State v. Stephens

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UNDER ARIZONA RULE OF THE SUPREME COURT 111(c), THIS DECISION IS NOT PRECEDENTIAL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

JARRELL STEPHENS, Appellant.

No. 1 CA-CR 24-0098
FILED 02-04-2025

Appeal from the Superior Court in Maricopa County
No. CR2023-006715-001
The Honorable Daniel G. Martin, Judge

AFFIRMED

COUNSEL

Arizona Attorney General’s Office, Phoenix
By Casey D. Ball
Counsel for Appellee

Kenney Law LLC, Florence
By Anthony L. Kenney
Counsel for Appellant
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MEMORANDUM DECISION

Judge Daniel J. Kiley delivered the decision of the Court, in which Presiding
Judge Michael S. Catlett and Judge David D. Weinzweig joined.

K I L E Y, Judge:

¶1 Jarrell Stephens (“Stephens”) appeals his conviction for
kidnapping, arguing that the superior court erred by denying his motion
for judgment of acquittal and that the evidence is insufficient to support his
conviction. For the following reasons, we affirm.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

¶2 Central Arizona Shelter Services (“CASS”) is a non-profit
organization that offers resources to people experiencing homelessness.
CASS provides recipients with temporary housing for up to a presumptive
maximum of 90 days, with extensions available under certain
circumstances. During their stay in temporary housing, recipients are
required to participate in services and programs offered by CASS that are
intended to assist them to obtain long-term housing and achieve financial
stability by securing employment or applying for disability or other
benefits. Those who do not participate in CASS services during their stay in
temporary housing may, after a warning, be disqualified from continued
eligibility for services and, therefore, required to move out.

¶3 In the summer of 2022, Stephens was a recipient of CASS
services and “R.W.” was his case manager. Viewed in the requisite light
most favorable to sustaining the jury’s verdict, State v. Thompson, 252 Ariz.
279, 287, ¶ 2 n. 3 (2022), the evidence shows that on August 18, 2022,
Stephens came to the CASS office in Phoenix to meet with R.W. As R.W.
later testified, the purpose of the meeting was to “see what [Stephens’s]
progress was as far as applying for his Social Security benefits or trying to
gain employment, things like that.” Before this meeting, Stephens had been
given a warning about his failure to adequately participate in CASS’s
services, but he had not yet been disqualified from receiving services.

¶4 When Stephens entered the office’s lobby, R.W. was alone
behind the front desk. The front desk is in an enclosed room separated from
the lobby by a counter with a plexiglass window and, next to it, a locked

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door that can only be opened by displaying a security badge in front of a
scanner. Stephens waited in the lobby for his turn to meet with R.W. to
discuss his case. After she finished speaking with another client, R.W. called
Stephens up to the front desk. As he stepped up to the desk, Stephens asked
R.W. if she was alone. R.W. answered, “No,” adding, “[M]y other co-
workers are in the back.”

¶5 Moments later, one of R.W.’s co-workers, D.W., walked in
from the main entrance through the lobby and proceeded to the secured
door next to the front desk. Once D.W. used her security badge to open the
door, Stephens pushed her aside and proceeded through the door. He then
turned left and walked through an unlocked door leading into the enclosed
room where R.W. sat. Once “in the room with [R.W.],” Stephens closed the
door behind him. As R.W. later testified, Stephens called her a “[s]tupid
bitch” and yelled, “Are you really going to f-ing kick me out[?]” Seeing that
Stephens was “very angry,” R.W. was “scared.” She “froze for a little bit,”
then “scream[ed] for help.” R.W. moved toward the door “to open it to let
[her]self out,” but was unable to because Stephens “pushed [her] back” to
prevent her from leaving.

¶6 Hearing R.W.’s “scream of terror,” her co-workers tried to
enter the room but could not because Stephens was “blocking the door with
his body weight.” Finally, one of her co-workers, G.W., was able to “force[]
the door open” and R.W. “was able to get out.” As R.W. fled from the room,
Stephens “backed up to the opposite side” of the room, “raised his fists”
and told G.W., “Back up, bro.” By then, “members of the security team”
showed up and Stephens dropped his fists and allowed them to lead him
out of the room. As he was being escorted back to the lobby, Stephens
pointed in the direction “where . . . [R.W.] had gone” and yelled, “I’m going
to kill that fucking bitch,” adding that “he knew where [R.W.] fucking
lived.” Stephens then walked through the lobby and out the main entrance
door, leaving the building before police arrived.

