For the reasons explained in this opinion, we conclude that it was error to allow the State to introduce evidence concerning the accusatory statements in the victim's letter-and we further conclude that this error requires reversal of Linehan's conviction. Finally, with regard to the evidence that Linehan worked as an exotic dancer, we conclude that this evidence was admissible to explain the relationship of the main actors in this case, and we further conclude that any potential error in the trial judge's ruling on this issue was harmless.
Between mid and mid Mechele Linehan whose name was then Mechele Hughes maintained romantic relationships with several men, three of whom are important to this case: Scott Hilke, John Carlin, and Kent Leppink. Linehan's romantic relationships with these three men were essentially simultaneous, and all three men were aware to a greater or lesser extent of the nature of the others' relations with Linehan.
Indeed, for several months, Linehan, Carlin, and Leppink all lived in the same house in Anchorage. Hilke lived in California. On the morning of May 2, , Leppink was found shot to death outside of the small town of Hope about 90 miles by road from Anchorage. According to the pathologist's investigation, Leppink was killed sometime between 6 hours and 48 hours before his body was discovered-that is, sometime between mid-day on April 30th and the early morning hours of May 2nd.
However, the troopers were not able to identify any culprits, and the case remained unsolved for several years. Based on a review of the earlier investigation, plus new witness interviews and a forensic examination of the e-mails and other materials recovered from two computers, the troopers concluded that Carlin had lured Leppink to Hope and had shot him there.
The troopers further concluded that Linehan was Carlin's accomplice-not that she physically assisted Carlin during the shooting, but rather that she solicited Carlin to commit this murder, and that she also helped Carlin compose a note that would be left for Leppink to find, and that would make Leppink want to go to Hope by falsely making him think that Linehan was staying there in a cabin with another man. In March and April , the State successfully prosecuted Carlin for this murder. Linehan's trial took place in the Anchorage superior court over the course of six weeks in September and October The State's case was lengthy and detailed, but it was primarily circumstantial.
In an effort to convince the jury to view the circumstantial evidence in a light that would support Linehan's conviction for murder, the State offered two pieces of evidence that had no direct relevance to the events being litigated, but which strongly suggested that Linehan was the kind of person who would conspire to have Leppink murdered.
The first of these pieces of evidence was a letter that Leppink sent to his parents on April 30th, shortly before his death. This letter was sealed inside another package, and Leppink instructed his parents to open the letter only in the event that he died under suspicious circumstances. In this letter, Leppink told his parents that if he was found dead, Mechele Hughes i.
The second piece of evidence was the testimony offered by Lora Aspiotis, who was Linehan's co-worker and friend until they had a falling out at the end of February In her testimony, Aspiotis described the plot of this movie as follows:.
Why we conclude that it was error for the superior court to let the State introduce the accusatory statements contained in Leppink's letter to his parents. Under Alaska Evidence Rule 3 , hearsay evidence may be introduced concerning a person's assertion about their own current state of mind i. In other words, evidence of such an assertion is admissible as proof of the matter asserted-i. Sometimes, a person's state of mind will be an element of the claim being litigated-for example, a defendant's intent or knowledge, or a victim's apprehension of danger.
In such cases, statements reflecting the pertinent aspect of the person's state of mind will be direct proof of a matter being litigated. Generally, however, when hearsay evidence of a person's state of mind is relevant, that relevance will rest upon an inference about the person's related conduct. In some instances, evidence of the person's state of mind will be relevant because it tends to prove or disprove some assertion about the person's ensuing actions or the person's failure to act.
In other instances, evidence of the person's state of mind will be relevant because it tends to explain the nature of the person's actions-in the sense that the evidence tends to prove or disprove some assertion about the intent or knowledge with which the person acted. Even though Evidence Rule 3 authorizes hearsay evidence of a person's statements concerning their own then-existing state of mind, the rule expressly declares that hearsay testimony concerning a person's beliefs is not admissible if it is offered to prove the truth of those beliefs.
