Martyn v. Warden, CV124004920S

• Decision Date: 09 March 2016
• Docket Number: CV124004920S
• Court: Connecticut Superior Court
• Parties: Martyn Bruno (#173522) v. Warden

Martyn Bruno (#173522) v. Warden

No. CV124004920S

Superior Court of Connecticut, Judicial District of Tolland, Rockville, Geographic Area 19

March 9, 2016

UNPUBLISHED OPINION

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION

Hon Vernon D. Oliver, J.

The petitioner, Martyn Bruno, initiated this petition for a writ of habeas corpus, claiming that his prior habeas counsel underlying criminal trial counsel and direct appeal counsel provided him ineffective legal representation related to his underlying trial. He further asserts that he was not competent to stand trial and that he did not personally waive his right to trial by jury. He seeks an order of this court vacating his convictions and returning the matter to the criminal court for further proceedings. The court finds the issues for the RESPONDENT and DENIES the petitions.

I Procedural History

In the criminal matter State v. Martyn Bruno CR91-00073668, the petitioner, after a trial before a three-judge panel (Pickett, J., Susco, J., and Fineberg, J.) was convicted of murder, in violation of Connecticut General Statutes § § 53a-54a and 53a-8(a) and three counts of tampering with physical evidence, in violation of General Statutes § § 53a-155(a)(1) and 53a-8. On August 6 1993, the court sentenced the petitioner to a total effective sentence of sixty years to serve. The petitioner was represented at trial by attorneys Joseph Keefe and Lawrence Peck. The petitioner appealed the conviction, and the Connecticut Supreme Court affirmed the judgment. State v. Bruno, 236 Conn. 514, 673 A.2d 1117 (1996). On appeal, the petitioner was represented by attorney Daniel Fabricant. In affirming the underlying judgment, the court made the following findings of fact.

" The court reasonably could have found the following facts. During the evening of July 17, 1991, David Rusinko was killed while " partying" at an isolated cabin in New Hartford with the defendant, Brian Bingham and Cara Ignacak. At that time, Rusinko and the defendant were both in their mid-thirties and had been friends for many years. Bingham, then sixteen years old, had been a frequent drinking companion of the defendant for several months. Bingham and the defendant often visited the property of an abandoned summer camp that abutted the defendant's home, which consisted of 175 acres of wooded property and a number of structures, including a garage-like structure known as the " lower camp, " and a three-room cabin with a porch known as the " upper camp." Bingham was also acquainted with Rusinko, who was a neighbor, and they occasionally socialized together. Ignacak, then eighteen or nineteen years old, had been Bingham's girlfriend of three and one-half weeks. She had known Bingham from high school for approximately two years before they started dating, had met the defendant several times during the few weeks she and Bingham had been dating, and had met Rusinko for the first time on the day that he was killed.

" During the afternoon of July 17, 1991, Bingham sought out Rusinko in New Hartford to ask him to buy liquor and to meet him later that evening, which Rusinko agreed to do. At approximately 6 p.m., Bingham and Ignacak went to the defendant's home and the three went to the lower camp. While there, the defendant told them that he was angry at Rusinko for his role both in the defendant's most recent conviction for drunk driving and in a problem with a drug deal, and that he wanted to kill Rusinko.

" The defendant and Bingham left the lower camp at 7:30 p.m. on Bingham's motorcycle to buy liquor and to meet Rusinko and invite him to spend the evening with them. They met Rusinko on the road and he agreed to join them and continued on to the lower camp on his bicycle. The defendant and Bingham returned a few minutes later with beer and vodka, and the four remained there for a short time drinking and talking. According to Bingham, the defendant, while at the lower camp, asked him to step in and help if Rusinko started to get the best of him in a fight, and Bingham agreed to do so.

" At approximately 8 p.m., the group moved to the cabin at the upper camp. Shortly after their arrival, while Rusinko was inside the cabin, the defendant joined Bingham and Ignacak on the porch and again told them that he intended to harm Rusinko. Shortly thereafter, the defendant began yelling at and shoving Rusinko, but stopped when Ignacak suffered a seizure of some sort. After Ignacak had recovered, the altercation between the defendant and Rusinko resumed, and Bingham stepped in and knocked Rusinko to the floor. The defendant and Bingham then proceeded to beat Rusinko into unconsciousness, first by punching and kicking him, and then by hitting him with pieces of metal pipe that had been lying about the cabin. The defendant next attempted to break Rusinko's neck and, when that failed, slashed his throat. When it appeared that Rusinko was dead, the defendant and Bingham rolled his body into the fire in the cabin's fireplace, along with the steel pipes used to beat him, glass beer bottles and the defendant's sneakers. At approximately 11:30 p.m., when Rusinko's body was " starting to bubble, " Bingham and Ignacak left the cabin to bring Ignacak home. The defendant spent the night at the cabin.

