State v. Met

Summary

The Utah Supreme Court reviewed Esar Met’s convictions for aggravated murder and child kidnapping. The court rejected his constitutional, evidentiary, suppression, merger, and ineffective-assistance claims, but remanded for clarification or resentencing on the aggravated murder conviction because the district court had incorrectly treated life without parole as the presumptive sentence. The court affirmed the child kidnapping conviction and its life-without-parole sentence.

Holdings

1. Utah Code section 76-3-207.7 and Utah's dual-track aggravated-murder sentencing structure do not violate the constitutional provisions raised by Met. The statute does not unlawfully delegate legislative power, deny due process, violate equal protection, or require the capital-sentencing protections applicable to death-penalty cases.
2. A defendant need not testify under a categorical Luce rule to preserve a claim that statements were improperly authorized for impeachment, but a defendant who does not testify must otherwise create a record sufficient to permit meaningful appellate review. Because Met made no record showing that he would have testified, what his testimony would have been, or how impeachment would have affected the trial, the court declined to review the merits of the ruling.
3. The warrantless search did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Met's roommate had actual common authority to consent to a search of the basement's main room, and exigent circumstances justified the agents' entry into the basement bathroom after they observed apparent blood while searching for a missing child who might still be alive.
4. The district court properly admitted the two photographs under Utah Rule of Evidence 403. The court abandoned the prior Utah judicial gloss requiring a threshold gruesomeness determination and a heightened balancing test for such photographs.
5. The child-kidnapping conviction did not merge with the aggravated-murder conviction because the detention and movement of the victim were more than slight or incidental, were not inherent in murder, and had independent significance by making the crime easier to commit or less likely to be detected.
6. Even assuming trial counsel performed deficiently by withdrawing the mistrial motion, Met failed to establish prejudice under Strickland because the untested spot was remote from the other evidence and he did not show how testing or preservation would probably have changed the trial's outcome.
7. The district court erred by treating life without parole as the presumptive sentence for noncapital aggravated murder. Section 76-3-207.7 gives the sentencing court discretion to impose either life without parole or an indeterminate prison term of at least twenty years that may be for life.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Utah Code section 76-3-207.7, governing sentencing for noncapital aggravated murder, violates federal or state constitutional provisions concerning due process, equal protection, cruel and unusual punishment, jury trial, or legislative delegation.
2. Whether the district court improperly ruled that Met's police-interview transcript could be used for impeachment despite Miranda and voluntariness concerns.
3. Whether the warrantless search of Met's apartment violated the Fourth Amendment.
4. Whether the district court improperly admitted two allegedly gruesome photographs under Utah Rule of Evidence 403.
5. Whether Met's child-kidnapping conviction should merge with his aggravated-murder conviction.
6. Whether trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance by withdrawing a mistrial motion based on the State's failure to test and preserve a possible blood spot.
7. Whether the district court improperly sentenced Met based on the mistaken belief that life without parole was the presumptive sentence for noncapital aggravated murder.

Disposition

remanded