¶7 The State charged Stephens with kidnapping in violation of
A.R.S. § 13-1304(A)(4), threatening or intimidating in violation of A.R.S. §
13-1202(A)(1), and assault in violation of A.R.S. § 13-1203(A)(3). The State
later dismissed the assault charge.

¶8 The matter proceeded to a trial at which the jury convicted
Stephens of threatening or intimidating but deadlocked on the kidnapping
charge. Shortly thereafter, the State re-tried Stephens for kidnapping.

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¶9 At the second trial, after the State rested, Stephens moved for
a judgment of acquittal under Arizona Rule of Criminal Procedure (“Rule”)
20(a)(1), arguing that the State presented insufficient evidence that he
intended to place R.W. in reasonable apprehension of imminent physical
injury. See A.R.S. § 13–1304(A)(4). The court denied the motion. Stephens
rested without calling any witnesses, and the jury convicted Stephens of
kidnapping.

¶10 The court sentenced Stephens to a mitigated term of seven
years for Count 1 (kidnapping), and a concurrent term of six months for
Count 2 (threatening or intimidating), with 310 days of presentence
incarceration credit.

¶11 Stephens timely appealed. This Court has jurisdiction under
Article 6, Section 9 of the Arizona Constitution and A.R.S. §§ 12–
120.21(A)(1), 13–4031, and –4033(A).

DISCUSSION

¶12 Stephens appeals his conviction for kidnapping, arguing that
the trial court erred in denying his Rule 20 motion for judgment of acquittal
and that the evidence is insufficient to support a conviction for kidnapping.

¶13 A motion for a directed verdict should be granted only “if
there is no substantial evidence to support a conviction.” Ariz. R. Crim. P.
20(a)(1). “Substantial evidence” is “such proof that reasonable persons
could accept as adequate and sufficient to support a conclusion of [the]
defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” State v. Rios, 255 Ariz. 124,
130, ¶ 20 (App. 2023) (citation omitted). “[W]here reasonable minds may
differ on inferences drawn from the facts,” the motion must be denied. Id.
(cleaned up). We review the denial of a motion for a directed verdict de
novo, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to upholding the
jury’s verdict. State v. Allen, 253 Ariz. 306, 335, ¶ 69 (2022).

¶14 When resolving a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence,
an appellate court considers “whether, after viewing the evidence in the
light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have
found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” State
v. Burgess, 245 Ariz. 275, 278, ¶ 9 (App. 2018) (citation omitted). An
appellate court “will reverse a conviction for insufficient evidence only if
there is a complete absence of probative facts to support the jury’s
conclusion.” State v. Clark, 249 Ariz. 528, 534, ¶ 21 (App. 2020) (cleaned up);
see also Rios, 255 Ariz. at 131, ¶ 26 (“[W]e may not reverse a conviction for
insufficiency of the evidence simply because another jury might have

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reached a different verdict.”). Whether sufficient evidence was presented to
sustain the verdict is a question of law reviewed de novo. State v. Borquez, 232 Ariz. 484, 487, ¶ 9 (App. 2013).

¶15 Because Stephens presented no evidence at trial, his challenge
to the denial of his Rule 20 motion and to the sufficiency of the evidence
present the same question, i.e., whether the State presented evidence in its
case-in-chief sufficient to allow a jury to find him guilty of the charged
offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Cf. State v. Eastlack, 180 Ariz. 243, 258-
59 (1994) (citation omitted) (holding that when considering a challenge to
sufficiency of evidence to support a conviction, the court considers “all the
evidence presented in the case,” including any evidence presented by the
defendant).

