State v. Adams

• Decision Date: 30 March 1993
• Docket Number: No. 14445,14445
• Citation: 623 A.2d 42,225 Conn. 270
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Shelton ADAMS, Jr.

Page 42

623 A.2d 42

225 Conn. 270

STATE of Connecticut v. Shelton ADAMS, Jr.

No. 14445.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Dec. 2, 1992.

Decided March 30, 1993.

Elizabeth M. Inkster, Asst. Public Defender, with whom, on the brief, were G. Douglas Nash, Public Defender, and Richard Emanuel, Asst. Public Defender, for appellant (defendant).

Susann E. Gill, Asst. State's Atty., with whom, on the brief, was Michael Dearington, State's Atty., for appellee (state).

Before PETERS, C.J., and BORDEN, BERDON, NORCOTT and SANTANIELLO, JJ.

NORCOTT, Associate Justice.

The defendant, Shelton Adams, Jr., was charged in a substitute information with the crimes of felony murder, conspiracy to commit robbery, first degree robbery and carrying a pistol without a permit in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a-54c, 53a-48, 53a-134(a)(2) and 29-35, respectively. After a jury trial, the defendant was convicted of felony murder, first degree robbery and carrying a pistol without a permit and was acquitted on the conspiracy count. ¹ The trial court sentenced the defendant to a total effective term of fifty-five years imprisonment. The defendant appealed to this court from the judgment of conviction pursuant to General Statutes § 51-199(b). We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The jury could reasonably have found the following facts. During the month of April, 1990, the defendant resided with his father, Shelton Adams, Sr., and his aunt in a first floor apartment of a three-family house located at 58-60 Warren Place, New Haven. On the evening of April 15, 1990, the defendant and Sherman Sims approached Nathan Roberts, who lived on the second floor of the same house, and asked him for a gun. Roberts gave the defendant a .38 caliber handgun.

At approximately 2:48 a.m. on April 16, Sims and the defendant called for a taxicab to pick them up at 1561 Chapel Street and to take them to 230 Blatchley Avenue. The Metro Taxi Company dispatched a cab operated by the victim, Allen Hansen, to respond to the call.

When the cab arrived at the Chapel Street location, both the defendant and Sims sat in the back seat with Sims seated behind the victim. As the victim drove down Blatchley Avenue, Sims ordered him to pull over behind the Columbus School. The victim complied. Sims then pulled out a gun, placed it to the victim's neck and fired the gun. Sims had been holding the victim with his left hand when he fired the gun, and consequently he suffered a bullet wound to his left pinkie finger.

Sims and the defendant exited the cab from the left, or driver's, side and pulled the victim from the vehicle onto the ground to allow easier access to his pockets. They then took both of the victim's wallets. ² The victim died almost immediately after the shooting. Powder burns found around the entry wound indicated that the gun had been held against the victim's skin when fired.

Sims and the defendant then walked back to the defendant's apartment. The defendant's father let the two men in and a few minutes later noticed that the defendant was wrapping Sims' bleeding hand. A short while later, Sims and the defendant called for another cab to take them to 28 Ellsworth Avenue, where a friend resided.

At 7:15 a.m., Roberts encountered Sims and the defendant walking toward the defendant's apartment. Roberts had heard about the shooting and asked the defendant if he knew anything about it. Neither the defendant nor Sims responded. Roberts then asked about the handgun that he had given to the defendant the previous night. The defendant first denied knowledge of the whereabouts of the gun, and then claimed that he had thrown it away. Roberts then noticed Sims' bleeding hand and asked the defendant whether he had shot the victim. In response, the defendant pointed at Sims.

Later that morning, the defendant asked his father to dispose of the handgun. The defendant, his father, and Sims were driven by a friend to the bank of the Mill River near East Rock Road. The defendant's father then threw the gun into the river.

With the assistance of the defendant's father, the New Haven police later retrieved the gun from the river. Ballistic tests performed on the gun established that it had fired the shot that had killed the victim. The police also conducted a search of the defendant's apartment in which they found a jacket identified as the one worn by the defendant on the night of the shooting. The left sleeve of the jacket was encrusted with blood that later tested to be of the same type as that of the victim.

