198 Conn. 560 | Conn. | 1986
The defendant, Donald Stevenson, was found guilty of the crime of murder in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54a
On appeal, the defendant claims that the trial court’s instructions on intoxication require that he be given a new trial. In order to place his claims in context for our disposition of the appeal, it is necessary to set out the evidentiary backdrop.
As a result of information obtained on the scene at the cafe, the police put out a general broadcast for the defendant. The defendant came to police headquarters at about 7:30 a.m. the next morning to turn himself in. He told the police that he had not meant to shoot anyone and that it was an accident. At that time, he was arrested on the charge of assault,
Archie Davis, who was a friend of both the defendant and the victim, testified that he had been with the defendant
Sometime prior to the shooting incident, the victim had broken his leg and it was in a cast. The victim was sitting in a booth facing the door of the cafe and his crutch was “standing up,” leaning against the booth. The defendant came over and kicked the crutch and it fell down. The victim picked it up and set it back against the booth. The defendant again kicked the crutch and the victim again picked it up. Words were exchanged between the victim and the defendant. The victim told the defendant to “cut this out or do you want to go on the outside?” The defendant then walked toward the back of the cafe and the victim sat down. Minutes later the defendant came back and stood by the booth. The victim again warned the defendant to desist.
The witnesses, Carrie Porter, Robert Carter and Thomas Newsome, were sitting in a booth with the vic
Joseph Cerri, the only bartender on duty in the cafe that night, knew both the victim and the defendant and had seen them both there at the same time on many occasions. Cerri had not served the defendant that night and he also opined that the defendant “looked sober” to him and that “he looked all right.” In addition, when he observed what seemed “like a small derringer” make “a noise,” “a bang,” the defendant’s arm was “out at arm’s length.” Moreover, at that time, Cerri saw no one else in the defendant’s immediate area. No one pushed, shoved or bumped into the defendant and Cerri did not see him trip or stumble. After this “noise,” the victim fell to the floor and the defendant walked out of the cafe.
In contrast to that evidence, the jury had before it the defendant’s conflicting testimony concerning his alcoholic intake on November 10, 1979. He said that he, Archie Davis and two other persons had been sit
On appeal, the defendant claims that the trial court’s instructions on the effect of his intoxication deprived him of a fair trial on the charge of murder by permitting the jury to convict him without first finding beyond a reasonable doubt that he had the intent to cause death in spite of his intoxication. He includes here the claim that the instructions require reversal because they gave rise to a reasonable possibility that the jury convicted him without first finding each essential element of the crime charged proven beyond a reasonable doubt. He also contends that intoxication at the time of the offense “may logically support an inference that [he] lacked an intent to kill even if it does not rise to the level of negating his capacity to form any rational intent.” He also faults the instructions because, as he correctly points out, where a defendant charged with murder introduces evidence that he was intoxicated at the time of the crime, the state must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that in spite of his intoxication he intended to cause the death. He claims that reversible error was committed because the instructions complained of shifted to him the burden of establishing that at the time of the crime he was so intoxicated that he could not possibly have had the specific intent required for murder.
At the trial, the defendant neither filed a request to charge on the issue of intoxication nor did he except to the trial court’s instructions on that matter.
“ ‘Only in most exceptional circumstances can and will this court consider a claim, constitutional or otherwise, that has not been raised and decided in the trial court.’ State v. Evans, 165 Conn. 61, 69, 327 A.2d 576 (1973). ‘The policy behind this rule is both ancient and
“Due process requires that the state establish beyond a reasonable doubt every essential fact necessary to establish the crime charged . . . including intent where intent is one of those elements.” State v. Kurvin, 186 Conn. 555, 558, 442 A.2d 1327 (1982). While intoxication is neither a defense nor an affirmative defense to a murder charge in Connecticut, evidence of a defendant’s intoxication is relevant to negate specific intent which is an essential element of the crime of murder. General Statutes § 53a-7;
We have set out above those circumstances relevant to the intoxication issue that are helpful in our analysis because a “court’s charge is not to be examined in a vacuum. Rather, it is to be viewed in the context of the factual issues raised at the trial.” State v. Kurvin, supra, 558; see United States v. Park, 421 U.S. 658, 674, 95 S. Ct. 1903, 44 L. Ed. 2d 489 (1975). Where a particular part of the charge is attacked, the test to be applied is whether the charge considered as a whole presents the case to the jury so that no injustice will result. State v. Hines, 187 Conn. 199, 206, 445 A.2d 314 (1982), and cases there cited. In the absence of a request to charge or an exception, to warrant reversal “the error must consist of a failure to submit to the jury the essential ingredients of the offense on which the conviction rests . . . or the case must involve plain error requiring such result in the interest of justice.” State v. Kurvin, supra, 561.
There is one other sentence in the court’s charge on intoxication that might be bothersome were it not for the balance of that instruction as well as the charge taken as a whole. The court said: “[T]he intoxication must be shown to have been of such a character as to create a state of mental confusion which would exclude the possibility of his having a specific intent.” (Emphasis added.) We have eschewed, and continue to eschew, judging individual instructions in artificial isolation from the overall charge. State v. Hines, supra, 206; State v. Roy, 173 Conn. 35, 40, 376 A.2d 391 (1977); State v. Crawford, supra, 69. Nowhere in the remainder of the charge, if it is fairly read, is there any statement that the defendant’s intoxication, in order to negate the specific intent, had to be of such a level as to exclude the possibility of having a specific intent. “Whether a charge is possibly misleading depends on the substance rather than the form of what is said.” State v. Kurvin, supra, 565. This single statement was not misleading in the context of the charge on intoxication or in the context of the charge as a whole.
