Smith v. State

• Decision Date: 10 November 1952
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: SMITH v. STATE. Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut

Page 296

93 A.2d 296

139 Conn. 249

SMITH v. STATE.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

Nov. 10, 1952.

James C. Shannon, Bridgeport, with whom, on the brief, was Melvin M. Dichter, Stamford, for appellant (plaintiff).

Lorin W. Willis, State's Atty., Bridgeport, with whom, on the brief, Was Otto J. Saur, Asst. State's Atty., Bridgeport, for appellee (state).

Before BROWN, C. J., and JENNINGS, BALDWIN, INGLIS and O'SULLIVAN, JJ.

JENNINGS, Associate Justice.

The plaintiff was convicted of murder in the first degree and appealed. The facts are fully stated in the opinion in State v. Smith, 138 Conn. 196, 82 A.2d 816. They will be repeated here only in so far as is necessary to present the issue on this petition for a new trial.

In the early morning of July 23, 1949, Grover S. Hart was shot and killed. About half-past one in the morning of the next day two New York state policemen discovered a gray Cadillac car parked at the Hollywood Cafe in Brewster, New York. This car had been stolen in June, 1949. It was the one used in committing the crime. The plaintiff was in the Hollywood Cafe just before the car was discovered.

The state offered circumstantial evidence of the connection of the plaintiff with the murder. Included in this was testimony of Edith Springer that she knew the plaintiff and had seen him driving a gray Cadillac car and that at one time its registration number was the one which, according to other testimony, it bore when it was stolen in June, 1949. She also testified that on another occasion there were different number plates on the car and these were found in it at the Hollywood Cafe. At least two other witnesses testified that they had seen Smith driving a car of the same make and description.

The judgment in State v. Smith was entered June 27, 1950. The judgment was affirmed by this court on appeal. On April 24, 1951, Miss Springer wrote a judge of the Superior Court that her testimony in the Smith case was false. Her deposition was taken on December 12, 1951. She then denied having ever seen Smith in a car, to say nothing of having noted its registration. The petition for a new trial is based on this deposition. A demurrer to the petition was overruled and the case was heard on the merits. The trial court rendered judgment for the defendant. The memorandum of decision may be consulted to determine the basis of the judgment. Jacen v. East Hartford, 133 Conn. 243, 245, 50 A.2d 61; Clark v. Connecticut Co., 132 Conn. 400, 403, 44 A.2d 706; In re Application of Dodd, 132 Conn. 237, 242, 43 A.2d 224; Maltbie, Conn.App.Proc., p. 120. The grounds of decision are there stated to be that the plaintiff failed to prove (1) that the Springer testimony on the trial was false, (2) that without it the jury might have reached a different conclusion, or (3) that the element of surprise, under the circumstances, entitled him to a new trial.

'Petitions for a new trial are addressed to the discretion of the trial court [and its action is], not reviewable by this court unless the record shows an abuse of discretion.' Burns v. State, 84 Conn. 518, 521, 80 A. 712. '[Their] very foundation is that a judgment technically valid is substantially unjust.' 84 Conn. 518, 80 A. 712. Krooner v. State, 137 Conn. 58, 62, 75 A.2d 51; Widman v. Kearns, 96 Conn. 254, 264, 114 A. 77. A new trial will not ordinarily be granted because of the discovery of additional impeaching or discrediting testimony. Husted v. Mead, 58 Conn. 55, 63, 19 A. 233; Shields v. State, 45 Conn. 266, 270; see Pradlik v. State, 131 Conn. 682, 685, 41 A.2d 906; Parsons v. Platt, 37 Conn. 563, 565. Where the case turns on the weight to be accorded new evidence and similar factual issues, this court has ordinarily refused to interfere. Schoonmaker v. Albertson & Douglass Machine Co., 51 Conn. 387, 395; Burns v. State, supra. "It cannot be said that, as a matter of law, a new trial should be granted whenever an important witness against the defendant shall make an affidavit that he committed perjury in his testimony if that were so, justice would be defeated in many grave cases. * * * We have no doubt that a case might arise where an important witness had afterward testified to having committed perjury, in which [case] this court would hold, looking at the whole case, that a new trial ought to have been granted.' [People v. Tallmadge, 114 Cal. 427, 430, 46 P. 282]. Bearing in mind that the witnesses to crimes of violence are often of a low and degraded character and that after they have given their testimony they are sometimes influenced by bribery and other improper considerations, it is evident that the establishment of a rule which left the power to grant a new trial to a defendant to depend upon recantation by such witnesses would be subversive of the proper administration of justice. I do not wish to be understood as urging that the fact of recantation is not to be...