State v. Scott
| Decision Date | 09 March 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 20170518,20170518 |
| Citation | 462 P.3d 350 |
| Parties | STATE of Utah, Petitioner, v. Tracy SCOTT, Respondent. |
| Court | Utah Supreme Court |
Attorneys:1
Sean D. Reyes, Att’y Gen., Tera J. Peterson, Asst. Solic. Gen., Salt Lake City, David S. Sturgill, Lance E. Bastian, Provo, for petitioner
Margaret P. Lindsay, Douglas J. Thompson, Provo, for respondent
¶1 Tracy Scott contends that his lawyer provided ineffective assistance as Scott stood trial for the murder of his wife, Teresa Scott. Scott admitted at trial that he shot Teresa.2 But he maintained that he did so while under extreme emotional distress caused by her threatening behavior. When Scott tried to testify about a specific threat he claimed Teresa had made a few days before the shooting, however, the trial court excluded the testimony on hearsay grounds.
¶2 It is undisputed that the threat was not hearsay and should have been admitted. Nevertheless, Scott’s trial counsel did not make this argument, and the jury never heard the content of the threat. The jury ultimately convicted Scott of murder, and he appealed.
¶3 Scott argued in the court of appeals that his lawyer’s failure to argue that the threat was not hearsay constituted ineffective assistance. The court of appeals agreed and reversed his conviction.
¶4 The only issue before us is whether the court of appeals erred in that determination. Because the court of appeals did not have before it the content of the threat, we conclude it did err. Without the content of the threat, there was insufficient information to conclude that counsel’s course of conduct was deficient or prejudicial. We reverse and remand.
¶5 The Scotts’ nineteen-year marriage was marred by arguments and violence.3 Their two sons saw many fights at home and considered Scott to be "responsible" for most of them. While Teresa would get mad and yell, Scott would get "aggressive" and "physical." Once, the boys saw Scott throw a towel at Teresa’s face and start "punching her in the gut." Another time Scott "slammed" a vacuum into Teresa’s legs.
¶6 The sons heard Scott threaten to kill Teresa "multiple times." He told her that "one of these days I’m going to kill you." In fact, on an earlier occasion, Scott had tried to run Teresa over with their SUV while the boys were in the backseat, but Teresa was able to jump out of the way.
¶7 The boys heard their father tell their mother that "she was worthless." And he would "cuss" at her "a lot," calling her names like "bitch" or "just anything to put her down, that could hurt her and make her feel like she was a bad person." He used the contact name "Bitch Teresa" for her in his cell phone during the two weeks leading up to her death.
¶8 In 2008, Scott was arrested and pleaded guilty to domestic violence assault. Afterwards, Teresa obtained a protective order and they separated temporarily. But they soon reunited and she helped him get his conviction expunged.
¶9 Scott testified at trial and gave his version of the events leading up to the moment he killed his wife. The day before the shooting, he went into their bedroom and found Teresa crouched at the end of the bed. As he left the room, he noticed their gun safe had been pulled from its usual location under a dresser and was open. He saw one pistol in the safe and noticed that Teresa’s gun was missing. Scott testified that this made him "scared to death."
¶10 The next day—the day of the shooting—Scott had difficulty "thinking straight" and struggled to complete simple tasks. Teresa and Scott were fighting throughout the day. Scott took a break from working in the garage to use the bathroom. As he walked through the master bedroom, he saw that the gun safe was out from under the dresser again, open, with one gun still missing. Earlier that day, the safe had been in place under the dresser. Teresa was sitting on the bed with crochet work in her lap. Scott did an about-face and left the house without using the bathroom.
¶11 Scott "didn’t dare go back in the house" and instead stayed in the garage. He looked up several times to see Teresa leaning out the garage door staring at him. This caused Scott to "wig out." Agitated and nervous, Scott made several phone calls before deciding to "go in there and confront th[e situation]."
