State v. Wyffels

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UNDER ARIZONA RULE OF THE SUPREME COURT 111(c), THIS DECISION IS NOT PRECEDENTIAL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, Appellee,

v.

MICHAEL RONALD WYFFELS, Appellant.

No. 1 CA-CR 24-0029

FILED 11-07-2024

Appeal from the Superior Court in Coconino County
No. S0300CR201901295
The Honorable Joshua Steinlage, Judge

AFFIRMED

COUNSEL

Arizona Attorney General’s Office, Phoenix
By Michael O’Toole
Counsel for Appellee

Coconino County Public Defender’s Office, Flagstaff
By Brad Bransky
Counsel for Appellant
 STATE v. WYFFELS
Decision of the Court

MEMORANDUM DECISION

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

C A M P B E L L, Judge:

¶1 Michael Ronald Wyffels appeals from his convictions and
sentences for first-degree murder, kidnapping, theft of means of
transportation, and armed robbery. Wyffels argues that the superior court
erred by ruling that evidence of his release from prison was admissible
under Arizona Rules of Evidence (Rules) 404(b) and 403, and by the
prosecutor vouching for the evidence in closing arguments. We affirm.

BACKGROUND

¶2 On the afternoon of August 16, 2019, Wyffels was released
from prison and dropped off at a Phoenix-area transit center with no money
or car. He previously told his mother, Carly Brooks,1 that he planned to stop
at her Sun City house and then travel to Oregon. Knowing she would be
out of town, Brooks left Wyffels a note on her patio indicating that his
belongings were in the unlocked carport.

¶3 Wyffels knew Brooks’ elderly next-door neighbor, Arnold
Adams. Adams did not typically drive his car more than a few miles from
home and never at night. But in the early morning hours of August 17, 2019,
Adams was recorded withdrawing $300 from an ATM in Prescott. He was
accompanied by Wyffels, who could be seen in the video wearing his
prison-discharge clothes. Wyffels was then recorded using Adams’ bank
card to buy gas for Adams’ car at a Prescott service station.

¶4 Later that day, Adams’ body was discovered on an incline off
State Route 89A. Branches and a rock had been placed over his body, and
his back had a large abrasion consistent with being dragged. An autopsy
revealed that he died from multiple strikes to the head with an elongated
object. The medical examiner noted defensive wounds on Adams’ hands
and ruled that the death was a homicide.

1 We use pseudonyms for witnesses and the victim.

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¶5 Meanwhile, someone continued to use Adams’ bank card in
Utah, Idaho, and finally, Oregon. On August 19, two days after Adams’
body was discovered, Wyffels arrived at his friend Mark Mender’s house
in Oregon. Wyffels told Mender that someone had given him money and
loaned him a car for doing yardwork. He explained he was supposed to
return by the end of the year to complete the yardwork. Mender also saw a
note from Adams to that effect.

¶6 Wyffels stayed with Mender for more than a week. During
that time, Wyffels alluded to Adams’ death several times. Early on, Wyffels
asked Mender if he would push someone over a cliff if they wanted to die.
Later, Wyffels referred to a person disappearing, a person slipping or
falling, a person calling his name from a distance, and a body that would
never be found. Wyffels then added details, stating that he saw the person
when he looked over the edge. The person was bloody and asked not to be
left like that, the person gave him a wallet and said to have fun, and he then
finished the person off. Wyffels then speculated that people would try to
pin the death on him, and he would not be taken alive.

¶7 When Mender informed Wyffels that police were looking for
him, Wyffels moved Adams’ car to a nearby shopping center and made
plans to relocate. Police arrived and arrested him before he could escape.
Police searched Mender’s home and found Adams’ car keys and a pair of
shoes purchased with Adams’ bank card. Forensic analyses of the socks
Adams was wearing when he died, and a cigarette butt found in Adams’
car contained Wyffels’ DNA material.

¶8 Wyffels was indicted for kidnapping, theft of means of
transportation, armed robbery, and first-degree murder, charged in the
alternative as premeditated or felony murder. Before trial, the State moved
under Rule 404(b) to admit evidence of Wyffels’ prison release, as sanitized
and accompanied by a limiting jury instruction. The court granted the
motion over Wyffels’ objection, holding that the evidence was relevant for
proper purposes under Rule 404(b) and that its probative value outweighed
any prejudicial effect under Rule 403.

¶9 Over the course of two trials (because of a partially hung
jury), Wyffels was convicted on all counts, including both alternative forms
of first-degree murder. In both trials, the court addressed the prison-release
evidence by informing the jury that Wyffels had been “discharged from a
Phoenix metropolitan area location” where he had “resided” and “was not
permitted to leave,” and upon his discharge was transported by bus to a
transit center with “no money and no vehicle,” clad in “white shoes, jeans,

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and a light blue shirt.” The court instructed the jury that it was to consider
this evidence “only for the limited purpose of considering defendant’s
motive, intent, plan, opportunity, or identity,” and “not for any other
purpose.” The court reiterated the limitation in the final instructions.

