State v. Beltran

• Decision Date: 11 August 1998
• Docket Number: No. 15635,15635
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Miguel M. BELTRAN.

Page 168

717 A.2d 168

246 Conn. 268

STATE of Connecticut v. Miguel M. BELTRAN.

No. 15635.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued May 28, 1998.

Decided Aug. 11, 1998.

Elizabeth M. Inkster, Assistant Public Defender, for appellant (defendant).

Frederick W. Fawcett, Assistant State's Attorney, with whom, on the brief, was Jonathan C. Benedict, State's Attorney, for appellee (State).

Before BORDEN, BERDON, NORCOTT, KATZ and PALMER, JJ.

BORDEN, Associate Justice.

The defendant appeals ¹ from the judgment of conviction, after a jury trial, of one count of capital felony in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54b (8). ² The defendant claims that: (1) the trial court's instructions on self-defense were flawed; and (2) he was deprived of his state and federal constitutional rights to equal protection of the laws because the trial court improperly sustained the state's peremptory challenge to a Hispanic venireperson. We affirm the judgment.

The jury reasonably could have found the following facts. The defendant, Miguel M. Beltran, a fifty-five year old married man, had been involved romantically with one of the victims, thirty-three year old Lucy Torres, for approximately three years. Prior to September 29, 1995, Torres had ended her relationship with the defendant, and at that time she was dating the other victim, Wilfredo M. Reyes. The defendant repeatedly had attempted but failed to resume his relationship with Torres. Within the two week period between their break-up and September 29, 1995, the defendant called Gloria Rivera, Torres' friend, several times each day asking Rivera to help him mend his relationship with Torres. The defendant told Rivera that he would kill Torres if she did not resume their relationship in two weeks. Early in the evening of September 29, 1995, the defendant told Jose Torres, the victim's brother, that he had given her two weeks, and the two weeks were up. On that same day, the defendant telephoned Torres several times, but she declined to speak with him. Instead, Adaliz Cintron, who was living with Torres at the time, spoke with the defendant, and he told Cintron that he had written a letter explaining why he would kill Torres.

Later that night, Torres, Jose Torres, Cintron, Rivera and Reyes were gathered at the Spanish-American Family Center, a social club located in Bridgeport. Between 10:15 and 10:45 p.m., the defendant arrived at the club. He had not been to the club for approximately one year. While at the club, the defendant told Gilberto Garcia, the proprietor of the club, that he had decided to do what he had vowed to do and he pointed at Torres. On his way out, the defendant passed by the victims' table, which was located near the club's exit, and told Reyes that he wanted to see him outside. Reyes, accompanied by Torres, followed the defendant outside. Approximately twenty seconds later, four closely-spaced gun shots were heard. Jose Torres, Rivera and Cintron went outside, where they saw the defendant standing behind his car taking the bullet casings out of a gun that he was holding and putting them into his pocket. All three individuals saw the defendant get in his car and drive away.

Jose Torres, Rivera and Cintron then saw Reyes and Torres lying on the ground motionless and bleeding. The defendant had shot Torres twice. One bullet had entered the palm of Torres' right hand and exited from its back. The other bullet initially had penetrated her left rib cage, pierced her left lung, abraded her heart, fractured a thoracic vertebrae, and passed through the lower part of her right lung before exiting her body three inches above its point of entry. This bullet killed Torres.

The defendant also had shot Reyes twice. One bullet had grazed Reyes' right arm, and the other, the fatal bullet, had entered his right buttock, passed through his pelvic bone and the pelvic area damaging an artery, traveled through the bladder, penetrated the opposite side of the pelvic bone, injured another artery, and finally exited his body from the groin area. Reyes bled to death.

Both victims had been shot by a high-powered weapon at close range. Although the police did not find a weapon or any empty bullet casings at the scene of the crime, they did find an empty case for a .44 caliber handgun and .44 caliber ammunition at the defendant's house. Forensic tests performed on the defendant's hands and clothing indicated that he recently had fired a gun, while tests on Reyes' hands conclusively indicated that he had not fired a gun.