¶12 Scott walked into the kitchen and overheard Teresa on the phone talking to her mother. He picked up the other headset and said, "[M]y wife and my mother-in-law are saying bad things about me." Then, Teresa "said something" to Scott and he "snapped" and saw "red."
¶13 Scott charged into the couple’s room and found Teresa lying on the bed pointing her cell phone at him. Scott glanced at the gun safe and saw that Teresa’s gun still was not there. But his gun was. He reached into the safe, grabbed his pistol, and shot her three times. He then called 911.
¶14 The State charged Scott with domestic violence murder.
¶15 At trial, Scott admitted to killing Teresa, but he argued that he had acted under extreme emotional distress caused by Teresa’s threatening behavior and the missing gun. If accepted by the jury, this defense would have reduced the murder charge to manslaughter.
¶16 In his opening statement, defense counsel explained to the jury that Counsel told the jury that he would present evidence that Scott and Teresa fought constantly and their fighting "escalated" in the weeks before the shooting. Counsel stated that the day before the shooting, Scott called his mother and said, Counsel told the jury that when Scott heard Teresa talking to her mother on the phone the next day, "hamm[ing] it up" and trying to "twist the screws and antagonize him," Scott snapped and shot her.
¶17 Scott testified at trial. On direct examination, he attempted to recount a threat he claimed Teresa had made to him days before the shooting. Scott’s attorney asked him what he thought when he saw that Teresa’s pistol was missing from their gun safe. Scott answered, Counsel asked, "[W]ho threatened who?" and Scott began to explain what the couple had been fighting about. But the State interrupted Scott’s answer with a hearsay objection. And the trial court sustained the objection and called the lawyers up to a sidebar during which he cautioned defense counsel.
¶18 When counsel resumed questioning, he asked Scott, "After you saw the safe opened, and you went into the garage, ... then what were you thinking?" Scott answered, "I was thinking that the threat that I had received the day before—" at which point, the State again interrupted with a hearsay objection, which the court also sustained.
¶19 The State requested another sidebar, during which the court warned Scott’s counsel to stay away from that line of questioning because "the only responses I’m getting are clearly hearsay." Scott’s counsel acquiesced, and Scott did not mention the threat again. The specific words of the threat were not introduced at trial and are not part of the record on appeal.
¶20 At the end of trial, the court instructed the jury on the elements of extreme emotional distress as follows:
A person acts under the influence of extreme emotional distress when the then existing circumstances expose him to extremely unusual and overwhelming stress that would cause the average reasonable person under that stress to have an extreme emotional reaction as a result of which he experienced a loss of self-control and ha[d] this [sic] reason over[borne] by intense feelings such as passion, anger, distress, grief, excessive agitation or other similar emotions.
The instructions also stated that " ‘emotional distress’ does not include ... distress that is substantially caused by the defendant’s own conduct." (Emphasis added.)
¶21 During deliberations, the jury sent two notes to the court that indicated confusion regarding the meaning of extreme emotional distress. One note asked, "What is the legal definition of ‘substantially caused?’ " The next note said that the jury was and that "[t]wo feel that ‘substantially caused’ needs to be ‘the majority of the time.’ "
¶22 The court gave the jury a supplemental instruction encouraging them to keep working toward a resolution, which the jury reached two hours later. The jury found Scott guilty of murder, and the court sentenced him to fifteen years to life in prison.
¶23 Scott timely appealed. He argued in the court of appeals that his trial lawyer provided ineffective assistance because he did not argue that the threat was not hearsay and should be admitted. See State v. Scott , 2017 UT App 74, ¶¶ 17, 19, 21, 397 P.3d 837. The State conceded on appeal that the threat was not hearsay, and the court of appeals agreed.4 Id. ¶ 22. Scott also argued that the trial court erred by giving a "verdict-urging" instruction when the jury was at an impasse. Id. ¶ 17.
¶24 Scott attempted to develop the record relevant to his ineffective assistance claim. He filed with the court of appeals a motion pursuant to Utah Rule of Appellate Procedure 23B for a remand to the trial court to develop facts relevant to...
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