STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellee, vs. EDGARDO ESQUIVEL SERRATO, Defendant-Appellant.
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IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 9-374 / 08-0799
Filed July 22, 2009
STATE OF IOWA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
vs.
EDGARDO ESQUIVEL SERRATO,
Defendant-Appellant.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Muscatine County, James E.
Kelley, Judge.
Edgardo Serrato appeals his conviction for obstruction of prosecution.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
Lori Kieffer-Garrison, Rock Island, Illinois, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Sheryl Soich, Assistant Attorney
General, Gary Allison, County Attorney, and Alan R. Ostergren, Assistant County
Attorney, for appellee.
Heard by Vaitheswaran, P.J., and Eisenhauer and Mansfield, JJ.
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MANSFIELD, J.
Edgardo Serrato appeals his conviction for obstruction of prosecution in
violation of Iowa Code section 719.3 (2005).
Serrato contends there was
insufficient evidence to sustain his conviction. Additionally, Serrato asserts his
counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to request a reporting of voir
dire and by failing to move for a change of venue. Upon review, we reverse
Serrato‟s conviction because we believe the evidence was insufficient to allow a
reasonable jury to conclude that Serrato concealed “physical evidence which
would be admissible in the trial of another.”
I. Factual Background
The trial evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the prosecution,
was as follows:
Edgardo Serrato and Victor Serrato are brothers.
On the
evening of October 21, 2006, both were at a dance in West Liberty, Iowa. Victor
had brought some friends with him in his white Mazda. Edgardo had driven
separately to the dance in a black Chevy S10 pickup truck, which was registered
in Illinois in the name of his brother-in-law, Juan Carlos Vasquez. While at the
dance, Victor received a call from his girlfriend, Angelica Chavez. Angelica had
just had an altercation with her roommate Miriam “Mimi” Carmona at the
Escorpion Bar in Muscatine. Both women were pregnant, and each claimed
Victor Serrato was the father of her child.
After receiving this call, Victor left the dance early to return to Muscatine.
Because Victor‟s friends wanted to stay at the dance, the brothers swapped
vehicles. Thus, Victor drove away in the truck, and later Edgardo returned to
Muscatine with the friends in the white Mazda. Edgardo parked the white Mazda
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in front of his home. When he awoke the next morning, October 22, Edgardo
found the truck parked in front of his home instead of the white Mazda.
The strangled body of Mimi Carmona was found that evening in Rock
Island, Illinois.
She was last seen in an altercation with Victor outside the
Escorpion Bar, near the truck.
Muscatine law enforcement officials originally
believed Victor had murdered Carmona and then drove the body across the river
to Rock Island in the truck and dumped the body. However, the tire tracks where
the body was found did not match those of the truck. At trial, one of the State‟s
witnesses conceded it was possible the murder had occurred later, possibly in
Illinois.
For two days Edgardo went to work as usual. Then on October 24, 2006,
Edgardo was advised by his sister that Mimi Carmona was dead, that Victor had
been arrested, and that he (Edgardo) “needed to get rid of the truck.” That same
day, Edgardo received another phone call from his brother-in-law in Chicago,
Juan Carlos Vasquez, who also advised him that he “needed to get rid of the
truck.”
Edgardo left work early, took the truck to Chicago, and sold it as
instructed. Because the title to the vehicle was located in Chicago, Edgardo
apparently had to go to Chicago to sell the truck. After selling the truck to an
individual whom he could only identify by first name, Edgardo remained in
Chicago a few days, then received a ride back to Muscatine.
Several months later, the truck was impounded by the Chicago police
department for excessive parking tickets. When the Muscatine police department
ultimately recovered the truck in late January 2007, it was found parked in snow
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and water in an outdoor impound lot. It had been exposed to the elements for
some time.
The Muscatine police had the truck towed back from Chicago to
Muscatine. In search of forensic evidence, the police department took off the
seat covers and tore apart the interior. They found no DNA evidence. The police
did not check the exterior of the truck. When asked why they did not bother to
look on the outside, the testifying officer explained, “The truck had been parked
outside through part of the wintertime.
There wouldn‟t have been any DNA
evidence in the bed of the truck.” This officer also admitted:
Q. In all of the search warrants you did, whether in Iowa or
Illinois, did you ever recover any admissible forensic evidence?
A. I don‟t believe we recovered anything that was used at the last
trial [Victor Serrato‟s trial], no.
