State v. Quintana , 2019 UT App 139 ( 2019 )


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    2019 UT App 139
    THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS
    STATE OF UTAH,
    Appellee,
    v.
    MARIO BRIAN QUINTANA,
    Appellant.
    Opinion
    No. 20180107-CA
    Filed August 15, 2019
    Third District Court, West Jordan Department
    The Honorable L. Douglas Hogan
    No. 171400213
    Teresa L. Welch and Owen N. Stewart, Attorneys
    for Appellant
    Sean D. Reyes and Jeffrey S. Gray, Attorneys
    for Appellee
    JUDGE DIANA HAGEN authored this Opinion, in which
    JUDGES DAVID N. MORTENSEN and RYAN M. HARRIS concurred.
    HAGEN, Judge:
    ¶1     Mario Brian Quintana appeals his convictions for one
    count of aggravated robbery and one count of robbery.
    Specifically, he argues that the State presented insufficient
    evidence to prove (1) his identity as the person who robbed a
    hotel at gunpoint (aggravated robbery count), or (2) his use of
    force or fear to take a woman’s car keys to aid his escape
    (robbery count). Because a jury could reasonably find that the
    evidence supported his convictions for both aggravated robbery
    and robbery, we affirm.
    State v. Quintana
    BACKGROUND 1
    ¶2     An individual brandishing a handgun-style BB gun
    entered the lobby of a hotel in Taylorsville, Utah, pointed
    the gun at the front desk receptionist, and yelled at her,
    “Give me your fucking money.” The robber was wearing a
    black mask up to his nose, black and white gloves, white and
    red shoes, and a zippered hoodie with a Batman costume design
    and fabric ears on the hood. The receptionist immediately ran
    out of the building through an employee lunchroom behind the
    lobby.
    ¶3     The robber jumped over the front desk, entered a back
    room, and took the receptionist’s handbag. Returning to the
    front desk with the handbag, the robber set the BB gun on the
    counter and emptied the contents of the cash register drawer
    onto the floor and into the handbag. He then exited through the
    front door of the lobby, leaving the gun behind.
    ¶4     From the side of the building, the receptionist observed
    the robber run out of the hotel in the direction of a nearby coffee
    shop. Moments later, the receptionist returned to the front desk
    called 911.
    ¶5     After receiving a dispatch call that someone in a black
    jacket and black pants had robbed the hotel, law enforcement
    officers arrived on scene and began to search the area for the
    robber. As one officer searched the area surrounding the hotel,
    he was directed to a blond woman walking nearby whom
    bystanders had observed running across the street with the
    1. “On appeal, we review the record facts in a light most
    favorable to the jury’s verdict and recite the facts accordingly.
    We present conflicting evidence only as necessary to understand
    issues raised on appeal.” State v. Prater, 
    2017 UT 13
    , ¶ 3 n.1, 
    392 P.3d 398
     (quotation simplified).
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    State v. Quintana
    robber. When asked about the robber’s whereabouts, the woman
    directed law enforcement toward a nearby coffee shop.
    ¶6    When the uniformed officer arrived at the coffee shop, an
    employee directed him to an alleyway next to the coffee shop.
    According to the coffee shop employee, near the time of the
    robbery, customers in the drive-thru line were honking their
    horns and motioning toward someone running past them
    toward the alleyway.
    ¶7     In the alleyway, the officer found a man—later identified
    as Quintana—lying on the ground behind a barricade near a
    dumpster. The man jumped up as the officer approached. The
    officer ordered him to stop and get back on the ground, but
    Quintana refused and ran. The officer pursued him over a
    retaining wall, past a bank, and into a grocery store parking lot.
    ¶8     In the grocery store parking lot, multiple law enforcement
    officers observed Quintana run toward two women and a child.
    As Quintana approached the women and child, multiple
    uniformed and plainclothes officers continued to pursue
    Quintana with weapons drawn, ordering him to stop. One of the
    officers then observed Quintana shouting at the women,
    grabbing at something in one woman’s hands or catching
    something the woman had tossed to him, and then apparently
    hiding behind the woman from whom he had taken the item.
