Lapointe v. Commissioner of Correction

• Decision Date: 31 March 2009
• Docket Number: No. 29137.,29137.
• Citation: 113 Conn.App. 378,966 A.2d 780
• Court: Connecticut Court of Appeals
• Parties: Richard LaPOINTE v. COMMISSIONER OF CORRECTION.

966 A.2d 780

113 Conn.App. 378

Richard LaPOINTE v. COMMISSIONER OF CORRECTION.

No. 29137.

Appellate Court of Connecticut.

Argued October 20, 2008.

Decided March 31, 2009.

Paul Casteleiro, pro hac vice, with whom was W. James Cousins, Wilton, for the appellant (petitioner).

Jo Anne Sulik, senior assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, were Gail P. Hardy, state's attorney, and Michael E. O'Hare, supervisory assistant state's attorney, for the appellee (respondent).

HARPER, ROBINSON and WEST, Js.

ROBINSON, J.

The petitioner, Richard Lapointe, appeals from the judgment of the habeas court dismissing his second petition for a writ of habeas corpus. In this appeal, the petitioner claims that the court improperly dismissed his claims that his first habeas counsel was ineffective in failing to recognize or to offer proof regarding (1) the state's suppression of exculpatory evidence and (2) the ineffective assistance of criminal trial counsel. We affirm in part and reverse in part the judgment of the habeas court.

This case has a lengthy history, and the following facts and procedural history provide the necessary backdrop for the petitioner's appeal. On June 30, 1992, after a trial to the jury, the petitioner was convicted of capital felony in violation of General Statutes (Rev. to 1987) § 53a-54b (7), arson murder in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54d, felony murder in violation of General Statutes (Rev. to 1987) § 53a-54c, murder in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54a, arson in the first degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-111, assault in the first degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-59(a)(1), sexual assault in the first degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-70(a), sexual assault in the third degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-72a(a)(1)(A) and kidnapping in the first degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-92(a)(2)(A). Thereafter, the petitioner was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of release. The petitioner directly appealed to our Supreme Court; however, his conviction was affirmed in State v. Lapointe, 237 Conn. 694, 678 A.2d 942, cert. denied, 519 U.S. 994, 117 S.Ct. 484, 136 L.Ed.2d 378 (1996).

The facts underlying the petitioner's conviction were recounted in the decision of our Supreme Court disposing of his direct appeal. As the petitioner makes numerous factual claims, a restatement of these facts, as the Supreme Court determined reasonably could have been found by the jury, are helpful for context. "On March 8, 1987, the [petitioner] called the emergency telephone number, 911, to report a fire at the Manchester apartment of the victim, Bernice Martin, his wife's eighty-eight year old grandmother. Manchester firefighters entered the smoke-filled apartment and found the victim lying on the floor approximately six to eight feet from a burning couch. The victim was only partially clad and a piece of fabric was tied tightly around her neck. Other fabric was tied loosely about her wrists. The firefighters noted a bloodstain on the bed in the apartment. Paramedics who arrived at the scene attempted unsuccessfully to resuscitate the victim and subsequently transported her to a hospital where she was pronounced dead shortly after her arrival. Medical personnel did not examine the victim for sexual trauma on the night of her death and did not provide the family with any information pertaining to the cause of death. A priest in attendance, however, did tell family members gathered at the hospital that the victim had been stabbed.

"A knife blade and a melted brown plastic knife handle were found in the victim's apartment. The victim's underwear was found on the floor of the apartment to the right of the bed. No latent fingerprints were discovered at the scene due to fire and water damage. It was determined that the fire in the victim's apartment had three points of origin—the couch, near which the victim had been found, and two towels that were hanging in the kitchen. There was no evidence that an accelerant had been used to hasten the fire's progress. The couch, which had extensive fire damage, was tested and found to burn at a very slow rate and to emit copious amounts of smoke.