Plainly indicative of the court’s direction that the jury consider all the evidence on intoxication, in addition to its charge on intoxication, is the following instruction: “If upon the whole evidence you entertain a reasonable doubt whether the condition of the accused was
“Under the Evans standard, we are not concerned with merely technical or prejudicial errors, but only with errors that deprive the defendant of a fundamental constitutional right and a fair trial. The defendant must establish ‘not merely that the instruction [was] undesirable, erroneous, or even “universally condemned,” but that it violated some [constitutional] right which [he] was guaranteed . . . . ’ Cupp v. Naughten, 414 U.S. 141, 146, 94 S. Ct. 396, 38 L. Ed. 2d 368 (1973).” State v. Hinckley, supra, 86-87. “Dueprocess is not to be regarded as a giant constitutional vacuum cleaner which sucks up any claims of error which may occur to a party upon microscopic examination of the trial record.” State v. Kurvin, supra, 564. From what we have said, it follows that the instructions on intoxication did not “implicate any fundamental constitutional right that would afford the defendant review under the exceptional circumstances doctrine of State v. Evans. ” State v. Hinckley, supra, 87.
There is no error.
In this opinion the other judges concurred.
General Statutes § 53a-54a provides: “murder defined, affirmative DEFENSES. EVIDENCE OF MENTAL CONDITION. CLASSIFICATION, (a) A person is guilty of murder when, with intent to cause the death of another person, he causes the death of such person or of a third person or causes a suicide by force, duress or deception; except that in any prosecution under this subsection, it shall be an affirmative defense that the defendant committed the proscribed act or acts under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance for which there was a reasonable explanation or excuse, the reasonableness of which is to be determined from the viewpoint of a person in the defendant’s situation under the circumstances as the defendant believed them to be, provided nothing contained in this subsection shall constitute a defense to a prosecution for, or preclude a conviction of, manslaughter in the first degree or any other crime.
“(b) Evidence that the defendant suffered from a mental disease, mental defect or other mental abnormality is admissible, in a prosecution under subsection (a), on the question of whether the defendant acted with intent to cause the death of another person.
“(c) Murder is punishable as a class A felony in accordance with subdivision (2) of section 53a-35a unless it is a capital felony.”
On February 4, 1980, a grand jury returned an indictment accusing the defendant of the crime of murder in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54a.
There was testimony that the police took four people to the police station for the purpose of obtaining statements and that they took five or six written statements.
The victim, Oliver, remained in a coma for some days before he died on November 17, 1979. At the trial, the medical examiner testified that “[t]he cause of death was the gunshot wound to the head and brain.”
On November 11, 1979, the defendant gave the police a statement, approximately two and one-half typewritten pages, concerning his recollection of the shooting incident as well as his whereabouts and activities earlier on the day of November 10,1979. This statement was introduced into evidence at the trial as a full exhibit and was used, inter alia, on cross-examination of the defendant concerning his ability to recall specific matters.
Archie Davis testified that he and the defendant had often fished and hunted together. When hunting, each used a shotgun, according to Davis.
Archie Davis did not observe the shooting incident because, when he entered the East Farm Street Cafe, he went to the rear to go to the men’s room. When he was in the men’s room, he said that he heard a sound “like a thump’ ’ and when he came out, he saw a group of people gathered around one of the booths and he observed the victim on the floor. Davis did not see the defendant at all then or later that night.
Archie Davis also testified that the defendant had no problem operating his motor vehicle as he drove it, with Davis as a passenger, over the route to the East Farm Street Cafe.
Immediately after this, the defendant testified: “And, at this particular time, I was just, I was more in a daze. I was stunned because I hadn’t too much pretty know what happened. I just looked around and I walked out of the bar, got into my car and just drove around for a little, for a few minutes. And, then I came back up on East Farm Street, because I was still trying to recollect as to what happened. I thought I heard a shot.”
After learning from a bystander that someone had been shot, he started to drive. He was “still pretty much in a daze ... [I] was pretty much shocked as to what had happened.”
Getting himself together “after a couple of minutes,” he drove on, got onto route 1-84, originally intending to contact a police friend of his at the Southbury state police barracks. He testified, as did Detective Joseph Morgan, that he got off at the Southbury exit for the barracks, but that after
The defendant, however, filed requests to charge on other issues and also took several other exceptions to the instructions. We note that the state took the only exception to the instructions on intoxication. At that time, the state said in part: “[T]he opening comment of the Court was th,at it would appear that this [intoxication] played some part in the situation. And, I think that is a conclusion which only the jury can draw. I think perhaps the Court’s language was a bit too strong. I don’t think there was no [sic] request to charge on intoxication. I think the Court’s charge was proper, but to say that it would appear and played some part in the situation is not necessarily a correct statement.”
General Statutes § 53a-7 provides: “effect of intoxication. Intoxication shall not be a defense to a criminal charge, but in any prosecution for an offense evidence of intoxication of the defendant may be offered by the defendant whenever it is relevant to negate an element of the crime charged, provided when recklessness or criminal negligence is an element of the crime charged, if the actor, due to self-induced intoxication, is unaware of or disregards or fails to perceive a risk which he would have been aware of had he not been intoxicated, such unawareness, disregard or failure to perceive shall be immaterial. As used in this section, ‘intoxication’ means a substantial disturbance of mental or physical capacities resulting from the introduction of substances into the body.”
In this context, we note that General Statutes § 53a-7 limits the relevance of intoxication evidence to negate an element of the crime charged and expressly makes such evidence immaterial on the element of recklessness or negligence.