State v. Carreno

144 P.3d 1152

2006 UT 59

STATE of Utah, Plaintiff and Petitioner, v. Noe Rodriguez CARRENO, Defendant and Respondent.

No. 20050591.

Supreme Court of Utah.

October 3, 2006.

Mark L. Shurtleff, Att'y Gen., Erin Riley, Asst. Att'y Gen., Salt Lake City, for plaintiff.

Randall W. Richards, Ogden, for defendant.

On Certiorari to the Utah Court of Appeals.

DURRANT, Justice:

INTRODUCTION

¶ 1 The two issues upon which we granted certiorari review in this case are (1) whether the district court erred in placing a $500 limitation on reimbursable expenses for an investigator in Noe Carreno's first degree felony case, and (2) whether the court of appeals erred in failing to apply the plain error standard in reviewing the expense limitation issue. We reach only the first issue, however, because its resolution is dispositive.

¶ 2 The court of appeals essentially held that a district court may not consider cost when reviewing a motion to appoint an investigator. Although a court's primary inquiry is whether an investigator is necessary for a complete defense, Utah Code section 77-32-305.5 requires a court to consider investigator expense to some extent. In this case, Carreno failed to provide any record evidence to establish that the district court gave improper weight to expense considerations in ordering the appointment of an investigator. Accordingly, we reverse the decision of the court of appeals and hold that the district court did not abuse its discretion in imposing an initial $500 limitation on reimbursable expenses in its order of appointment.

BACKGROUND

¶ 3 When reviewing a jury verdict, we recite the facts in the light most favorable to that verdict.¹ On the night of the crime, Lee Duong and Abel Carrazco were at the apartment of Kristy Lamb, Carreno's wife, from whom he was separated at the time. Late that night, Carreno knocked on the door. Lamb looked out the peep-hole, saw that it was Carreno, and refused to open the door. Carreno started pounding on the door and, although Lamb was leaning against the door trying to prevent entry, forced the door open and entered the apartment.

¶ 4 Upon entering the apartment, Carreno pointed a gun at Lamb and Duong. Lamb ran over to the phone and tried to call 9-1-1, but Carreno pulled the phone jack out of the wall. After a struggle, Carreno shot Duong. The bullet went through Duong's arm, punctured his lung, and lodged near his spine. Duong ran out of the apartment and tried to get into an apartment across from Lamb's. As Duong ran away, Carreno attempted to pull Lamb out of her apartment. When she escaped, Carreno chased after Duong. Duong ran back to Lamb's apartment. As he was running, he heard another gunshot and heard Carreno say, "I'm going to kill you." Duong ran through the apartment and escaped out the back window. With Duong gone, Carreno grabbed Lamb's shirt and pulled her outside. Lamb saw a friend and yelled at him to call the police. At that point, Carreno let go of her, ran towards the parking lot, and drove away in a van.

¶ 5 Prior to trial, Carreno filed a motion to have an investigator appointed. The trial court denied this motion. Carreno later filed a second, more detailed motion to appoint an investigator. The minutes from a hearing on the motion indicate that the trial court informed Carreno at the hearing that he could "hire an investigator at a total cost of up to $500." The written order states that "[a]n investigator shall be retained to assist the defense in this matter in the initial sum of not more than $500.00." There is no record that Carreno objected to the $500 limitation and no record that Carreno requested additional funds. The case proceeded to trial, and a jury convicted Carreno of attempted aggravated murder, aggravated burglary, aggravated kidnaping, and interrupting a communication device.

