyer appeared "[v]ery agitated, very nervous, [and] scared to death," but handed the officer the letter his daughter had written and the bottle of alcohol with which he had assisted in cleaning up the home.

¶ 12 Pinder and DeHart arrived back in Salt Lake on November 4th. On that day they decided to appear on KSL News for a television interview about the murders. Shortly thereafter, Pinder, Ruiz, and DeHart were all arrested. Investigators later searched Pinder's ranch and found a gruesome assortment of the victims' remains strewn about the area, stuck in bushes, and hanging from trees. They also searched Pinder's truck and found a 10 mm shell casing, one of the victim's thumbprints on the inside of a window, and some bloodstains (one identified as Pinder's, the other unidentified). Police also determined that the rear windows had been wiped down and cleaned, as well as the mid-section of the door jam.

¶ 13 Ruiz pled guilty to two counts of murder. He denied being the shooter, accusing Pinder instead. DeHart was charged with and later convicted of obstruction of justice. State v. DeHart, 2001 UT App 12, 17 P.3d 1171. And Pinder was charged with two counts of aggravated murder, two counts of aggravated kidnapping, two counts of tampering with evidence, one count of burglary of a dwelling, one count of possession of explosives, and two counts of desecration of a body.

¶ 14 While being held in the Summit County Jail before his preliminary hearing, Pinder met an inmate named Newly Welch. Pinder bragged to Welch about killing Tanner and Flood and blowing up their bodies. He told Welch that the day of the murders, he and Ruiz staged a fight with Ruiz's girlfriend to get her off of the ranch. Welch then asked Pinder what it was like to kill someone. And in response, Pinder put his hand on Welch's shoulder and said, "[T]here's no bigger rush[,] especially when you know you're going to get away with it." Pinder was convicted on all counts and sentenced to life with the possibility of parole on the aggravated murder charges, and to consecutive statutory terms on the other counts.

¶ 15 Pinder filed a motion for a new trial. For various reasons, the motion took two years to resolve. During the eventual evidentiary hearing on the new trial motion, Pinder presented several newly discovered witnesses—Joey Silva (an inmate who allegedly spent time with Ruiz), Robert Brunyer (David Brunyer's brother), and Kristy Barnes. Each of these witnesses testified, in one way or another, that Ruiz and David Brunyer were actually the killers. The district court found none of the new witnesses credible; indeed, the court expressly found each of them to be seriously lacking in trustworthiness and accordingly denied the motion. Pinder appealed, and we unanimously affirmed his conviction. State v. Pinder, 2005 UT 15, 114 P.3d 551.

¶ 16 Pinder filed this petition for post-conviction relief in 2006. He presented two main theories of relief. First, he claimed that newly discovered evidence would exonerate him. Pinder brought affidavits from two more inmates who had spent time with Ruiz while incarcerated: Beau Heaps and Danny Alvarez. The Alvarez affidavit stated that while in the Duchesne County Jail, Ruiz told Alvarez that he and a "gavacho"² committed the murders but that Pinder had "nothing to do with it." The Heaps affidavit stated that Heaps met Ruiz at the Utah State Prison and that Ruiz similarly told him that Ruiz and another man—not Pinder—were the murderers.

¶ 17 Pinder's second claim was based on the allegation that the State had violated his due process rights by knowingly presenting perjured testimony from Welch and by falsifying evidence concerning the 911 recording of the fight between...