Such hearsay testimony is admissible only if it does not matter whether the person's belief was true or false-when the important point is the fact that the person held this belief generally, again, because the fact that the person held the belief is relevant to proving or explaining their actions. This second principle-that hearsay evidence of a person's belief is not admissible to prove the truth of that belief-is especially important in homicide prosecutions where there is evidence that the victim expressed apprehension that the defendant might do them harm.
As our supreme court stated in Wyatt v. State, P. Wyatt, P. In addition, the State must show that there is a genuine dispute between the parties concerning the aspect of the victim's conduct to which this belief pertains.
Thus, in Wyatt, a case in which the defendant was prosecuted for murdering his wife, the State's theory of the case hinged on the premise that Wyatt's wife was about to divorce him-and that, in response, Wyatt killed her because he feared losing control over his wife and over her money. At trial, the State introduced evidence that the wife had expressed a fear of death at the defendant's hand if she pressed forward with her plans for a divorce.
The supreme court further concluded that this evidence was directly relevant to a genuinely disputed fact-because, at trial, Wyatt actively disputed that his wife was serious about divorcing him.
Thus, the evidence met the test for admissibility. Similarly, in Linton v. At trial, the State attempted to show that Linton's explanations were false-by proving that Linton's deceased wife would never have considered leaving without her two children.
The State's theory of the case was that Linton's wife's refusal to leave was the thing that motivated him to kill her-because their marriage was deteriorating and Linton wanted his wife to go home to Germany, leaving him with sole custody of their children.
Given this evidentiary backdrop, we concluded that the challenged evidence of the wife's state of mind was relevant to prove her ensuing conduct, and Linton's reaction to that conduct:.
For this purpose, the disputed evidence was admissible under [Evidence Rule] 3. In other words, in Linton as in Wyatt, 1 the victim's state of mind was relevant to prove the victim's own ensuing conduct, and 2 the nature of the victim's ensuing conduct was actively disputed at trial.
With this discussion as a preface, we turn now to the evidence that is challenged in Linehan's case: the statements contained in the letter that Kent Leppink sent to his parents shortly before his death. For purposes of this appeal, Leppink's letter contained two major accusatory assertions.
The clear implication of this second assertion was that Leppink believed that Linehan also had a darker, murderous side to her nature. Despite the fact that these two assertions are contained in the same letter, the admissibility of each assertion was litigated at a separate time during the trial. During the parties' arguments on this issue, the prosecutor conceded that Leppink's statement could not be admitted to prove that Linehan probably had a hand in Leppink's death.
Nevertheless, the prosecutor argued that, as was true in Wyatt and Linton, Leppink's statements about his own beliefs and fears were relevant to prove his ensuing conduct, or the reasons for his ensuing conduct.
Leppink] believes [that] it's very dangerous to him, he's [still] going to pursue it. Linehan's attorney argued that the accusatory statement in Leppink's letter should not be admitted, even if that statement might reveal something about Leppink's mental state, because Leppink's mental state was not going to be contested at trial-and thus the accusatory statement did not tend to prove, or refute, any dispute concerning Leppink's mental state or ensuing conduct.
After hearing these arguments, the trial judge ruled that the State would be allowed to introduce Leppink's accusatory statement from the letter. The underlying problem with the trial judge's ruling on this issue is that the judge focused exclusively on the fact that Leppink's out-of-court accusatory statement was probative of his mental state, and the judge neglected to address the other aspects of the Wyatt-Linton test-whether the statement tended to prove anything about Leppink's mental state or his related conduct that would actually be disputed at trial.
Why, maybe, he's lured there by Mr. One week later just before the parties' opening statements , the trial judge revisited this question and issued his final ruling. In this final ruling, the judge confirmed his earlier conclusion that Leppink's out-of-court statement was admissible:. Leppink to be lured or manipulated because of his feelings about Ms. Leppink's actions [and] the defendant's actions in this case. Linehan, [but] he also expresses this belief that Ms.
