State v. Mora

NOTICE: NOT FOR OFFICIAL PUBLICATION.
UNDER ARIZONA RULE OF THE SUPREME COURT 111(c), THIS DECISION IS NOT PRECEDENTIAL
AND MAY BE CITED ONLY AS AUTHORIZED BY RULE.

IN THE
ARIZONA COURT OF APPEALS
DIVISION ONE

STATE OF ARIZONA, Respondent,

v.

STEVEN MORA, Petitioner.

No. 1 CA-CR 24-0026 PRPC
FILED 12-17-2024

Petition for Review from the Superior Court in Maricopa County
No. CR2018-000891-001
The Honorable Ronee Korbin Steiner, Judge

REVIEW GRANTED; RELIEF DENIED

COUNSEL

Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, Phoenix
By Philip D. Garrow
Counsel for Respondent

Steven Mora, Florence
Petitioner
 STATE v. MORA
Decision of the Court

MEMORANDUM DECISION

Judge Kent E. Cattani delivered the decision of the Court, in which
Presiding Judge Jennifer B. Campbell and Judge Paul J. McMurdie joined.

C A T T A N I, Judge:

¶1 Steven Mora petitions this court for review of the superior
court’s dismissal of his first petition for post-conviction relief under
Arizona Rule of Criminal Procedure 32. For reasons that follow, we grant
review but deny relief.

¶2 A jury convicted Mora of two counts of child molestation and
two counts of public sexual indecency to a minor. The convictions were
based on evidence that Mora committed sex acts in front of the victim and
that he had the victim touch his genitals. Before trial, the State moved to
admit evidence that Mora had engaged in similar acts with two other
minors several years earlier. See Ariz. R. Evid. 404(b), (c). After an
evidentiary hearing, the superior court found by clear and convincing
evidence that Mora had committed the other acts and determined that the
other-act evidence was admissible under both 404(b) (for motive, intent,
and lack of mistake or accident) and 404(c) (as evidence of an aberrant
sexual propensity to commit the charged offenses). The victims of Mora’s
other acts testified at trial, as did the victim of the charged offenses.

¶3 Mora appealed from the convictions and sentences, but
substantively challenged only the molestation sentences and not his
convictions. This court affirmed Mora’s convictions but held that the
superior court had erred by imposing enhanced sentences for the
molestation convictions, vacated those sentences, and remanded for
resentencing. State v. Mora, 252 Ariz. 122, 124–25, 129, ¶¶ 1–2, 23 (2021).
The superior court resentenced Mora, and he appealed from the new
sentences. His attorney in the second appeal filed a brief pursuant to Anders
v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967), and State v. Leon, 104 Ariz. 297 (1969),
avowing that she found no meritorious issue to raise, and Mora did not file
a supplemental brief despite being given leave to do so. We affirmed. State
v. Mora, 1 CA-CR 22-0192, 2023 WL 406308 (Ariz. App. Jan. 26, 2023) (mem.
decision).

2
 STATE v. MORA
Decision of the Court

¶4 Mora timely requested post-conviction relief. After his
attorney found no colorable claim, Mora filed a petition in propria persona
alleging that the superior court deprived him of his constitutional due
process and confrontation rights by (1) allowing the State to offer the
victim’s allegedly unreliable statements, (2) not allowing him to cross-
examine the victim about those statements at a pretrial hearing, and (3)
admitting the other-act evidence. See Ariz. R. Crim. P. 32.1(a); U.S. Const.
amends. V, VI, XIV. The superior court dismissed Mora’s petition,
concluding his claims were precluded under Arizona Rule of Criminal
Procedure 32.2(a)(3) and were not colorable in any event. Mora timely filed
a delayed petition for review. We review the superior court’s ruling for an
abuse of discretion. State v. Bigger, 251 Ariz. 402, 407, ¶ 6 (2021).

¶5 Mora’s petition for review presses the same claims presented
to the superior court, which asserted constitutional violations that Mora
could have challenged—but did not—on direct appeal. Because the rights
implicated are not ones that require personal waiver, cf. Stewart v. Smith, 202 Ariz. 446, 449–50, ¶¶ 9–10 (2002), these claims are now precluded. See
Ariz. R. Crim. P. 32.2(a)(3) (preclusion for grounds waived on appeal);
A.R.S. § 13-4232(A)(3); State v. Herrera, 183 Ariz. 642, 647 (App. 1995)
(“[A]ppellate counsel’s waiver of other possible issues binds the defendant,
and those waived issues cannot be resurrected in post-conviction
proceedings.”).

¶6 Accordingly, we grant review but deny relief.

AMY M. WOOD • Clerk of the Court
FILED: TM

3