" The defendant and Bingham returned to the cabin one or two days later to dispose of Rusinko's remains and to conceal other evidence of the murder. They smashed Rusinko's bones in the fireplace, collected them into a plastic bag, and disposed of them in an outhouse at the camp. Police investigating the murder recovered a small amount of human skeletal remains from the outhouse, which were identified as Rusinko's. The defendant and Bingham also threw off the porch the steel pipes that had been burned in the fireplace, attempted to cover blood stains around the cabin with fresh paint, burned the porch railings and the plastic bag and, sometime later, disassembled and buried Rusinko's bicycle.

At trial, the defendant testified in his own defense. He claimed that during the day and evening of the murder he had consumed a great deal of alcohol and Valium and, as a result, had experienced a blackout that evening at the upper camp, which left him unable to remember Rusinko's murder. He admitted to concealing the evidence of the murder with Bingham. His theories of defense were: (1) that Bingham and Ignacak had killed Rusinko without his participation; and (2) that, due to his consumption of alcohol and Valium preceding the murder, he had been unable to form the requisite specific intent to murder Rusinko. The trial court convicted the defendant on all counts except for conspiracy to commit murder, and denied his motions for acquittal and for a new trial.

State v. Bruno, 236 Conn. 514, 517-21, 673 A.2d 1117 (1996).

The Court recounted the following additional facts.

" The state presented substantial evidence to contradict the defendant's claim that he had experienced a blackout during Rusinko's murder and, therefore, that he had been incapable of forming the requisite intent to kill. First, the testimony of Bingham and Ignacak provided both direct and circumstantial evidence of the defendant's intent to kill Rusinko. According to Bingham and Ignacak, whose testimony the trial court found credible, before the murder the defendant said that he was angry with Rusinko for his role in the loss of the defendant's driver's license, and for his role in the defendant's problems with a " drug deal connection." He said several times that Rusinko " had to pay, " and talked of killing him. In response to Ignacak's suggestion that he shoot Rusinko instead of killing him, the defendant said that that would be too good for Rusinko, that " he wanted to fuck [Rusinko] up, " and, specifically, that he " want[ed] to beat David Rusinko to death."

" With regard to the murder, Bingham and Ignacak testified that as the defendant had delivered blows to Rusinko with his hands and feet, he had assigned reasons for them, such as " [t]his is for the DWI, this is for the cocaine, this is for the loss of my license." Bingham then retrieved an aluminum pipe and struck Rusinko with it. After the aluminum pipe bent, Bingham, at the defendant's request retrieved a steel pipe with which he, and then the defendant, " [f]orcefully, " holding the pipe " sometimes . . . like a baseball bat, sometimes . . . with both hands up and over the head and coming down, " struck Rusinko.

" At some point during the beating, Bingham asked the defendant whether he had done enough damage. The defendant replied " [n]o, that's not enough. I'm going to fuckin' kill him" and stated that if he were to stop at that point, Rusinko might go to the police. He then resumed striking Rusinko in the head with a steel pipe " with what appeared to be all his might." A short time later, the defendant paused to have Bingham break Rusinko's neck. Dissatisfied with Bingham's efforts, he attempted to do so himself by jumping on Rusinko's neck as his head lay propped on the porch railings. Finally, because Rusinko appeared still to be breathing, the defendant asked Bingham for his knife, and when Bingham refused, the defendant used his own knife and then a piece of glass to cut Rusinko's throat, saying " [d]ie . . . why don't you just die." Ignacak indicated however, that Rusinko was still alive, so the defendant again struck Rusinko's head with a piece of pipe, at which point it was " all blood." Finally, the defendant rolled the victim's body into the fireplace and, using boards pulled off the interior cabin walls, proceeded to incinerate him.

With regard to the defendant's state of sobriety on the night of the murder, Bingham and Ignacak testified that when they had arrived at the defendant's home on the evening of the murder, they had

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