Linehan, and I think makes it understandable how he can be manipulated to put himself in a vulnerable position, or to be lured to Hope, as the State argued in [Mr. Carlin's] trial. Wyatt's] determination to divorce [her husband, the defendant], despite [her] fear of a lethal situation, demonstrated the seriousness of her purpose and intent, and, therefore, was probative of her state of mind and plan for future action.
You substitute a few words here, and we have the same situation [in this case]. Evidence of Mr. Leppink's determination to pursue and stay in a relationship with Ms.
As we noted earlier, the problem with the trial judge's analysis is that, under Wyatt and Linton, the fact that Leppink's out-of-court statement revealed something about his emotional state, or revealed his conflicted feelings about Linehan, is not sufficient, by itself, to justify the admission of Leppink's accusatory statement.
Our law requires the proponent of this type of evidence to show that the particular state of mind revealed by the victim's out-of-court statement is relevant to a disputed issue in the case. In particular, under Wyatt and Linton, the proponent of the evidence must show that the victim's state of mind tends to prove that the victim engaged or did not engage in specific conduct that will be disputed at trial, or that the victim's state of mind tends to prove that the victim performed this conduct with a particular intent, motive, or knowledge that will be disputed at trial.
When the parties argued this issue, the defense attorney affirmatively declared that the defense would not be disputing any aspect of Leppink's mental state or conduct that the State was trying to prove with the accusatory out-of-court statement.
Under Wyatt and Linton, after the defense attorney declared that the challenged evidence was not relevant to any disputed issue, the judge had to resolve this question before the judge could decide whether the evidence was admissible. If the judge believed that the defense attorney was wrong-that is, if the judge could already identify a disputed issue to which the challenged evidence was relevant-the judge could point out this disputed issue. Alternatively, the judge might not know enough about the case i.
In that event, the judge could ask the prosecutor to expressly identify the victim's actions or mental states that the State intended to prove with the out-of-court statement, and then the defense attorney either could concede that these actions or mental states would be disputed, or expressly confirm that they would not be disputed.
And, of course, another possibility is that the judge might agree with the defense attorney that the challenged evidence was not relevant to any disputed issue-in which case the judge would exclude the evidence. But in Linehan's case, the trial judge did none of these things. Even though the defense attorney expressly argued that the proposed evidence was not relevant to any disputed issue, the trial judge failed to resolve this question.
This error might have turned out to be insignificant if the trial evidence had, in fact, revealed a genuine dispute about Leppink's feelings toward Linehan, or about Leppink's ensuing actions. But the opposite is the case. As we explained above, a victim's mental state is sometimes relevant because that mental state is an element of the State's proof-but that was not the case here.
A charge of first-degree murder does not require proof that the victim had any particular mental state. Thus, if Leppink's mental state had relevance, that relevance had to lie in the fact that Leppink's mental state was circumstantial evidence tending to prove or disprove his ensuing actions, or tending to explain the nature of his actions i.
The fact that Leppink was infatuated or even obsessed with Linehan was obviously relevant to explain why he would go to Hope looking for her, and why he might risk taking Carlin along with him on his second trip to Hope.
In particular, there was no dispute that Leppink went to Hope on two occasions shortly before his death-the first time, on the weekend of April 27thth, and the second time, on April 30th or May 1st. There was no dispute that, on both occasions, Leppink was looking for Linehan, and that his motivation for doing so was jealousy, frustration, and doubt about their relationship.
And there was no dispute that, on the second occasion, Leppink allowed Carlin to accompany him-and that Carlin murdered him. The disputed issue was whether Linehan was Carlin's accomplice in this murder. Moreover, there was no dispute at trial concerning the depth of Leppink's infatuation with Linehan. The record is replete with evidence that Leppink was infatuated with Linehan-and that he repeatedly refused to abandon his relationship with her, even though he knew that she was seeing other men, and even though his lawyer and members of his family advised or warned him that he should end the relationship.
Leppink's lawyer, Brian Brundin, testified that Leppink came to see him several times in April i. On April 18th, Leppink revised his will to make Linehan the primary beneficiary of his estate. Up until that time, the primary beneficiaries had been Leppink's parents.