    Concerned that the woman who tossed the item looked “very
    scared” and that Quintana was trying to take control of the
    woman’s vehicle and escape, the officer attempted to block
    Quintana with his patrol vehicle. Quintana then ran into the
    grocery store where he was apprehended with the assistance of a
    taser.
    ¶9    Quintana was placed under arrest and provided a name
    to law enforcement that did not match his date of birth. At the
    time of his arrest, Quintana was wearing a dark hooded
    pullover, some jeans that “were kind of a little bit lighter in the
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    State v. Quintana
    front but dark in the back,” and shoes that were white and black
    with a distinct red tread. He was not wearing gloves.
    ¶10 After he was advised of his rights, Quintana admitted that
    he was a guest of the hotel before the robbery, that he went
    downstairs from his room and told the receptionist, “Give me
    your fucking money,” and that the blond woman with whom the
    police had spoken outside of the hotel after the robbery was
    supposed to be his getaway driver. Quintana also confessed that
    when he saw a patrol vehicle, he ran toward the grocery store
    and demanded that a woman in the parking lot give him her
    keys, which she threw to him, and that he wanted to use her
    vehicle to outrun the police.
    ¶11 After the interview, a detective observed that Quintana
    left a glove behind in the interrogation room that appeared to
    match the gloves observed on the security footage of the
    robbery. An officer also discovered what was identified by the
    receptionist as her handbag hidden behind the dumpster in the
    alleyway where Quintana was hiding. The handbag contained a
    similar amount of cash as had been taken from the hotel.
    ¶12 The State charged Quintana with aggravated robbery,
    robbery, failure to stop at the command of a law enforcement
    officer, and providing false information to a peace officer. The
    case proceeded to trial at which the two women from the
    grocery store parking lot testified. They both identified Quintana
    as the man they observed running “straight toward” them in the
    parking lot as the police followed and shouted at him to stop.
    One of the women testified that when they saw Quintana
    running toward them, they started to walk away from their
    vehicle because “he was coming toward [them] and [they] were
    getting really scared that he would come right to [them], so
    [they] needed to get to safety.” Quintana continued to run
    straight to them. He yelled at one of the women to give him her
    keys, which she then threw to him from five to ten feet away.
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    She testified that she felt like she had to give him her keys
    because she was scared for her life.
    ¶13 The other woman similarly testified that Quintana ran up
    to them and shouted. He yelled at her first to give him her keys,
    and when she told him she did not have any, he turned to her
    sister who tossed him the keys. She also testified that once he
    had the keys, Quintana stood right behind her sister. At that
    point, because she had seen Quintana running from the direction
    of a bank with police in pursuit with firearms drawn, she
    believed that Quintana had “a weapon on him” and was going
    to use her sister as a human shield or take her sister as a hostage.
    ¶14 None of the State’s witnesses, apart from the receptionist,
    testified at trial to observing Quintana wearing a black Batman
    hoodie with black fabric ears on the hood during the course of
    his pursuit by law enforcement. The BB gun recovered at the
    scene was admitted at trial, but was not tested for DNA or
    fingerprints because the robber had worn gloves.
    ¶15 After the State rested, Quintana moved for a directed
    verdict on the aggravated robbery and robbery charges. The
    district court denied Quintana’s motion, and he was convicted as
    charged. Quintana appeals his convictions for aggravated
    robbery and robbery.
    ISSUE AND STANDARD OF REVIEW
    ¶16 Quintana appeals, challenging the sufficiency of the
    evidence to support his convictions for aggravated robbery of
    the hotel and robbery of the woman in the parking lot. “When
    reviewing a jury verdict on an insufficiency of the evidence
    argument, we view the evidence and all inferences drawn
    therefrom in a light most favorable to the verdict.” State v. Heaps,
    
