State v. Sanchez

546 P.3d 436

STATE of Washington, Respondent,

v.Raymond Walter SANCHEZ, Appellant.

No. 83686-2-1

Court of Appeals of Washington, Division 1.

Filed January 2, 2024

Ordered Published Date February 27, 2024

Honorable Sandra E. Widlan, Judge

Jared Berkeley Steed, Nielsen Koch & Grannis, PLLC, 2200 6th Ave., Ste 1250, Seattle, WA, 98121-1820, for Appellant.

Samantha Dara Kanner, King Co. Prosecutors Office, 516 3rd Ave., Ste W554, Seattle, WA 98104-2390, for Respondent.

PUBLISHED IN PART

Díaz, J.

¶1 A jury convicted Raymond Sanchez of two counts of murder in the second degree. He now claims his attorney should have offered a different justifiable homicide instruction, and that the trial court erred by giving a first aggressor jury instruction and by refusing to give a lesser included instruction for manslaughter in the second degree. He also asserts a Seattle police detective offered improper opinion testimony, as well as alleging other irregularities with the trial and sentence. We remand the matter to the trial court solely to strike certain fees it assessed. Otherwise, we affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

¶2 On January 25, 2016, Seattle police discovered Larry Humphrey and Holger Sippach dead in a Belltown area apartment. As was immediately apparent and later confirmed by the medical examiner, the men died violently and had been deceased for some time. Specifically, the autopsies documented many "chop-force-type wounds" on both victims’ heads, including skull fractures. Humphrey sustained at least six of these head wounds, Sippach received fourteen. Numerous other lacerations were identified elsewhere on the victims’ bodies. These wounds were consistent with the use of a heavy, sharp, weapon. These injuries occurred up to two weeks prior to the bodies’ discovery.

¶13 In May 2017, the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab connected a DNA sample found at the crime scene to Sanchez. The following month, two Seattle police detectives traveled to Greenville, South Carolina to question Sanchez. During the questioning, Sanchez admitted to hitting both Humphrey and Sippach with a machete on January 10, 2016. The State charged Sanchez with two counts of murder in the second degree.

¶14 At trial, Sanchez raised claims of selfdefense and voluntary intoxication. Specifically, he testified he was in Seattle on a "drug vacation" and went to Humphrey’s apartment to buy methamphetamine. While there, Sanchez consumed meth, fell asleep and, when he woke up, he claims Sippach was attempting to sexually assault him. Sanchez testified he believed his drugs had been spiked with gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid ("GHB"),¹ which triggered his Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder ("PTSD"). Sanchez’s PTSD stemmed from a similar incident in the same apartment when he unknowingly consumed GHB and was sexually assaulted with Humphrey present.

¶15 This time, Sanchez testified he found a bottle of clear liquid he believed was GHB and poured out the bottle, which angered Humphrey. As will be described in more detail below, a fight ensued and Sanchez hit both men with a machete, claiming he only intended to injure them. Sanchez further testified he only remembered hitting Sippach twice in the arm with the machete and Humphrey once "up side the head." As will be elaborated on below, Sanchez’s medical expert, Dr. Stanfill, testified on Sanchez’s history of substance abuse, his mental health conditions, and his mental state on the day of the killings.

¶6 On November 1, 2021, the jury found Sanchez guilty on both counts, with a deadly weapon enhancement for each. Sanchez was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

II. ANALYSIS

A. Ineffective Assistance of Counsel (Justifiable Homicide Instruction)

[1] ¶7 Sanchez argues he was "denied his right to effective assistance of counsel when defense counsel failed to ensure the jury was properly instructed such that it could adequately assess Sanchez’s self-defense claim in the context of his mental health disorders."

18 Following Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 669, 104 S. Ct. 2052, 80 L. Ed. 2d 674 (1984), Washington follows a two-prong test for ineffective assistance of counsel. State v. Sardinia, 42 Wash. App. 533, 540, 713 P.2d 122 (1986) ("we hold that the Strickland test should be applied by Washington courts to issues of ineffective assistance of counsel"). First, under the performance prong, "the defendant must show that counsel’s representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness." Strickland, 466 U.S. at 669, 104 S.Ct. 2052. However, "[a] court must indulge a strong presumption that counsel’s conduct falls within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance." Id. at 689, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Second, under the prejudice prong, the defendant must show "there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different." Id. at 669, 104 S. Ct. 2052. "A reasonable probability is a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome" after considering the totality of evidence that was before the judge or jury. Id.