The next day, April 19th, Leppink returned to Brundin's office, asking about the possibility of suing North Star Hospital a mental care hospital in Anchorage.
According to Brundin, Leppink said that he visited North Star Hospital because he had heard that Linehan was getting counseling there, and he wanted to check up on her. The hospital staff told Leppink that they could not discuss another person's treatment with him-and then the hospital staff apparently alerted Linehan that Leppink had been making inquiries about her. This upset Leppink; he believed that the hospital staff had violated some duty of confidentiality by revealing that he had come to the hospital asking questions about Linehan.
During this same April 19th visit, Leppink informed Brundin that Linehan was having an affair with Carlin, a man who lived in the same household with Leppink and Linehan. Brundin told Leppink his thoughts on this matter.
One week later, on April 26th, Leppink returned to Brundin's office, and he was again angry. Leppink told Brundin that he had just removed Linehan as the beneficiary of his life insurance policy, and now he wanted to remove her as the beneficiary of his will the one he had just signed eight days earlier. Acting on Brundin's advice, Leppink tore up the April 18th will in Brundin's presence-thus reactivating the earlier will that made Leppink's parents the beneficiaries of his estate.
The statements and events of Leppink's visit to Brundin's office on April 26th might appear to indicate that Leppink had considered Brundin's warning and had decided to take Brundin's advice and end his engagement to Linehan. But the next day or perhaps the day after , Leppink was down in Hope, showing people a photograph of Linehan and asking if they had seen her.
Leppink's mother, Betsy Leppink, also testified about conversations she had with Leppink in April Leppink testified that she received a telephone call from her son toward the end of April. Leppink told her that he was calling from Girdwood, and that he was on his way to Hope.
She's missing again, and I want to find her; I need to find her. And I have learned that she's in Hope. Leppink's mother tried to talk him out of it. There's just nothing there. Where would she be in Hope? I've never heard of such a thing in all my life.
As we explained a few paragraphs earlier, Leppink disregarded his mother's warnings and proceeded to Hope, where he asked about Linehan and showed her photograph to people. That was the weekend of April 27thth.
Leppink spoke to her son after he returned to Anchorage. She asked him if he had found Linehan, and he told her that he had not. Then, on the morning of April 30th which was either the day of Leppink's death, or the day before it , Leppink called his brother Craig in Michigan, and they spoke for about an hour and a half. There was yet additional testimony suggesting that Leppink was aware of Linehan's relationships with the other men and that, despite this knowledge, he remained caught up in his relationship with her.
When the troopers searched Leppink's vehicle following his death, they found one of Scott Hilke's business cards and a reservation in Hilke's name at a hotel in Natchez, Mississippi. And during Hilke's testimony, he described an incident that occurred while he and Linehan were spending time together in Metairie, Louisiana outside of New Orleans : Leppink showed up in Metairie unexpectedly-and he even served coffee to Hilke and Linehan when they were in bed together.
None of the foregoing testimony was disputed by Linehan's attorneys at the trial. In other words, there was no genuine dispute concerning Leppink's infatuation with Linehan, or the conflicted nature of Leppink's feelings toward Linehan, or the actions that Leppink took which were motivated in whole or in part by those feelings. We further note that when the prosecutor delivered his summation to the jury, he never asserted either in his opening summation or his rebuttal that the contents of Leppink's letter proved anything about Leppink's actions or about Leppink's state of mind.
In fact, the prosecutor did not even mention Leppink's letter, or any statement contained in that letter, in this context. The prosecutor did mention Leppink's letter in another context, which we explain later in this opinion. The admissibility of this statement was not litigated at the same time as the first. Rather, the defense raised this issue during the fourth week of trial on Monday, October 8, , when the State called Leppink's mother to the stand and proposed to have her read the text of Leppink's letter into the record.
At this point, the trial judge had already ruled that Leppink's first accusatory statement could be presented to the jury, but the defense asked the trial judge to redact Leppink's comment in the letter about Linehan having a split personality.