    2000 UT 5
    , ¶ 19, 
    999 P.2d 565
    . And we will reverse the “verdict
    only when, after viewing the evidence and all inferences drawn
    therefrom in a light most favorable to the verdict, we find that
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    State v. Quintana
    the evidence to support the verdict was completely lacking or
    was so slight and unconvincing as to make the verdict plainly
    unreasonable and unjust.” 
    Id.
     (quotation simplified). “So long as
    some evidence and reasonable inferences support the jury’s
    findings, we will not disturb them.” 
    Id.
    ANALYSIS
    ¶17 Quintana argues that the district court erred in denying
    his motion for a directed verdict on both robbery charges. First,
    Quintana argues that the State presented insufficient evidence to
    prove that he was adequately identified as the individual who
    robbed the hotel to support his aggravated robbery conviction.
    Second, Quintana argues that the State presented insufficient
    evidence to prove that he took the keys from the woman in the
    grocery store parking lot by means of force or fear to support his
    robbery conviction. We address each conviction in turn.
    I. Aggravated Robbery of the Hotel
    ¶18 In contesting his conviction for aggravated robbery,
    Quintana challenges only whether there was sufficient evidence
    of identity. Quintana argues that the State failed to prove that he
    was the individual who robbed the hotel because he was not
    identified by the receptionist after the robbery and he was not
    wearing the hoodie with ears at the time of his arrest and claims
    he did not have time to change his clothing. But the State
    presented other evidence identifying Quintana as the robber
    sufficient to allow a jury to find him guilty beyond a reasonable
    doubt.
    ¶19 Most significantly, the State presented direct evidence
    identifying Quintana as the robber when it played the recording
    of Quintana’s confession. In the recording, Quintana admits that
    he told the receptionist, “Give me your fucking money,” and
    that he robbed the hotel front desk.
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    ¶20 The State also presented considerable circumstantial
    evidence identifying Quintana as the robber. See State v.
    Cowlishaw, 
    2017 UT App 181
    , ¶ 13, 
    405 P.3d 885
     (stating that
    “identification can be inferred from circumstantial evidence”
    and “direct, in-court identification is not required” (quotation
    simplified)). For example, the State presented testimony that
    after fleeing the hotel lobby, the robber ran toward the nearby
    coffee shop and moments later a coffee shop employee observed
    a disturbance in the coffee shop’s drive-thru area, where people
    in their vehicles were honking their horns and motioning at
    someone running toward the alleyway. A law enforcement
    officer then discovered Quintana in the coffee shop alleyway,
    and Quintana fled when the officer ordered him to the ground.
    Another law enforcement officer later found the receptionist’s
    handbag containing the stolen hotel cash hidden in the same
    alleyway. In addition, although the State did not present
    evidence that Quintana was wearing a hoodie with ears when he
    exited the hotel lobby, Quintana was wearing white sneakers
    with red markings at the time of his arrest. The receptionist
    described the robber as wearing shoes similar to those worn by
    Quintana, and the security footage from the hotel confirmed this
    description.
    ¶21 In light of this evidence, along with Quintana’s own
    admission that he robbed the hotel front desk, we cannot say
    that “reasonable minds must have entertained a reasonable
    doubt” that Quintana was the individual who robbed the hotel
    front desk. See State v. Shumway, 
    2002 UT 124
    , ¶ 15, 
    63 P.3d 94
    .
    Therefore, the evidence supporting Quintana’s aggravated
    robbery conviction was sufficient.
    II. Robbery in the Parking Lot
    ¶22 Quintana also argues that there was insufficient evidence
    to support his robbery conviction because the State’s evidence
    did not prove that he used force or fear to obtain the keys from
    the woman in the grocery store parking lot. Specifically,
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    State v. Quintana
    Quintana contends that the State failed to present evidence that
    Quintana’s actions—running up to the woman as she and her
    sister and the child were walking to their car and demanding her
    car keys—would have caused an objectively reasonable person
    to hand over the keys out of fear that he would use immediate
    force against her. In making this argument, Quintana conflates
    two separate subsections of the robbery statute.
    ¶23 Under Utah law, a person commits the crime of robbery if
    he either
    (a) unlawfully and intentionally takes or attempts
    to take personal property in the possession of
    another from his person, or immediate presence,
    against his will, by means of force or fear, and with
    a purpose or intent to deprive the person
    permanently or temporarily of the personal
    property; or
    (b) the person intentionally or knowingly uses
    force or fear of immediate force against another in
    the course of committing a theft or wrongful
    appropriation.
    
