STATE OF CONNECTICUT v. KEVIN NASH
(SC 19265)
Supreme Court of Connecticut
Argued October 22, 2014—officially released May 5, 2015
Rogers, C. J., and Palmer, Zarella, Eveleigh, McDonald, Espinosa and Robinson, Js.
Mark
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Opinion
PALMER, J. After the defendant, Kevin Nash, learned that Tyrell Knott (Tyrell) had been spreading rumors about him, the defendant retaliated by firing several shots into the second story of Tyrell‘s East Hartford home. One of the shots struck Tyrell‘s sister, Tyrikah Knott (Tyrikah), seriously injuring her. Thereafter, a jury found the defendant guilty of, inter alia, intentional assault in the first degree in violation of
The record reveals the following facts that the jury reasonably could have found. In or around 2005, Tyrell met Duane Brown while they were in high school together, and the two young men, both of whom are of Jamaican descent, became close friends. Brown spent a considerable amount of time at Tyrell‘s home, where Tyrell resided with his mother, stepfather and three sisters. At some point in the spring of 2008, Brown moved in with the defendant and the defendant‘s wife, and Brown and the defendant, who is also of Jamaican descent, began spending a lot of time together. Because Tyrell and the defendant did not get along well, Brown and Tyrell saw less of each other. At some point, Brown and the defendant learned that Tyrell was spreading a rumor that Brown and the defendant were in a homosexual relationship. On July 6, 2008, Brown called Tyrell and left him an angry voice mail message in which he berated Tyrell for spreading this rumor.3
On the evening of July 10, 2008, the defendant asked Brown to show him where Tyrell lived. The defendant, who also was angry about the rumor, told Brown that they needed to “teach [Tyrell] a lesson.” Brown obliged, and the two men drove to the Knotts’ house. Once there, they walked into the backyard to survey the premises. After returning home, the defendant retrieved a handgun from his bedroom
At the time of the shooting, two of Tyrell‘s sisters, Tyrikah and S.,4 were in S.‘s second floor bedroom. One of the bullets penetrated through the bedroom wall and struck Tyrikah in the left buttock. Tyrikah was transported by ambulance to the hospital, where she was treated for the gunshot wound and released. After leaving the hospital, Tyrikah and her family provided the East Hartford police with information about the shooting. At that time, Tyrell told the police about the angry voice mail message that he had received from Brown a few days before the shooting.
That same day, several East Hartford police officers visited Brown at his apartment for the purpose of questioning him about his possible involvement in the shooting. After being permitted to enter the apartment, the police interviewed Brown and the defendant, who also was present at the time. Both men denied any knowledge of the shooting.5 Brown later accompanied the police to the station to give a written statement, in which he again denied knowledge of the shooting. A few days later, however, Brown gave the police a second written statement admitting his involvement in the crime and implicating the defendant as the shooter.
Thereafter, the defendant was arrested and charged with one count each of intentional assault in the first degree in violation of
On appeal, the defendant claims that his convictions of both intentional and reckless assault in the first degree are legally inconsistent because they required mutually exclusive findings regarding his mental state at the time of the shooting. He further claims that the state failed to adduce evidence sufficient to support his conviction of intentional assault in the first degree because the evidence adduced at trial did not support a finding that he intended to cause serious physical injury to another person, as
I
The defendant first claims that his convictions of intentional and reckless assault in the first degree cannot stand because they are legally inconsistent. In support of this claim, the defendant relies primarily on State v. King, 216 Conn. 585, 592-95, 583 A.2d 896 (1990), in which this court concluded that the convictions of the defendant, Roy Anthony King, of attempted murder and reckless assault of the same victim were legally inconsistent because the jury verdict required a finding that King simultaneously possessed mutually exclusive mental states, that is, he intended to kill the victim and he recklessly created a risk of the victim‘s death. According to the defendant in the present case, his convictions of intentional and reckless assault must be reversed because, like the convictions in King, they, too, required the jury to find that he simultaneously acted intentionally and recklessly in causing Tyrikah‘s injury. The state argues that this case is distinguishable from King because, in contrast to King, the charges in this case required the jury to find that the defendant acted intentionally and recklessly with respect to different results. In particular, the state argues that, because a person may intend to seriously injure a person within the meaning of
Because the defendant contends that his convictions of intentional and reckless assault are mutually exclusive under State v. King, supra, 216 Conn. 585, we begin our analysis with an examination of that case. King, an inmate at the Bridgeport Community Correctional Center, was convicted of, inter alia, attempt to commit murder and reckless assault in the first degree after he set fire to a fellow inmate‘s cell and rigged the cell door shut to prevent him from escaping. Id., 586-88. On appeal, King claimed that his convictions of attempt to commit murder and reckless assault of the same victim based on the same conduct were legally inconsistent because they required mutually exclusive findings with respect to his mental state. See id., 592-93. We agreed with this claim, explaining that King‘s conviction for attempt to commit murder required the jury to find that he acted with the intent to cause the death of the victim, whereas his conviction for reckless assault required the jury to find that he acted recklessly and thereby created a risk that the victim would die. Id., 593. We further explained that “the statutory definitions of ‘intentionally’ and ‘recklessly’ are mutually exclusive and inconsistent.”9 Id., 593-94. “‘Reckless