The trial judge denied the defense attorney's request. Here is the text of the judge's ruling:. Linehan that Mr. Leppink was making-even [if it] were being offered for the truth [of the matter asserted], which it's not. Leppink's assertion that Ms. Linehan has a split personality] strikes me as the kind of comment that people in relationships often make about one another.
And certainly Mr. Leppink had enough of a relationship [with Ms. Linehan] to have observations about Ms. In the context of [the letter], I don't find [this assertion to be] unduly prejudicial to Ms. Linehan at all. And it sort of sets in context [Mr. Leppink's] own kind of split reaction to her: on the one hand, accusing her of being involved in his death, [and] on the other hand, expressing his undying affection toward her and asking [his] parents to continue to visit her, even if she goes to jail-matters that I thought were relevant to his own state of mind.
This ruling suffers from the same flaw as the trial judge's earlier ruling regarding the first accusatory statement. It may be true that Leppink's assertion that Linehan had a split personality revealed something about Leppink's state of mind.
But this assertion revealed nothing about any issue that was disputed at trial. Viewed in the context of the other assertions that Leppink made in this letter, Leppink's assertion that Linehan had a split personality posed a clear danger of unfair prejudice. Leppink was obviously asserting that Linehan had two distinct and contradictory sides to her personality.
Leppink did not expressly characterize the second side of Linehan's personality. But given the context of the other assertions that Leppink made in his letter, Leppink's clear implication was that the other side of Linehan's personality was conniving and homicidal.
It is an assertion of Linehan's fundamental immorality or duplicity, and it significantly enhances Leppink's accusation of murder. Moreover, Leppink's assertion about Linehan's purported split personality constituted an implicit warning to the jurors not to give any credence to the exculpatory explanations that Linehan or her attorneys might offer to the murder charge.
For these reasons, we conclude that it was error for the trial judge to allow the prosecutor to present evidence of this second accusatory statement in Leppink's letter to his parents. According to the State, Leppink's first accusatory statement was admissible to explain Linehan's state of mind-more specifically, to explain her apparent willingness to cooperate during her May 5th interview with the state troopers.
To establish that the accusatory out-of-court statement was probative on this point, the State relies on the testimony of Leppink's brother, Lane Leppink. Lane Leppink who lived in Michigan testified that he learned of his brother's death on May 4, According to Lane Leppink's testimony, he spoke to Linehan by telephone that day May 4th , as well as several more times during the following days.
Lane Leppink did testify that, after he learned about his brother's letter, he had further conversations with Linehan in which he mentioned his brother's accusation.
But neither the defense attorney nor the prosecutor asked Leppink to clarify exactly when he told Linehan about this accusation. At the end of the trial, when the parties made their arguments to the jury, the prosecutor did not once mention Leppink's letter during his opening summation.
The prosecutor made one mention of the letter during his rebuttal summation, in the context of trying to explain why Linehan was apparently so forthcoming with information when she was interviewed by the state troopers on May 5th. Here is the prosecutor's argument:.
Prosecutor: Now, [about] the [defense attorney's] reference to [Linehan] volunteering information about the life insurance, and volunteering information about the Hope note [during her May 5th interview with the troopers]: There is no reference by her to either one of those things, the Hope note or the life insurance, until her interview on May the 5th.
You'll recall that on May the 4th she's had extensive conversations with Lane Leppink. And Lane Leppink has learned about the package that [his brother] Kent sent home, [the letter that was] in it, and what the allegations are. So by the time [Linehan] is interviewed on May the 5th, she knows very well that the police know about life insurance, and that everybody knows he was down in Hope when he was killed. The prosecutor's argument rests on two major misstatements of the evidence.
First, as we have just explained, the testimony does not support the prosecutor's assertion that Lane Leppink informed Linehan on May 4th about the accusation contained in his brother's letter. In fact, the testimony contradicts the prosecutor's assertion.
Lane Leppink testified that he himself was not aware of the letter and its accusation until May 5th. As we noted earlier, Lane Leppink did testify that, after he learned of his brother's letter on May 5th, he informed Linehan about the letter in a later conversation.