[2] ¶9 In line with Strickland, we first consider whether Sanchez’s trial counsel proposed an objectively unreasonable jury instruction in support of his self-defense claim. In general, "[j]ury instructions are sufficient if they correctly state the law, are not misleading, and allow the parties to argue their respective theories of the case." State v. Walters, 162 Wash. App. 74, 82, 255 P.3d 835 (2011).

¶10 Sanchez’s trial counsel proposed, and the trial court gave, the standard pattern jury instruction for justifiable homicide, which instructed the jury that:

Homicide is justifiable when committed in the lawful defense of the slayer when: … (3) the slayer employed such force and means as a reasonably prudent person would use under the same or similar conditions as they reasonably appeared to the slayer, taking into consideration all the facts and circumstances as they appeared to him, at the time of and prior to the incident.

11 Washington Practice: Washington Pattern Jury Instructions: Criminal 16.02 (5th ed. 2021) ("WPIC").

¶11 Paragraph (3) of WPIC 16.02 was added in response to our Supreme Court holding that a prior version of the instruction did "not instruct the jury to consider the conditions as they appeared to the slayer" in line with the subjective test set forth in State v. Wanrow. State v. Allery, 101 Wash.2d 591, 682 P.2d 312 (1984), abrogated on other grounds by State v. O’Hara, 167 Wash.2d 91, 98, 217 P.3d 756 (2009); State v. Wanrow, 88 Wash.2d 221, 239, 559 P.2d 548 (1977) (when raising a claim of self-defense, the "defendant’s actions are to be judged against her own subjective impressions and not those which a detached jury might determine to be objectively reasonable"), superseded by statute on other grounds by Lewis v. State, Dept. of Licensing, 125 Wash. App. 666, 679-80, 105 P.3d 1029 (2005) (citing RCW 9.73.090(1)(a)). Further, the language of paragraph (3) was taken directly from Wanrow, which held that the jury must consider the "facts and circumstances known to the defendant, including those known substantially before the killing." Wanrow, 88 Wash.2d at 239, 559 P.2d 548.

¶12 Sanchez fails to show his trial attorney’s performance was deficient for three key reasons. First, the standard WPIC 16.02 instruction is an accurate statement of law. Following the amendment to WPIC 16.02, our Supreme Court observed that they have, on many occasions, "upheld WPIC 16.02 against other attacks on its statement of the law of self-defense." State v. LeFaber, 128 Wash.2d 896, 901, 913 P.2d 369 (1996), abrogated on other grounds by State v. O’Hara, 167 Wash.2d 91, 101-04, 217 P.3d 756 (2009).

¶13 In response, Sanchez relies heavily on Allery. In particular, he claims that, as in that case, "[t]he jury should have been instructed to consider the self-defense issue from the defendant’s perspective in light of all that she knew and had experienced with the victim." Allery, 101 Wash.2d at 595, 682 P.2d 312 (emphasis added). From this, Sanchez argues Allery requires a court to instruct jurors to consider the defendant’s "experiences of trauma" and not just their "knowledge of facts and circumstances" surrounding their use of force. (Emphasis added). As such, he argues that his counsel was ineffective in proposing an instruction which did not specifically require the jury to consider Sanchez’s past trauma and multiple mental health disorders when assessing his justifiable homicide defense.

¶14 We disagree because the distinction between "facts and circumstances" known to a defendant, on the one hand, and what a defendant "had experienced," on the other, is a distinction without difference. In other words, the concept of "facts and circumstances as they appeared to the slayer" in WPIC 16.02 captures the same, or arguably even a broader, set of facts than what a defendant may have psychologically "experienced." At a minimum, the defendant’s "ex- periences" are necessarily included within the "facts and circumstances" known to the defendant at the time. If there is a subtle distinction material to the analysis, Sanchez provides no authority in support of such a distinction. City of Seattle v. Levesque, 12 Wash. App. 2d 687, 697, 460 P.3d 205 (2020) (" ‘Where no authorities are cited in support of a proposition, the court is not required to search out authorities, but may assume that counsel, after diligent search, has found none.’ ") (quoting DeHeer v. Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 60 Wash.2d 122, 126, 372 P.2d 193 (1962)). Without authority supporting such a distinction, decisions approving WPIC 16.02 continue to be good law.

¶15 Second, Sanchez has failed to show how WPIC 16.02 prevented him from effectively arguing his theory of the case. As stated in his brief, his "mental health disorders and its potential impact on him during the incident … were major subjects at his trial." In particular, Dr. Stanfill, Sanchez’s...