At the defendant's trial, he claimed self-defense, ³ and offered the jury the following evidence to support his claim. ⁴ Reyes and the defendant had exchanged words while the defendant was leaving the club. Reyes and Torres followed the defendant outside, where Reyes verbally threatened and insulted the defendant while keeping his hand behind his back as if Reyes was concealing a weapon. While maintaining this posture, Reyes approached the defendant and slapped him. The defendant reacted by grabbing Reyes' right hand, in which Reyes was holding a gun, and a struggle over the gun ensued. While Torres was attempting to separate the two by positioning herself between them, the gun accidentally discharged four shots. According to the defendant, he left the gun at the scene and drove away only because he thought Torres' friends and family might attempt to kill him. The defendant speculated that no gun was found at the scene because it had been picked up by one of the bystanders before the arrival of the police.

The trial court instructed the jury on the defense of self-defense. The jury found the defendant guilty of two counts of murder and one count of capital felony as charged in the information. The trial court merged the two murder counts with the capital felony count, and rendered a judgment of conviction accordingly. This appeal followed.

I

The defendant raises two challenges to the trial court's instructions on self-defense, namely, that the trial court improperly failed to instruct the jury on: (1) mistake of fact as requested by the defendant; and (2) the initial aggressor doctrine. We reject both of these claims.

A

The defendant first claims that the trial court improperly omitted instructions on the defense of mistake of fact from its charge to the jury. ⁵ We reject this claim because the evidence in this case did not require a specific mistake of fact instruction.

The defense of mistake of fact is available under General Statutes § 53a-6 (a), which provides in relevant part: "A person shall not be relieved of criminal liability for conduct because he engages in such conduct under a mistaken belief of fact, unless: (1) Such factual mistake negates the mental state required for the commission of an offense ... or (3) such factual mistake is of a kind that supports a defense of justification." A mistake of fact exists "when one makes an erroneous perception of the facts as they actually exist.... The defense arises only where the defendant misperceives an objective state of existing fact...." (Citation omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Silveira, 198 Conn. 454, 460-61, 503 A.2d 599 (1986). An instruction on mistake of fact is required "only when evidence supporting [this] ... defense is placed before the jury." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Id., at 462, 503 A.2d 599; see also State v. Fuller, 199 Conn. 273, 278, 506 A.2d 556 (1986). "The court ... has a duty not to submit to the jury, in its charge, any issue upon which the evidence would not reasonably support a finding." State v. Diggs, 219 Conn. 295, 299, 592 A.2d 949 (1991). No mistake of fact instruction was required in the present case because there was no evidence showing that the defendant acted under any mistaken belief of fact.

In this case, the state argued to the jury that the defendant, acting out of jealousy and rage, executed his plan to shoot and kill Reyes and Torres. On the other hand, the defendant contended that he had been threatened by Reyes, forcing the defendant to defend himself. According to the defendant, Reyes not only had assumed a posture of attack by threatening and insulting the defendant while aggressively advancing toward the defendant with his hand behind his back, but Reyes actually drew a gun to attack the defendant. The defendant maintained throughout the trial that because of Reyes' attack, which resulted in a struggle over the gun, the victims were accidentally shot. He did not testify nor was there any other evidence showing that he later found his perception of these events to be incorrect. Hence, there was no evidence tending to show a factual mistake on the part of the defendant's comprehension of the circumstances to be tested by the jury. Therefore, an instruction regarding a mistake of fact was unwarranted.

B

The defendant's second challenge to the self-defense instruction is that the trial court improperly failed to instruct the jury on the initial aggressor doctrine. This claim, which the defendant raises under State v. Golding, 213 Conn. 233, 567 A.2d 823 (1989), is unavailing. ⁶

Under Golding, the defendant may prevail if: (1) the record is adequate for reviewing the alleged error; (2) the alleged error is of a constitutional dimension; (3) the defendant's alleged constitutional claim clearly exists and clearly deprived him of a fair trial; and (4) the error was not harmless. Id., at 239-40, 567 A.2d 823. The first two steps in the Golding analysis address the reviewability of the claim, while the last two steps involve the merits of the claim.

We agree with the defendant that the record is adequate for a determination of whether the instruction, as given by the court, comported with the law. We also agree that an instruction that omits an element of a defense is constitutionally inadequate. State v. Corchado, 188 Conn. 653, 660, 453 A.2d 427 (1982). We conclude, however, that the defendant's claim fails because ...