¶ 6 On appeal, the court of appeals reversed Carreno's conviction without oral argument, concluding that the trial court abused its discretion by focusing on how much an investigator would cost rather than on whether an investigator was necessary.² The court of appeals further concluded that "`[t]rial courts should consider only the question of whether appointment of an investigator is necessary for a complete defense'" and held that a "limit on expenditures is not an acceptable condition on the appointment of an investigator."³ The court of appeals then decided that it could not logically determine whether the trial court's error was harmless because it could not determine whether an investigator could have found exculpatory evidence absent the $500 limitation.⁴ Having determined that a new trial was warranted on the expense-limitation issue, the court of appeals stated that Carreno's ineffective assistance of counsel claim was moot.⁵ Judge Bench dissented from the majority opinion, arguing that the conviction should be affirmed because Carreno failed to preserve the issue by objecting to the $500 limitation and failed to show the elements necessary to establish plain error.⁶ Judge Bench also expressed concern that the majority opinion created a per se rule that a trial court commits reversible error any time it imposes a limit on reimbursable expenses for an investigator.⁷ We granted certiorari to review the court of appeals' decision.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶ 7 On certiorari, we "review the decision of the court of appeals and not that of the district court," and we grant no deference to the court of appeals' conclusions of law.⁸ Our review consists of determining "whether the court of appeals accurately reviewed the trial court's decision under the appropriate standard of review."⁹ For purposes of our analysis, we assume that the expense-limitation issue was preserved and, therefore, that an abuse of discretion standard, as was applied by the court of appeals, was the proper standard of review for assessing that issue.¹⁰ We have jurisdiction pursuant to Utah Code section 78-2-2(3), (5).

ANALYSIS

¶ 8 A criminal defendant is entitled to assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution.¹¹ The United States Supreme Court has held that the Sixth Amendment applies to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause and requires states to provide counsel to indigent defendants.¹² Furthermore, the "right to counsel includes effective assistance of counsel."¹³ For counsel to be effective in the case of an indigent defendant, the state must provide a defendant with access to "the raw materials integral to the building of an effective defense."¹⁴

¶ 9 To provide indigent defendants with effective assistance of counsel consistent with their Sixth Amendment right, our Legislature passed the Utah Indigent Defense Act (the "Act").¹⁵ The Act provides "access for indigents to the basic tools of defense."¹⁶ Relevant to this case, the Act requires that a local government "provide [an indigent defendant with] the investigatory resources necessary for a complete defense."¹⁷ As no party has claimed that any provision of the Act is unconstitutional under the federal or state constitutions, we need only consider whether the court of appeals correctly applied the Act.

¶ 10 We conclude that the court of appeals' decision is inconsistent with the plain meaning of the Act. We first examine whether the court of appeals' legal conclusion that a district court may not consider costs or limit reimbursable expenses when appointing an investigator is inconsistent with the Act. We then discuss whether, in the absence of the court of appeals' legal rule, the imposition of a $500 limitation in this case was nevertheless an abuse of discretion.

I. A DISTRICT COURT MAY CONSIDER COSTS AND INITIALLY LIMIT REIMBURSABLE EXPENSES WHEN APPOINTING AN INVESTIGATOR

¶ 11 The court of appeals erred in creating a rule that precludes district courts from considering cost when deciding a motion to appoint an investigator because such a rule directly contradicts the Act. Our objective in interpreting a statute is to effectuate legislative intent, and that intent is most readily ascertainable by looking to the plain language of the statute.¹⁸ In addition, "[w]e read the plain language of the statute as a whole, and interpret its provisions in harmony with other statutes in the same chapter and related chapters."¹⁹ The evolution of a statute through amendment by our Legislature may also shed light on a statute's intended meaning.²⁰

¶ 12 In this case, although the primary purpose of the Act is to provide indigent defendants with access "to the basic tools of defense,"²¹ the Legislature amended the Act in 1997,²² placing various budgetary constraints on the provision and use of those tools.²³ The amendments to the Act gave the district court the responsibility to approve any departures from these budgetary constraints.²⁴

¶ 13 One of the 1997 additions to the Act, Utah Code section 77-32-305.5, is central to our resolution of this case. It provides as follows:

(1) For the purposes of this section, an "extraordinary expense" means the collective expense which exceeds $500 for any particular service or item such as experts, investigators, surveys, or demonstrative evidence.

(2) The county or municipality shall reimburse expenses, exclusive of overhead and extraordinary expense not approved by the court in accordance with this chapter, reasonably incurred by assigned attorneys for indigent defendants.

(3) The assigned attorney shall file a motion with the court for approval of the proposed expenditure for any extraordinary expense before the expense is incurred. The motion shall be heard and ruled upon by a judge other than the trial judge if so requested by either party or upon the motion of the trial judge.²⁵

By its terms, subsection 77-32-305.5(3) is intended to provide assigned counsel with an avenue for obtaining funds in excess of $500 for, among other things, investigators. Indeed, the section casts the court in the role of...