    Utah Code Ann. § 76-6-301
    (1)(a)–(b) (LexisNexis 2018). With the
    acknowledgement that he may have been convicted under either
    subsection (1)(a) or (1)(b), Quintana asks this court to read
    subsections (1)(a) and (1)(b) together and interpret “fear” as it is
    used in (1)(a) to mean “fear of immediate force” as set forth in
    (1)(b). In other words, he contends that the State was required to
    prove that he took the keys by use of “fear of immediate force.”
    ¶24 Absent an ambiguity in the statute, which Quintana has
    not argued, “we presume that the legislature used each word
    advisedly, . . . thereby presuming all omissions to be
    purposeful.” See Bagley v. Bagley, 
    2016 UT 48
    , ¶ 10, 
    387 P.3d 1000
    (quotation simplified). We therefore decline to read the
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    requirement “of immediate force” into the “fear” element of
    subsection (1)(a). Instead, under subsection (1)(a), the jury need
    find beyond a reasonable doubt only that Quintana
    accomplished the intentional taking by causing the victim to act
    out of fear, regardless of whether the victim’s fear was the fear of
    immediate force.
    ¶25 The State presented substantial evidence that Quintana’s
    actions intentionally and unlawfully caused the woman in the
    parking lot to surrender her car keys out of fear. At trial, the
    woman who tossed her keys to Quintana testified that she did so
    because she feared for her life. And the woman’s subjective fear
    was objectively reasonable based on the surrounding
    circumstances, which Quintana used to his advantage to
    accomplish the robbery. See People v. Morehead, 
    119 Cal. Rptr. 3d 680
    , 689 (Ct. App. 2011) (assessing whether a victim’s subjective
    fear was “objectively reasonable” in applying California’s
    similarly worded robbery statute); see also State v. Ireland, 
    2005 UT App 209
    , ¶ 12, 
    113 P.3d 1028
     (considering whether objective
    evidence supported the victim’s reasonable belief that a robber
    threatened the use of a dangerous weapon in applying Utah’s
    aggravated robbery statute). At the time he demanded her keys,
    Quintana was running from the direction of a local bank while
    pursued by multiple uniformed law enforcement officers with
    weapons drawn ordering him to stop. Quintana admitted that he
    knew the police were in pursuit and that he intended to take the
    woman’s car to aid his escape. Quintana appeared to target the
    women and child by running straight toward them, even after
    they tried to avoid his path and get to safety. He shouted at the
    women, demanding their keys. It also appeared to the women
    and to the officers that Quintana was either attempting to hide
    behind one of the women or take her hostage. The objective
    circumstances would lead a reasonable person to conclude that
    Quintana was likely armed and dangerous and desperate to
    escape. In light of this evidence, a reasonable jury could find that
    Quintana accomplished the taking by means of fear.
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    State v. Quintana
    CONCLUSION
    ¶26 The State presented sufficient evidence to prove that
    Quintana was the individual who robbed the hotel and that he
    intentionally and unlawfully took the woman’s car keys against
    her will by means of fear. Accordingly, we affirm his convictions
    for aggravated robbery and robbery.
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Document Info

Docket Number: 20180107-CA

Citation Numbers: 2019 UT App 139

Filed Date: 8/15/2019

Precedential Status: Precedential

Modified Date: 12/21/2021