¶16 Stephens was charged with kidnapping in violation of A.R.S.
§ 13–1304(A)(4), which is committed “by knowingly restraining another
person with the intent to . . . [p]lace the victim . . . in reasonable
apprehension of imminent physical injury[.]” Stephens does not dispute
that the evidence was sufficient to establish that he “knowingly
restrain[ed]” R.W. See A.R.S. § 13–1304(A)(4).

¶17 Stephens argues, however, that the evidence was insufficient
to establish “that he intended to place [R.W.] in reasonable apprehension of
imminent physical injury.” A.R.S. § 13–1304(A)(4). His “words and
actions,” Stephens maintains, did not indicate an intent to harm her. “The
only time [he] physically touched” R.W., Stephens asserts, “was when he
pushed her” as she attempted to leave the room. According to Stephens,
evidence that he pushed her merely showed that “he wanted to keep her
confined,” not “that he wanted to physically hurt her.” Stephens admits
that he “threatened to kill” R.W., but asserts that he made the threat only
after R.W. “had already gotten outside” of the room. By that point, he
concludes, R.W. “was no longer restrained” and, therefore, “the
kidnapping was no longer occurring.”

¶18 Because “a defendant’s state of mind is seldom, if ever,
susceptible of proof by direct evidence,” a defendant’s intent “may be
proven by circumstantial evidence.” State v. Harm, 236 Ariz. 402, 406, ¶ 13
(App. 2015) (cleaned up). Whether a defendant possessed the requisite
criminal intent is a question of fact left to the jury’s determination. State v.
Quatsling, 24 Ariz. App. 105, 108 (1975).

¶19 Ample circumstantial evidence was presented to permit a
reasonable jury to find that Stephens possessed the requisite intent to place

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R.W. in reasonable apprehension of imminent physical injury. The State
presented evidence, for example, that when Stephens first approached the
front desk, he asked R.W. if she was alone. A reasonable jury could
conclude from that question that Stephens was attempting to assess her
vulnerability. Instead of carrying on his conversation with R.W. through
the plexiglass of the front desk, Stephens forced his way through a secured
door to confront R.W. in person. A reasonable jury could conclude that his
insistence on facing her without a physical barrier between them was an act
of intimidation. Likewise, a reasonable jury could have believed R.W.’s
testimony that she was “scared” when Stephens began yelling and cursing
at her, and could further have concluded that causing such fear was
Stephens’s intent. See State v. Boag, 104 Ariz. 362, 370 (1969) (“[A] person of
sound mind is presumed to have intended the natural and probable
consequence of every act deliberately done.”). Finally, Stephens’s threat to
“kill” R.W., and his declaration that he knew “where [R.W.] . . . lived,”
cannot reasonably be interpreted as anything other than an attempt to instill
fear in R.W. Although, as Stephens correctly points out, the evidence
showed that he did not verbalize the threat until after R.W. left the room, a
jury could infer, from his menacing statement after she left, that making her
fear for her safety was his intent all along. See State v. Vann, 11 Ariz. App.
180, 182 (1970) (“What the defendant does or fails to do and what he says
may be evidence of what is going on in his mind.”); see also State v. Mleziva,
1 CA-CR 18-0813, 2019 WL 5618086 at *2, 3, ¶¶ 11, 15 (Ariz. App. Oct. 31,
2019) (mem. decision) (rejecting defendant’s challenge to sufficiency of
evidence to support intent element of animal cruelty charge and citing
evidence that, “after the fact, [defendant] made disparaging statements to
police about the dogs”; “In the absence of an outright admission, a
defendant’s mental state may be inferred from all relevant surrounding
circumstances, including the defendant’s words and actions at or near the
time of the offense.”) (cleaned up).

¶20 We hold that sufficient evidence was present to allow a
reasonable jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Stephens intended
to place R.W. in reasonable apprehension of imminent physical injury. See
State v. Lester, 11 Ariz. App. 408, 411 (1970) (“The question of whether the
defendant had the requisite intent was one for the jury and only if the facts
afforded no ground for such inference was it permissible for the trial court
to determine that no such intent existed.”). The evidence was sufficient to
support Stephens’s conviction, and the court did not err in denying his Rule
20 motion.

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CONCLUSION

¶21 For the foregoing reasons, we affirm Stephens’s kidnapping
conviction.

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

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