The State charged Victor Serrato with murder in the first degree and
nonconsensual termination of a human pregnancy.
Edgardo Serrato was
charged with obstruction of prosecution, in violation of Iowa Code section 719.3,
along with other offenses that were ultimately dismissed. The State‟s theory of
prosecution against Edgardo was that if he had not sold the truck in Chicago on
October 24, the Muscatine police would have been able to search it then and,
potentially, would have found relevant evidence.
The district court granted a motion to sever the prosecutions of the two
brothers. Edgardo‟s case went to trial the week after Victor‟s murder conviction.
The court granted the media‟s request to have cameras and tape recorders at
trial.
After the presentation of evidence, Edgardo moved for a judgment of
acquittal.
The motion was denied.
The case went to the jury, which found
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Edgardo guilty. After trial, Edgardo filed a motion in arrest of judgment or in the
alternative for a new trial, which was also denied. Edgardo Serrato was then
sentenced to one year in county jail and a fine of $625.
Edgardo Serrato now appeals his conviction, asserting: (1) the district
court erred in denying his motions because there was insufficient evidence to
convict him of obstruction of prosecution, and (2) he received ineffective
assistance of counsel because his attorney failed to request a reporting of voir
dire and failed to file a motion to change venue in a highly publicized case.
II. Insufficiency of Evidence
Edgardo claims the district court erred in denying his motion for judgment
of acquittal and motion to arrest the judgment because the State did not present
sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to convict him of obstruction of
prosecution. Insufficiency of evidence is reviewed for correction of errors at law.
State v. Maghee, 573 N.W.2d 1, 9-10 (Iowa 1997). The jury verdict will be
overturned only there was not sufficient evidence in the record to convince a
rational jury the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt as to each
element of the crime. Id. The evidence is to be viewed in a light most favorable
to the State, including any reasonable inferences construed therefrom. Id.
Obstruction of prosecution has three elements: (1) “a person who, with
the intent to prevent the apprehension or obstruct the prosecution or defense of
any person,” (2) “knowingly destroys, alters, conceals or disguises,” (3) “physical
evidence which would be admissible in the trial of another person.” Iowa Code §
719.3(1). The burden to prove all elements of the crime is on the State. State v.
Gibbs, 239 N.W.2d 866, 867 (Iowa 1976). Reviewing the evidence relating to
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these elements in the light most favorable to the State, we conclude it was
insufficient to allow a rational jury to find the defendant guilty beyond a
reasonable doubt.
A. Intent to Obstruct Prosecution
In order to prove the first element, the State must demonstrate the
defendant intended to obstruct a prosecution.
Because of the difficulty of
knowing the defendant‟s mindset, intent is usually established by circumstantial
evidence. State v. Romeo, 542 N.W.2d 543, 549 (Iowa 1996).
Edgardo received a phone call from his sister in Chicago who told him his
brother had been arrested for the murder of Mimi Carmona. According to a
statement that Edgardo provided to the authorities, the sister instructed Edgardo
“that he needed to get rid of the pickup truck.” A short time later, Edgardo
received a similar phone call from his brother-in-law who also instructed him “that
he needed to get rid of the pickup truck. It was registered in his [the brother-inlaw‟s] name, and he needed to get rid of it so there was no problems with it.”
Edgardo also knew that his brother had borrowed the truck on the night of the
dance so he could deal with the situation involving his girlfriend and Mimi
Carmona. After receiving these phone calls, Edgardo left work in the middle of
his job shift, took the truck to Chicago, and sold it to a man whom he knew only
by his first name. A reasonable jury could conclude that Edgardo‟s act of getting
rid of the truck was intended to obstruct the criminal prosecution of his brother.
B. Knowingly Conceal
Edgardo also argues that he did not conceal the truck. He argues that
conceal means to “‟hide, to cover up, to keep from sight;‟ . . . [or] to „sell,
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alienate,‟ or to „put away.‟” State v. Julien, 48 Iowa 445, 445 (1878). After the
night of October 21/22, Edgardo continued to drive the truck throughout town and
to take the truck to work where it could be seen. However, on October 24, once
Edgardo was notified his brother had been arrested, he did “conceal” the truck.
Specifically, as directed by his relatives, he drove the truck across the state line
to Illinois and sold it to someone whom he only knew by first name. There was
sufficient evidence for a jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Edgardo
knowingly concealed the truck.