"At approximately midnight on the night that the victim's body was found, Detective Edward Wilson of the Manchester police department interviewed the [petitioner]. The [petitioner] told Wilson that on March 8, from approximately 2 to 4 p.m., he had visited the victim at her apartment with his wife, Karen, and his son, Sean. The [petitioner] also told Wilson that after the family had returned home from their visit he had not left the house until his wife's aunt, Natalie Howard, had telephoned between 7:30 and 7:45 p.m., asking him to check on the victim because she was not answering her telephone. The [petitioner] further told Wilson that, while he was walking to the victim's apartment in order to check on her, he had smelled smoke. He also said that after arriving at the apartment and receiving no answer to his knock, he had attempted to enter both the front and the back doors but that both doors were locked. The [petitioner] stated that the back door felt warm to the touch.

"The [petitioner] said that he then had gone to the apartment of Jeannette King, a neighbor of the victim, to telephone his wife and Howard. Despite having smelled smoke and having felt the heat of the door to the victim's apartment, the [petitioner] made no effort to secure emergency assistance at that time. Rather, he walked to King's apartment and knocked on the door furthest from the victim's apartment. When King opened the door, the [petitioner] greeted her calmly and without any sign of urgency. The [petitioner] asked King for change for a quarter so that he could use a pay telephone down the road. King, who had met the [petitioner] previously, invited him to use her telephone. He did so, telephoning both his wife and Howard and telling them that the victim had not answered her door and that she must have been sleeping. He never mentioned to either his wife or Howard that he had smelled smoke or that the door to the victim's apartment had been warm to the touch. Howard reminded the [petitioner] that the victim never went to bed as early as 8 p.m. and told him that she was going to the victim's apartment immediately to check on her. The [petitioner] then left King's apartment and returned to the victim's apartment. The [petitioner] claimed that upon returning to the victim's apartment, he saw smoke emanating from under the eaves. He then returned to King's apartment, again knocked on the more distant of the two doors, and, when admitted, called the 911 emergency telephone number.

"On March 9, 1987, an autopsy of the victim's body by the medical examiner revealed that the victim had suffered a three inch deep stab wound to her abdomen and ten less severe stab wounds to her back. The medical examiner also determined that the victim had been strangled and that she had sustained premortem first and second degree burns. The cause of death was determined to be a combination of strangulation and smoke inhalation. The autopsy also revealed, for the first time, that the victim had suffered extensive hemorrhaging as well as lacerations and contusions to her vagina.

"The jury further could have found that a stain on the victim's bedspread was human semen from a person who was a secretor with Type A blood. The [petitioner] has Type A blood and is a secretor. The semen stain also was found to contain no sperm, which is consistent with the semen of a person who has had a vasectomy. The [petitioner] had a vasectomy after the birth of his son in 1979. On March 9, before any information regarding a possible sexual assault became known to the police or the public, the [petitioner] stated in a conversation with Eileen Giacalone, a friend of the Lapointe family, that `it was a shame they killed an old lady, but they didn't have to rape her, too.' When asked in a June, 1989 interview by Detective Paul Lombardo how he had learned that the victim had been sexually assaulted, the [petitioner] responded that he had been informed by a doctor at the hospital on the night of the murder that the victim had been strangled, stabbed and sexually assaulted. The medical personnel who had attended to the victim unanimously testified, however, that they did not check the victim for sexual assault trauma when she was at the hospital that night and, further, that it would have been highly unusual for them to have done so under the circumstances. Other family members who had been present at the hospital corroborated the testimony of the medical personnel who said that there had been no mention of sexual assault at the hospital.

"On March 9, officer Wayne Rautenberg interviewed the [petitioner] at the Manchester police station. During the interview, the [petitioner] exhibited considerable curiosity concerning the results of the autopsy and asked if there had been causes of death other than smoke inhalation. The [petitioner's] curiosity was further manifested by his persistent questions to Wilson and Captain Joseph Brooks of the Manchester police department concerning the status of the investigation and whether he was a suspect. These inquiries were made during numerous chance encounters that the [petitioner] had with the officers in Manchester between the dates of the victim's death and the [petitioner's] arrest.

"The police investigation of the victim's death remained open and unresolved until March, 1989, when due to internal changes at the Manchester police department, Lombardo was assigned to the case. Because the investigation had been dormant for some time, Lombardo decided to reinterview all those persons who had been interviewed previously. For that purpose, Lombardo telephoned the [petitioner] in June, 1989, and asked if he would submit to another interview. The [petitioner] initially...