¶10 The court entered judgment on the verdicts and imposed
concurrent prison sentences of life for the murder, 25 years for the
kidnapping, 18 years for the armed robbery, and 18 years for the theft of
means of transportation. Wyffels appealed.

DISCUSSION

I. Admission of Prison-Release Evidence

¶11 Wyffels argues that the superior court erred by admitting
evidence of his release from prison. We disagree.

¶12 We review the admission of other-acts evidence for abuse of
discretion. State v. Hulsey, 243 Ariz. 367, 381, ¶ 38 (2018). Under Rule 404(b),
the court may admit evidence of a defendant’s other crimes, wrongs, or acts
to show “motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge,
identity, or absence of mistake or accident.” The court must also apply Rule
403, which allows for the exclusion of evidence if its probative value is
substantially outweighed by a danger of unfair prejudice. The court should
consider “whether the probative value of the evidence is sufficient,” “what
restrictions to place in jury instructions on the usage of the evidence,” and
“whether the evidence can be narrowed or limited to protect both parties
by minimizing its potential for unfair prejudice while preserving its
probative value.” State v. Salazar, 181 Ariz. 87, 91–92 (App. 1994). The
evidence may be limited by substituting vaguer descriptions. See State v.
Acuna Valenzuela, 245 Ariz. 197, 207, ¶ 13 (2018).

¶13 Here, evidence that Wyffels had just been released from a
month-long confinement, with no money or car and with plans to travel
across the country, was relevant to show that he deliberately acted to obtain
money and transportation through theft, and deliberately acted to avoid
detection by killing the victim. See, e.g., State v. Libberton, 141 Ariz. 132,
137–38 (1984) (evidence of defendant’s escape from custody was admissible
to show his motives for taking victim’s wallet and car and then killing him);
State v. Ferguson, 120 Ariz. 345, 346–47 (1978) (“[t]he exigencies” of
in-custody defendant’s escape from courthouse was admissible to show his
motive for committing armed robberies in a parking lot). Also, evidence
that he was released at a transit center in the Phoenix-area, the proximity of
Adams’ Sun City home to Wyffels’ mother’s home, and his intended

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destination were all relevant to show how contact between the two could
have occurred. And evidence that he was released wearing certain clothing
was relevant to show his identity as Adams’ companion in the video taken
at the Prescott ATM.

¶14 The court minimized the evidence’s potential prejudice by
eliminating any reference to imprisonment, instead describing Wyffels’
release as a “discharge[] from a . . . location” where he had “resided”
without being “permitted” to leave. Further, the court twice instructed the
jury that it could consider the evidence only to help determine Wyffels’
motive, intent, plan, opportunity, or identity. The court acted well within
its discretion by admitting evidence of Wyffels’ release from incarceration
with sanitizing language and a limiting instruction. See Salazar, 181 Ariz. at
91–92; Acuna Valenzuela, 245 Ariz. at 207, ¶ 13.

¶15 Though Wyffels points out that the jury in the second trial
asked questions about where he was released from, the court declined to
submit those questions to the witness. The jury was properly instructed to
“attach no significance to the failure to ask a question,” to “not guess why
or what the answer might have been” to an unasked question, and to “not
guess about any fact . . . [or] be influenced by sympathy or prejudice.” The
jury is presumed to have followed all instructions. State v. Newell, 212 Ariz.
389, 403, ¶ 68 (2006). And on this record, nothing suggests that the jury did
not follow the instructions. The evidence of Wyffels’ guilt, including his
self-incriminating statements to Mender and the physical evidence tying
him to the crimes, was overwhelming. The admission of evidence that
Wyffels was discharged from a Phoenix metropolitan area location where
he resided and was not permitted to leave was not error.

II. Closing Argument

¶16 Wyffels next argues that he is entitled to relief because, in the
second trial, the prosecutor vouched for the evidence in closing argument.
A prosecutor engages in impermissible vouching by placing the prestige of
the government behind the State’s evidence. State v. Vincent, 159 Ariz. 418,
423 (1989). Because Wyffels did not object to the prosecutor’s remarks at the
trial, we review for fundamental error only. See State v. Speer, 221 Ariz. 449,
458, ¶ 42 (2009). Fundamental error is error that goes to the foundation of
the case, takes away an essential defense right, and deprives the defendant
of a fair trial. State v. Henderson, 210 Ariz. 561, 567, ¶ 19 (2005). To prevail
on fundamental error review, the defendant must also show prejudice. Id.
at ¶ 20.

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¶17 Wyffels points to the prosecutor’s discussion of the murder
verdict form, which gave the jury the option to find him guilty of
premeditated murder, felony murder, or both. The prosecutor explained
that “we need to know who thinks it’s premeditated, felony, or both,” and
“[my co-counsel] and I believe that that is 12, 12, and 12 [votes for each].”
We find no fundamental error or prejudice. The passing reference to what
the prosecutors “believe[d]” simply stated the obvious without vouching
for any specific witness or evidence. Thus, Wyffels has not established
error, much less fundamental error or resulting prejudice.

CONCLUSION

¶18 We affirm Wyffels’ convictions and sentences.

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

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