State v. Bryson
State v. Bryson
Opinion
¶1 Harold Otto Bryson appeals the district court's denial of his motion to redact portions of a letter entered into evidence at his trial for stalking in violation of a civil stalking injunction. He also appeals his conviction. We affirm.
BACKGROUND
¶2 On November 17, 2011, Bryson's former girlfriend (Victim) obtained a civil stalking injunction against him. The injunction was effective for three years and ordered Bryson not to "follow, threaten, annoy, harass, or cause distress" to Victim and not to "contact, phone, mail, e-mail, or communicate in any way" with her "either directly or indirectly."
¶3 On May 13, 2014, Victim received a FedEx package at her workplace. The package was addressed to her, identified the sender with Bryson's first name and Victim's last name, and was postmarked May 7, 2014. The package contained a letter in which Bryson referred to Victim as his "wife." The letter was addressed to "Babe" and signed "Harry," Bryson's nickname. In the letter, Bryson made a number of references to the Book of Mormon and quoted extensively from it. He also told Victim that her deceased father and grandfather were going to speak to her in a dream and that her father told Bryson to have her read certain scriptures.
¶4 Victim reported the letter to police, and ten days later, Bryson was arrested. In his interview with police, Bryson admitted he sent the letter via FedEx, although he could not remember the exact date. When police showed him a copy of it, he acknowledged it was the letter he sent and stated, "I sent the letter, of course, I will never deny I sent the letter." He also acknowledged he was aware of the injunction and even the date it had *532 been entered but explained, "I haven't paid any mind to the injunction the entire time."
¶5 The State charged Bryson with second-degree felony stalking. Before trial, Bryson sought to have the religious references and the references to Victim's family redacted from the letter, claiming that these "could arouse an emotion in the jury that would be extremely prejudicial to [him]." Specifically, he argued,
[I]n reference to [Victim], it talks about her grandfather and her dad. These are deceased people. ... I mean, if people in the jury are members of the LDS faith, they could, you know, it could go either way, I mean, it just depends on where they are with their faith. It could be disturbing to them having deceased people brought up within a letter.
The district court denied Bryson's motion.
¶6 During voir dire, the district court asked the jurors whether they had "any prejudice against the LDS Church or against the Book of Mormon." In response, one juror raised his hand, and the court dismissed him for cause.
¶7 Following trial, the jury convicted Bryson. Bryson appeals.
ISSUES AND STANDARDS OF REVIEW
¶8 Bryson first asserts that the district court erred in denying his motion to redact portions of the letter under rules 401, 402, and 403 of the Utah Rules of Evidence. "We review the [district] court's decision to admit or exclude evidence for abuse of discretion."
State v. Miranda
,
¶9 Bryson further argues that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction. In reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence, "we review the evidence and all inferences which may be reasonably drawn from it in the light most favorable to the verdict."
State v. Noor
,
ANALYSIS
I. The District Court Did Not Exceed Its Discretion in Denying Bryson's Motion to Redact Portions of the Letter.
¶10 Bryson first asserts that the district court should have granted his motion to redact portions of the letter because the evidence was not relevant and its probative value was outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. Evidence is relevant if it "has any tendency to make a fact more or less probable than it would be without the evidence" and "the fact is of consequence in determining the action." Utah R. Evid. 401. Such evidence is generally admissible,
¶11 Bryson argues that the letter's contents were irrelevant, asserting that the State was required to prove only that he sent the letter while subject to the stalking injunction, not that the letter contained any particular statements. But the fact that the State might have been able to prove its case without publishing the contents of the letter does not make those contents any less relevant.
Cf.
State v. Gulbransen
,
¶12 Bryson further argues that, even if relevant, the religious and family references were unfairly prejudicial and therefore inadmissible under rule 403. But rule 403 bars evidence only when its probative value is "
substantially
outweighed by the danger of
unfair
prejudice; and unfair prejudice results only where the evidence has an undue tendency to suggest decision upon an improper basis."
State v. Lucero
,
¶13 We are not convinced by Bryson's argument that the religious references were likely to encourage the jury to base its decision on its religious attitudes, particularly in light of the fact that the court took care to question the jurors about their religious biases and even dismissed one juror on that basis. Similarly, while the jury might have found Bryson's comments about Victim's family to be offensive or upsetting to Victim, he has not shown that they were so inflammatory as to have an "undue tendency to suggest decision upon an improper basis."
See
II. The Evidence Was Sufficient to Support Bryson's Conviction.
¶14 Bryson next argues that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction. His argument rests on the assertion that Victim's testimony was "inherently improbable." Testimony is "inherently improbable" when it is "incredibly dubious and, as such, apparently false."
State v. Robbins
,
¶15 In support of his argument, Bryson highlights inconsistencies between Victim's testimony and her initial statements in support of her request for a stalking injunction. Specifically, in Victim's request for an injunction, she claimed that Bryson "would harass anyone new that [she] dated," but she later indicated she was dating only one person, not anyone "new," at the time. She also claimed in her request that various people witnessed Bryson stalking her, but at trial she suggested that these people did not in fact witness the incidents.
1
But inconsistencies
*534
alone do not render testimony inherently improbable.
See
State v. Prater
,
¶16 Additionally, Victim's testimony was not the only evidence of Bryson's guilt. Indeed, the State presented evidence that Bryson himself admitted sending the letter to Victim; that it was signed with his nickname, "Harry"; and that it was postmarked May 7, 2014. Bryson challenges the persuasiveness of this evidence, claiming that his interview does not corroborate Victim's testimony, because he told officers he did not remember the "exact day" he sent the letter and because the copy of the letter that he signed was subsequently lost and not entered into evidence. But again, these assertions presented mere credibility issues to be resolved by the jury. See id. ¶ 41 ("The jury is the exclusive judge of witness credibility." (quotation simplified) ).
¶17 In short, Victim's testimony was not inherently improbable so as to render the evidence insufficient to support Bryson's conviction. Victim's testimony, the letter, and Bryson's own statements were sufficient to support the jury's verdict.
CONCLUSION
¶18 We conclude that the district court did not err in denying Bryson's motion to redact portions of the letter, because the letter was relevant and was not unfairly prejudicial. Further, Victim's testimony was not inherently improbable, and the evidence was sufficient to support Bryson's conviction. Accordingly, we affirm.
Based on these inconsistencies, Bryson also asserts that Victim had a motive to fabricate her testimony to "deflect attention away from the inconsistent statements that she made in her request for the stalking injunction." But whether a witness has a motive to lie "goes to the weight and credibility of the testimony," which is a "question we routinely require juries to answer."
State v. Prater
,
Reference
- Full Case Name
- STATE of Utah, Appellee, v. Harold Otto BRYSON, Appellant.
- Cited By
- 2 cases
- Status
- Published