State v. Austin, 15369
| Decision Date | 31 March 1998 |
| Docket Number | No. 15369,15369 |
| Citation | 244 Conn. 226,710 A.2d 732 |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE of Connecticut v. Richard AUSTIN. |
Susan M. Hankins, Assistant Public Defender, with whom, on the brief, was Temmy Ann Pieszak, Supervisory Assistant Public Defender, for appellant (defendant).
Judith Rossi, Senior Assistant State's attorney, with whom, on the brief, was Michael Dearington, State's Attorney, for appellee (State).
Before CALLAHAN, C.J., and BERDON, NORCOTT, PALMER and McDONALD, JJ.
The defendant, Richard Austin, was convicted by a jury of murder in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54a(a) 1 and carrying a pistol without a permit in violation of General Statutes § 29-35. 2 On appeal 3 from the judgment of the trial court, 4 the defendant challenges the propriety of several of the trial court's jury instructions, as well as the admission of certain identification evidence. Specifically, the defendant claims that the court improperly instructed the jury concerning: (1) the element of intent; (2) consideration of his mitigating evidence of intoxication; (3) manslaughter in the first degree pursuant to General Statutes § 53a-55(a)(3) by describing it as "reckless indifference manslaughter"; and (4) the definition of the term "extreme" as used in his affirmative defense of extreme emotional disturbance. The defendant further claims that the trial court improperly denied his motions to suppress identifications of him as the assailant. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.
The jury reasonably could have found the following facts. The defendant and the victim, Gloria Austin, were married in 1989. During the summer of 1991, the couple began having marital problems that resulted in domestic disturbances. The defendant was arrested twice in 1991, for incidents involving violence against his wife but the victim chose not to press charges. She did, however, obtain a restraining order on two separate occasions.
The defendant and the victim separated in October, 1992. The victim and the couple's three children remained in the family's apartment at 393 Sherman Avenue in New Haven, and the defendant moved into his mother's house on Southwest Drive in New Haven. In the spring of 1992, the victim filed for a divorce, which became final on December 30, 1992. At that time, the victim was employed as a nurse's aid at a New Haven nursing home. On January 16, 1993, the victim, who was scheduled to work at 11 p.m., left her apartment to go to work at approximately 10:30 p.m.
That night, Marie Garrett, who lived next door to the victim, went to her window because she heard a woman shouting for help. Garrett saw a woman running down Sherman Avenue with a man chasing her. The woman tried to get into a car that was stopped at a traffic light but the car pulled away. The woman then ran across the street. Garrett subsequently heard a gunshot and saw the woman fall. Thereafter, the man stood over her body and fired several more shots. He then ran across the street into an alley between two houses. Garrett was unable to identify the man.
Rosco Sheffield and Priscilla Knox also observed the shooting. Sheffield saw a woman running down Sherman Avenue with a man chasing her with a gun in his hand. Sheffield heard the man shout at the woman: "[Y]ou're dead wrong!" Sheffield saw the woman try to get into a car that was stopped for a light but the car sped off when the man pointed a gun at the windshield. The woman then ran toward Sheffield, with the man still chasing her. Frightened, Sheffield ran up Goffe Street away from the shooter and, as he did, he heard three gunshots. Sheffield came back to Sherman Avenue after running around the block and saw the woman lying on the ground.
Priscilla Knox was standing on the corner of Goffe Street and Sherman Avenue waiting for a friend, when she saw a woman running down Sherman Avenue screaming: Knox saw the woman, with a man following her, run to a car that was stopped at a traffic light and the car pull away. Although the man was not directly facing her, Knox could see his face. When he was approximately five to six feet away from the woman, Knox heard gunshots and saw the woman fall to the ground, after which Knox heard additional gunshots. The victim was taken to the hospital where she died of a gunshot wound to the back of her head. Two .25 caliber shell casings were found at the scene of the shooting.
Thereafter, Sheffield and Knox each identified the defendant as the shooter. At trial, the defendant testified and admitted that he had shot the victim. He claimed, however, that he did not intend to kill her. According to the defendant, although he and the victim were separated and she had filed for divorce, he was unaware that the divorce had become final and he had hoped for a reconciliation.
At trial, the defendant raised the affirmative defense of extreme emotional disturbance pursuant to § 53a-54a(a) and introduced evidence of intoxication in accordance with General Statutes § 53a-7. 5 Because the defendant admitted that he had shot the victim, the central issue in the trial was his intent. The defendant's testimony concerning the immediate circumstances surrounding his shooting of the victim was as follows. On January 13, three days before the shooting, he found a card and love letter from the victim to another man. Feeling "disappointed" and "distraught," the defendant decided to quit his job and move to Atlanta. On January 16, the defendant found another card and letter from the victim to the other man. When he telephoned the victim, she refused to speak to him. When he called again, a man answered the telephone and told the defendant not to call there anymore. The defendant testified that he then went to the victim's house but she was not at home. His daughter told him that the victim was seeing another man and had obtained a restraining order against the defendant. He returned to his mother's house where he proceeded to drink alcohol and use narcotics.
The defendant was familiar with the victim's work schedule and decided to confront her that night when she left for work. He carried a .25 caliber handgun in his pocket for protection, which, according to his testimony, was a common practice. He walked from his mother's house to the victim's house and waited in the driveway by the rear of her car for the victim to come out. As the victim was standing outside the apartment locking the front door, the defendant asked her why she was having another man in the house with the children present. According to the defendant, the victim replied: " " The defendant said he "went ballistic" and yelled: "You're dead wrong!" He then pulled out his gun. The victim screamed and ran away from him. He testified that he chased her, intending to grab her and take her back to the house to confront the other man. He fired two shots at the victim, who fell to the ground. He denied firing any shots after she fell. The defendant then ran from the scene and hid the gun under a discarded tire. 6
The jury found the defendant guilty of murder. Thereafter, the trial court denied the defendant's motions for a new trial and judgment of acquittal and rendered judgment in accordance with the jury verdict. This appeal followed. Additional facts will be set forth as they become relevant in the context of the defendant's specific claims.
We first address the defendant's challenge to the trial court's instruction on the element of intent. In its preliminary instructions, the trial court charged the jury that "a person acts intentionally with respect to a result or to conduct [described by a statute defining an offense] when his conscious objective is to cause such result or to engage in such conduct." The defendant contends that the portion of the definition relating to conduct improperly permitted the jury to find him guilty of murder if it found that he had the intent to engage in the conduct of firing his weapon. The state, on the other hand, argues that the trial court repeatedly gave a proper statement of the elements of each offense and that the jury was properly guided in its deliberations. The state argues that, in view of the entire charge and the instructional sheets that were distributed to the jury that properly listed the elements of each offense, the jury could not have been misled. We agree with the state.
The following additional facts are relevant to our resolution of this issue. During the trial court's preliminary instructions, the court read the statutory definition of intent contained in General Statutes § 53a-3(11). 7 The court then instructed the jury on the elements of murder, stating that in order to find the defendant guilty of murder, the jury must find that he specifically intended to cause the death of the victim. 8 The trial court also instructed the jury on intoxication, extreme emotional disturbance and the lesser included offense of manslaughter in the first degree pursuant to General Statutes § 53a-55. 9 At the conclusion of the court's charge the defendant objected to the conduct portion of the instruction on intent. 10 The trial court did not reinstruct the jury. The trial court then provided the jury with instructional handouts that listed the elements of the various crimes and did not contain a definition of intent.
During their deliberations, the jurors inquired of the court: The defendant reiterated his concern that the portion of the definition on intent relating to conduct may have confused the jury. The court reread its original charge and reinstructed the jury that: ...
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