But neither attorney asked Leppink to specify the date or time of that later conversation. Second, the troopers had found the Hope note by the time they interviewed Linehan on May 5th. According to the testimony of Trooper David Tullis, the troopers found the note in the glove compartment of Kent Leppink's car when they searched the car on May 4th.
We note, moreover, that the prosecutor's argument runs contrary to the various cautionary instructions that the trial judge gave to the jurors about the contents of Kent Leppink's letter. Both during the presentation of the evidence and at the end of the trial following the summations of the parties , the trial judge instructed the jurors that they could use the assertions in Leppink's letter for only one purpose: these assertions could be considered only to the extent that they revealed Leppink's state of mind.
Here, for example, is the instruction that the jurors received at the very end of the trial:. The Court: Evidence of a letter Kent Leppink wrote to his parents was introduced for the purpose of showing his state of mind close to the time of his death.
You have previously been instructed that the letter could be considered only for the limited purpose of deciding Kent Leppink's state of mind. As previously instructed, you may not consider that evidence for any other purpose. Do not consider or discuss [this] evidence for any other purpose. It would [be] improper and unfair for you to do this. Under the terms of this cautionary instruction, the jurors were forbidden from considering the assertions in Leppink's letter for the purpose that the prosecutor argued-that is, for the purpose of assessing Linehan's state of mind or her strategy when dealing with the troopers.
In its brief to this Court, the State again argues that the accusatory statement in Leppink's letter to his parents was independently admissible to explain why Linehan appeared to be cooperative with the troopers during the May 5th interview.
The State concedes that Lane Leppink did not know about his brother's letter when he spoke to Linehan on May 4th. However, the State asserts that the trial testimony shows that Lane Leppink told Linehan about the letter on the following day, May 5th. This is not accurate. The trial testimony shows that Lane Leppink informed Linehan of the accusation contained in his brother's letter, and that he might have informed Linehan about this accusation as early as May 5th.
But, as we have already explained, Leppink's testimony contains no information as to exactly when he first spoke to Linehan about the letter. And because this question of fact was never presented to the trial judge, we have no ruling as to exactly when Lane Leppink first informed Linehan of the accusation contained in his brother's letter.
On appeal, the appellee that is, the party seeking to defend the lower court's decision is entitled to argue for affirmance of the trial court's ruling on any ground revealed by the record. Here, the State's alternative argument is that the accusatory statement in Leppink's letter was relevant because Linehan's knowledge of this accusatory statement helps to explain Linehan's conduct during her May 5th interview with the state troopers.
This argument hinges on the assertion that Linehan learned of the accusatory statement in Leppink's letter before she was interviewed by the troopers on May 5th. Because the State's proposed alternative ground for affirming the trial judge's ruling rests on a factual assertion whose truth is not obvious from the record, and which the trial judge had no occasion to address or resolve, we must reject the State's argument.
This brings us, then, to the question of whether the erroneous admission of the two accusatory statements in Leppink's letter to his parents was so prejudicial to the fairness of Linehan's trial that we must reverse the jury's verdict. To answer this question, our first task is to identify the applicable standard for assessing whether the error requires reversal.
Linehan asserts that the erroneous admission of the accusatory statements in Leppink's letter violated her Sixth Amendment right of confrontation as defined in Crawford v. Washington, 7 and thus we must apply the standard that governs cases of constitutional error: that is, we must reverse her conviction unless we conclude that the error is harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
However, we conclude that we need not resolve the question of whether the accusatory statements in Leppink's letter were testimonial hearsay-because we conclude that the error in admitting these statements requires reversal of Linehan's conviction even under the standard that applies to non-constitutional errors.
See, e. Coleman, P. Prudden, A. Downey, A. Even in cases where the victim's accusatory statement was found to be properly admitted to prove or explain the victim's ensuing actions, appellate courts have acknowledged that this type of evidence is fraught with inherent dangers, and that it requires rigid limitations on its admission and its use by the jury.
See United States v. Brown, F. In Linehan's case, when the prosecutor delivered his opening statement, the prosecutor informed the jurors of the accusation contained in Leppink's letter. Thereafter, the prosecutor asked several witnesses to confirm that Leppink had accused Linehan and Carlin of being the ones responsible for his death.