Subsequently, in State v. Hinton, supra, 227 Conn. 301, we again addressed a claim of legal inconsistency in the context of convictions for attempt to commit murder and assault in the first degree. In Hinton, the defendant, Ronnie Hinton, fired a shotgun into a large group of people, killing three of them and injuring a fourth victim, Jason Diaz. Id., 305. On the basis of the nonfatal injuries to Diaz the jury found Hinton guilty of attempt to commit murder in violation of
In addressing Hinton‘s claim, we noted that “two possible factual scenarios were available to the jury regarding the attempted murder and assault counts: (1) [Hinton] intended to kill or injure someone else and, in attempting to do so, injured
With respect to the second possible factual scenario, that is, that Hinton intended to kill Diaz but only injured him, we observed, first, that “an assault in violation of
The decisions in King and Hinton were predicated on two general principles applicable to all claims of legally inconsistent verdicts. First, as is evident from our discussion of the alternative factual scenarios in Hinton, courts reviewing a claim of legal inconsistency must closely examine the record to determine whether there is any plausible theory under which the jury reasonably could have found the defendant guilty of both offenses. See id., 314; see also State v. Morascini, 62 Conn. App. 758, 761-62, 772 A.2d 703, cert. denied, 256 Conn. 921 (2001). This principle guided our analysis in State v. Williams, 237 Conn. 748, 679 A.2d 920 (1996), in which the defendant, Gregory Williams, claimed that his convictions of attempt to commit murder, which requires the intent to kill, and intentional assault in the first degree, which requires the intent to cause serious physical injury, were legally inconsistent because a person cannot simultaneously intend to cause both results to the same victim. See id., 754-55. In rejecting this claim, we undertook a thorough examination of the facts to ascertain whether the jury reasonably
The second principle that we recognized in King and Hinton is that, in determining whether two mental states are mutually exclusive, the court must consider each mental state as it relates to the particular result described by the statute. In King, for example, the convictions of attempt to commit murder and reckless assault necessarily reflected a finding by the jury that King acted both intentionally and recklessly with respect to the victim‘s death. We explained that those convictions were mutually exclusive because they were predicated on findings that King both intended to cause the victim‘s death and that he did not intend to cause the victim‘s death. See State v. King, supra, 216 Conn. 593-94. In Hinton, however, we reaffirmed our holding in King but also explained that a defendant could simultaneously act intentionally and recklessly with respect to different results. See State v. Hinton, supra, 227 Conn. 315. We observed, for example, that, when Hinton fired into the group of people, he could have intended to kill or injure one member of the group while recklessly creating a risk of death with respect to the other members, and that, in such circumstances, the jury reasonably could have found him guilty of the attempted murder of one victim and reckless assault of another victim because the mental states required for each conviction would have related to different results. See id. (“[a]lthough we said in [King] that a person could not act intentionally and recklessly with regard to the same act and the same result, here we have two different victims and therefore two different results” [emphasis added]). Thus, Hinton makes clear that a person can simultaneously act intentionally and recklessly with respect to the same criminal conduct as long as each mental state relates to a
Applying the foregoing principles to the present case, we conclude that the defendant‘s convictions for intentional and reckless assault in the first degree are not legally inconsistent because the two mental states required to commit the offenses relate to different results. More specifically, in order to find the defendant guilty of those offenses, the jury was required to find that the defendant intended to injure another person and that, in doing so, he recklessly created a risk of that person‘s death.16 In light of the state‘s theory of the case, there was nothing to preclude a finding that the defendant possessed both of these mental states with respect to the same victim at the same time by virtue of the same act or acts.17 In other words,
In support of his claim to the contrary, the defendant argues that the mental states required to commit each of the offenses did relate to the same result, namely, serious physical injury to the victim. He contends that two convictions are mutually exclusive if they require the jury to find that a defendant simultaneously acted intentionally and recklessly and, in doing so, caused the same result to the victim. This argument reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of legally inconsistent verdicts. “[M]ental states . . . exist only with reference to particular results or circumstances. Thus, it is necessary to examine the mental state element as it arises in each particular statute defining an offense to determine whether actual inconsistency exists.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Flynn, supra, 14 Conn. App. 10, 27.
The relevant inquiry in determining whether two convictions are mutually exclusive is whether the opposing mental states relate to the same result, not whether both convictions relate to the same injury.