The defendant's theory of defense focused on his lack of criminal intent. Through the testimony of New Haven police detective Anthony DiLullo during the state's case-in-chief, the defendant's version of the shooting was elicited. DiLullo testified that he had met with the defendant the day after the shooting at which time the defendant had given DiLullo a voluntary statement. The defendant admitted being with Sims on the night of the homicide and being in the victim's cab with Sims before the shooting. The defendant was seated on the right, or passenger's, side of the back seat of the cab. When the cab stopped at the traffic light at the intersection of Blatchley and Grand Avenues, Sims pulled out a silver colored handgun. The defendant told DiLullo that at this point he had left the cab through the right rear door and had run away. The defendant claimed that he had never seen the gun before and that he had had no idea that Sims was planning to rob the cab driver. He also stated that he had heard a gunshot when he was approximately one and one-half blocks away from the cab.

On appeal, the defendant claims that the trial court improperly: (1) denied his motion for judgment of acquittal as there was insufficient evidence to support the jury's guilty verdict; (2) violated his constitutional due process and statutory rights by denying his request to instruct the jury on the defense of renunciation pursuant to General Statutes § 53a-10; and (3) instructed the jury on consciousness of guilt and reasonable doubt so as to dilute the state's burden of proof in violation of the defendant's constitutional due process rights. We disagree with each of these claims.

I

The defendant first claims that the trial court should have granted his motion for judgment of acquittal because the state produced insufficient evidence to sustain his conviction of felony murder, first degree robbery and carrying a pistol without a permit. He claims that the state's failure to prove beyond a reasonable doubt each element of the crimes charged against him deprived him of his due process rights under the federal and state constitutions. ³

The defendant argues that the evidence failed to establish beyond a reasonable doubt his participation in the crimes for which he was convicted. He argues that the state failed to refute his claim that he lacked knowledge of Sims' intentions, that he was essentially an innocent bystander, and that he fled the cab prior to the shooting. The defendant claims, therefore, that because the evidence was insufficient to preclude a reasonable hypothesis that he left the scene of the crime before the shooting, it was insufficient to find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the felony murder and robbery counts. The defendant also argues that there was no evidence presented at trial to support beyond a reasonable doubt the conclusion that on the day of the offense the defendant carried a pistol without a permit. We disagree.

"In reviewing a claim of insufficiency of the evidence, this court construes the evidence in the light most favorable to sustaining the jury's verdict and will affirm that verdict if it is reasonably supported by the evidence and the logical inferences drawn therefrom.... The issue is whether the cumulative effect of the evidence was sufficient to justify the verdict of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt." (Citation omitted.) State v. Ruscoe, 212 Conn. 223, 245, 563 A.2d 267 (1989), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 1084, 110 S.Ct. 1144, 107 L.Ed.2d 1049 (1990). "While the jury must find every element proven beyond a reasonable doubt in order to find the defendant guilty of the charged offense, each of the basic and inferred facts underlying those conclusions need not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. State v. Castonguay, 218 Conn. 486, 507, 590 A.2d 901 (1991). If it is reasonable and logical for the jury to conclude that a basic fact or an inferred fact is true, the jury is permitted to consider the fact proven and may consider it in combination with other proven facts in determining whether the cumulative effect of all the evidence proves the defendant guilty of all the elements of the crime charged beyond a reasonable doubt. State v. Grant, 219 Conn. 596, 604-605, 594 A.2d 459 (1991).... State v. Pinnock, 220 Conn. 765, 770-71, 601 A.2d 521 (1992)." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Stanley, 223 Conn. 674, 678, 613 A.2d 788 (1992). "In this process of review, it does not diminish the probative force of the evidence that it consists, in whole or in part, of evidence that is circumstantial rather than direct." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Avis, 209 Conn. 290, 309, 551 A.2d 26 (1988), cert. denied, 489 U.S. 1097, 109 S.Ct. 1570, 103 L.Ed.2d 937 (1989).

To convict the defendant of the crimes as charged in the substitute information, the state had to prove the following beyond a reasonable doubt. Regarding the charge of felony murder in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54c, the state needed to prove that: (1) the defendant, acting alone or with another participant, committed or attempted to commit robbery; and (2) in the course of or in furtherance of the robbery, he or another participant caused the death of the victim. To convict the defendant of robbery in the first degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-134(a)(2), the state bore the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that in...