We note, specifically, the testimony of retired state trooper Ron Belden, the testimony of Leppink's mother, Betsy Leppink, and the testimony of Leppink's brother, Lane Leppink. It is true that, in Linehan's case, the trial judge instructed the jurors that the accusatory statements in Leppink's letter could be considered only for the purpose of ascertaining Leppink's state of mind near the time of his death.
The prosecutor likewise reminded the jurors of this limitation. No one ever explained to the jurors how, or why, Leppink's belief or suspicion that Linehan and Carlin might conspire to kill him had any bearing on the jury's decision of the case. Indeed, as we have explained at length in this opinion, Leppink's accusation had no bearing on the jury's decision of the case-except for the improper inference that, if Leppink had an intimate relationship with Linehan, and if he feared her or suspected her of wanting to kill him, then there must have been some good reason for his fears or suspicions.
We note that courts of other jurisdictions have generally rejected the claim that the erroneous admission of this type of evidence is harmless. United States, A. Ulvinen, N. Lew, P. Hamilton, P. Coleman, N. In Shepard v. United States, U. The Supreme Court rejected the government's various theories as to why this evidence was properly admissible, although the Court conceded that the wife's statement might have been relevant to negate any suggestion that she had purposely committed suicide.
In spite of this possible relevance, the Court held that the admission of the wife's out-of-court accusation was prejudicial error. The Court stated:. It will not do to say that the jury might accept the [wife's] declarations for any light that they cast upon the [wife's will to live], and reject them to the extent that they charged [her] death to [someone] else.
Discrimination so subtle is a feat beyond the compass of ordinary minds. Make a Gift. On the morning of May 2, , Kent Leppink, a year-old commercial fisherman, was found shot to death near Hope, Alaska, about 90 miles from Anchorage. A pathologist estimated Leppink was killed sometime between mid-day on April 30 and the early morning hours of May 2. Police investigating the murder questioned year-old Mechele Hughes, a former stripper who was at Lake Tahoe at the time of the murder, and year-old John Carlin III.
Carlin and Leppink had met Hughes while she was working as a stripper and all three had lived together for several months in Anchorage. The police obtained a note that Leppink had sent to his family in Michigan before his death. The note, which carried instructions that it was to be opened only if he died, said that if he died under suspicious circumstances, Carlin and Hughes were probably responsible. For years, no one was arrested for the crime. In , the Alaska State Police cold case unit re-opened the investigation.
Based on new witness interviews and an examination of emails recovered from two computers, police came to believe that Hughes had solicited Carlin to kill Leppink and that Carlin had lured Leppink to Hope and shot him there. By then, Hughes was married to a physician and living in Olympia, Washington under her married name of Linehan. Police accused Linehan of helping compose a note to Leppink saying that she was staying in a cabin in Hope, which police claimed prompted Leppink to travel to Hope to search for her.
Carlin, who had moved to New Jersey, and Linehan were arrested in the fall of and charged with first-degree murder. Linehan went on trial before a jury in Anchorage Superior Court in September The case against Linehan was circumstantial. The prosecution presented the note written by Leppink before his death saying that if he were murdered, Carlin and Linehan were likely behind it.
By the time cold case investigators hauled Linehan back to Anchorage, she had left Alaska and exotic dancing behind, married a doctor in Washington State, and had become a PTA mom. In the appellate court's Friday ruling, the judges said that two key pieces of evidence used in the trial should never have been allowed by the judge. The first was a letter, apparently written by Leppink to his parents, that said in the event of his untimely death "Mechele, John or Scott were probably the people or persons that probably killed me.
Do me another favor, make sure Mechele goes to jail for a long time. Normally, a "letter from the grave" would be considered inadmissible hearsay because Linehan's attorneys would not be able to cross examine the person who wrote it. But prosecutor Pat Gullufsen convinced the judge to allow it to show Leppink's state of mind before he died. The appeals court said that was a mistake.
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