This principle is demonstrated by a comparison of the elements of the two statutes at issue in this case. Intentional assault in the first degree in violation of
II
We next consider the defendant‘s contention that the evidence did not support a finding that he acted with the “intent to cause serious physical injury to another person,” as required under
We begin our analysis by setting forth the legal principles governing our review of the defendant‘s claim. “In reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence to support a criminal conviction we apply a two-part test. First, we construe the evidence in the light most favorable to sustaining the verdict. Second, we determine whether upon the facts so construed and the inferences reasonably drawn therefrom the [finder of fact] reasonably could have concluded that the cumulative force of the evidence established guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. . . . In evaluating evidence, the trier of fact is not required to accept as dispositive those inferences that are consistent with the defendant‘s innocence. . . . The trier may draw whatever inferences from the evidence or facts established by the evidence it deems to be reasonable and logical. . . . This does not require that each subordinate conclusion established by or inferred from the evidence, or even from other inferences, be proved beyond a reasonable doubt . . . because this court has held that a jury‘s factual inferences that support a guilty verdict need only be reasonable.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Taylor, 306 Conn. 426, 432, 50 A.3d 862 (2012).
The defendant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence only with regard to the intent element of
We agree with the state that the evidence was suffi-cient to support a finding that the defendant intended to cause serious physical injury to another person when he shot into S.‘s room. Brown testified that the defendant told him after the shooting that he had shot into the window on the far right because the lights were on and because he thought he saw a curtain move. A fair inference may be drawn from this statement that, because of the light and movement, the defendant thought that a person was in front of or near S.‘s window, and that he intended to shoot that person when he fired in the direction of the window. The location of the bullet holes and Tyrikah‘s location at the time of the shooting support this interpretation of the defendant‘s statement. The evidence also established that there was a dresser in front of S.‘s window and that Tyrikah was standing directly in front of the dresser when she was shot. The bullet that struck Tyrikah entered the room directly below the window, and a second bullet entered just to the left of the window. The fact that Tyrikah was directly in front of the window corroborates Brown‘s testimony that the defendant told him that he saw movement near the window just before the shooting and further supports the finding that the defendant intended to shoot whomever was near that window. On the basis of this evidence, the jury reasonably could have found that the defendant intended to cause serious physical injury to another person.21 Cf. State v. Wells, 100 Conn. App. 337, 345-46, 917 A.2d 1008 (evidence that defendant believed that person was behind door through which he fired shotgun supported finding that he intended to cause serious physical injury), cert. denied, 282 Conn. 919 (2007).
We find no merit in the defendant‘s contention that a person cannot have the intent to cause serious physical injury to another person under
The defendant‘s argument that the evidence supported a finding that he acted only recklessly, rather than intentionally, is similarly unavailing. In support of this contention, the defendant maintains that the evidence demonstrates that his shots were entirely random because all of the bullets entered through the back wall of the house rather than through the windows. He further relies on the testimony of Brown, who was with the defendant on the night of the shooting, that Brown himself believed that the defendant discharged his weapon at the house solely to send a message to Tyrell and not to actually injure someone. For the reasons that we previously discussed, however, the jury reasonably could have found that the defendant‘s shots were not random but that the defendant targeted only the bedrooms that appeared to be occupied, and that he specifically targeted S.‘s bedroom because he believed that a person was near the window. The fact that the defendant‘s shots did not enter
We recognize, of course, that the jury reasonably could have credited the defendant‘s argument that he did not intend to physically injure anyone but that he only did so recklessly. The fact that the jury could have elected to believe the defendant‘s alternative explanation of the evidence, however, does not mean that the jury was required to accept that explanation. As we often have observed, when reviewing a claim of evidentiary insufficiency, “we give deference not to the hypothesis of innocence posed by the defendant, but to the evidence and the reasonable inferences drawable therefrom that support the jury‘s determination of guilt.” State v. Sivri, 231 Conn. 115, 134, 646 A.2d 169 (1994); see also id., 134-36 (court would not second-guess jury‘s rejection of defendant‘s theory that he had acted recklessly when reasonable view of evidence supported jury‘s finding that defendant acted with intent to kill). When considered in the light most favorable to the state, the evidence supported the jury‘s finding that the defendant intended to cause serious physical injury to another person, and we therefore will not disturb that determination on appeal.
The judgment is affirmed.
In this opinion the other justices concurred.
PALMER, J.
Notes
As this court previously has explained,
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“(13) A person acts ‘recklessly’ with respect to a result or to a circumstance described by a statute defining an offense when he is aware of and consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that such result will occur or that such circumstance exists. The risk must be of such a nature and degree that disregarding it constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of conduct that a reasonable person would observe in the situation . . . .”
For the text of subdivisions (1) and (3) of