C. Physical Evidence Which Would Be Admissible in the Trial of
Another
The third element of the offense is the concealing of “physical evidence
which would be admissible in the trial of another.”
Iowa Code § 719.3(1)
(emphasis added). The State has the burden to prove that the evidence Edgardo
concealed would have been admissible at the trial of his brother. Notably, Iowa‟s
statute appears to be somewhat distinctive.
For example, under the federal
obstruction of justice statute, “the record, document, or other object need not be
admissible in evidence.”
18 U.S.C. § 1512(f)(2).
Other states have similar
disclaimers in their state laws. See, e.g., N.J.S. § 2C:29-3 (“regardless of its
admissibility in evidence”); N.D. Cent. Code § 12.1-08-03 (“regardless of its
admissibility in evidence”); 18 Pa. Consol. Stat. Ann. § 5105(a)(3) (“regardless of
its admissibility”).
Upon our review, we conclude the State did not carry its burden of proof
as to this required element. The Muscatine Police Department pulled out the
seat covers, tore apart the interior of the truck, and did not find any evidence that
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could be used at Victor‟s trial. The authorities did not check the exterior of the
truck, because they believed any forensic evidence would have been destroyed
by rain and snow after the vehicle had been sitting in an outdoor impound lot for
several months. The State argues that this means Edgardo was successful in
his attempt to conceal evidence.
However, it is one thing to prove that any
admissible evidence would have been destroyed; it is quite another to prove that
admissible evidence actually was destroyed—as required by Iowa Code section
719.3.
According to the evidence presented at Edgardo‟s trial, the State‟s theory
that the bed of the truck had been used to transport Carmona‟s dead body was
only that—a theory. No rational jury could conclude that this theory was proved
beyond a reasonable doubt.
Accordingly, no rational jury could have found
beyond a reasonable doubt that the truck contained relevant forensic evidence
that was somehow lost through Edgardo‟s machinations. The evidence at the
trial showed, in fact, that the tire tracks where the body was found did not match
the tires on the truck, and no one saw Victor driving the truck after the incident at
the Escorpion Bar.1 Following the discovery of Carmona‟s body, the Muscatine
police were interested in all the vehicles that had any connection to Victor. When
asked what forensic evidence the Muscatine Police Department had recovered
1
The State did prove that a postal receipt obtained by Edgardo on October 20 was
found near Mimi Carmona‟s body in Rock Island on October 22. Presumably, the State
believes this receipt somehow fell out of the black truck. However, even taking into
account this receipt, we do not believe a rational jury could conclude beyond a
reasonable doubt that the pickup was used to transport her body and thus contained
forensic evidence that was subsequently lost.
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from all of the warrants (including the warrant for the truck), the lead investigator
testified, “I don‟t believe we recovered anything that was used at the last trial.”
Furthermore, during Edgardo‟s trial, the State never proved that the truck
or photographs of the truck were admitted or would have been admissible at
Victor‟s trial even without accompanying forensic evidence. The State‟s theory of
prosecution against Edgardo was entirely based on the notion that the truck
would have had forensic evidence if it had been recovered and searched in
time.2
In denying Serrato‟s motion for new trial, the district court observed that
the truck could have been admitted at the trial had it been
discovered before being left out in the weather and the snow. It
would be illogical to conclude that just because the Defendant was
successful in preventing the discovery of the truck until more than
three months after the date of the murder, he could not be charged
with obstructing the prosecution.
Our problem with this line of reasoning is that it depends on an assumption that
the truck would have contained relevant evidence—a proposition that the State
failed to prove. While we are sympathetic to the district court‟s concern that
successful concealments of physical evidence should not be rewarded, we are
constrained by the language of Iowa Code section 719.3, which requires proof
beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant destroyed, altered, concealed or
disguised “physical evidence which would be admissible at trial.”
Indeed, the court‟s marshalling instruction required the State to prove Edgar “concealed
a motor vehicle which would have been evidence in the trial of Victor Serrato for Murder
in the First Degree.” Thus, the State‟s theory concerned what “would have been”—a
theory that we believe the State ultimately failed to prove.
2
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III. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, we reverse Edgardo Serrato‟s conviction for
violation of Iowa Code section 719.3 and remand for dismissal of the charge.
Because we are reversing the district court, it is unnecessary to address the
defendant‟s claim of ineffective assistance of counsel.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
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