State v. Boles

• Decision Date: 18 August 1992
• Docket Number: No. 14263,14263
• Citation: 613 A.2d 770,223 Conn. 535
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Bruce BOLES.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

Page 770

613 A.2d 770

223 Conn. 535

STATE of Connecticut v. Bruce BOLES.

No. 14263.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued May 5, 1992.

Decided Aug. 18, 1992.

Berdon, J., dissented and filed opinion.

Susan M. Hankins, Asst. Public Defender, with whom, on the brief, was G. Douglas Nash, Public Defender, for appellant (defendant).

Timothy J. Sugrue, Asst. State's Atty., with whom, on the brief, was John M. Connelly, State's Atty., and Robert Brunetti, Asst. State's Atty., for the appellee (state).

Before PETERS, C.J., and CALLAHAN, GLASS, BORDEN and BERDON, JJ.

CALLAHAN, Associate Justice.

The defendant, Bruce Boles, was charged with the crime of murder in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54a (a). ¹ The charge arose out of the bludgeon slaying of a woman, in May, 1989, in Waterbury. After a jury trial, the defendant was found guilty of the charged offense. He was thereafter sentenced by the trial court to a term of imprisonment of fifty years. He has appealed from the judgment of conviction to this court pursuant to General Statutes § 51-199(b).

In his appeal, the defendant claims that the trial court improperly: (1) instructed the jury on the essential element of intent to cause death in violation of his state and federal constitutional rights; (2) excluded evidence of the exculpatory statements of a third party in violation of his constitutional rights and the rules of evidence; (3) excluded evidence of a third party's possible culpability in violation of his constitutional right to present a defense; and (4) failed to give an accomplice charge in regard to the testimony of a witness for the state. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The jury could reasonably have found the following facts. On May 19, 1989, the partially decomposed body of a young woman was found in a wooded area behind the Long Hill Road recreational center in Waterbury. Her body was unclothed, except for a coat pulled over her head and shoulders, and had probably been where it was discovered for a period of between four days to two weeks. Through fingerprints the victim was identified as someone known as "Mecca," a prostitute and drug user. As a result of an autopsy, the medical examiner determined the cause of death to have been blunt traumatic injury to the head, probably caused by three or more severe blows with an instrument consistent with a small crowbar.

The jury could also have found, from the testimony of a witness, Sherrie Washington, that, on an evening in early May, 1989, at approximately 10:30 p.m., Washington, Elan Howard, the victim, the defendant, and others were in the hallway of a building in a housing project at 127 Harris Circle in Waterbury. The victim had gone to the building to buy drugs. While there, she encountered the defendant, who claimed that the victim was indebted to him and confiscated her drug money. In response, the victim screamed at the defendant that she was "dope sick" and needed the drugs. At this point, Howard asked the defendant if the defendant wished him to attempt to quiet the victim down. The defendant, in response, said "No," that he could "handle it," and that she was "really going to be quiet now." The defendant then obtained a small crowbar from a utility closet. With the crowbar, he struck the victim on the left side of the head, causing her to fall back against Howard. He then struck the victim two more blows, the last while she was lying on the floor. Thereafter, frightened, Washington ran from the building. From a position outside 127 Harris Circle, however, she saw the defendant and another man, whom she believed to be Howard, carry the victim's body out of the building and place it in the trunk of an automobile and drive away. The next day the defendant threatened to kill Washington if she disclosed what she had seen the previous night.

Howard testified that he had been present in the hallway at 127 Harris Circle on the night the victim had been killed and that he had seen the defendant inflict the fatal blows. Howard also acknowledged that he had assisted the defendant in carrying the victim's body out of the building and placing it in the trunk of a car. He said he had done so, however, only after having been threatened with death by the defendant if he refused. He also stated that he had been again threatened as he was about to leave after placing the body in the trunk. He then went with the defendant and assisted in removing the body from the automobile, but as soon as the opportunity presented itself he dropped the body and ran.

Further, a statement given by the defendant to Detective Sergeant Joseph Morgan of the Waterbury police department on February 27, 1990, was read to the jury. In his statement the defendant told Morgan that he had been present at 127 Harris Circle the night the victim had been killed and had witnessed the fatal assault. He said, however, that another man had committed it. He then described, and identified from a photographic array, Roger "Eli" Williams as the person who had assaulted and killed the victim with what the defendant said were blows to the head with a hammer. ²

The state, however, produced as a witness Berone Richardson, an employee of the department of corrections. Richardson testified that Williams had been in the custody of the department of corrections at the time in question and had, in fact, been continuously confined from December 28, 1988, until the time of trial.

Other evidence will be related as it becomes relevant to particular issues.

I

The defendant first claims that the trial court, in a portion of its charge, improperly instructed the jury that it could find that the defendant intended to cause the victim's death if it simply found that the defendant's conduct had been the proximate cause of her death. He argues that the trial court, by its instruction, substituted causation for intent, thereby misleading and confusing the jury on the issue of intent to cause death, an essential element of the crime of murder. He contends that the court's instruction violated his constitutional right to due process by relieving the state of the burden to prove, in order to obtain a murder conviction, that the defendant had intended to cause the victim's death. He maintains that, despite the fact that no exception was taken at trial to the controverted segment of the court's charge, he is entitled to review of this claim under Evans and Golding ³ and the plain error doctrine. We disagree.

The instruction of the trial court about which the defendant complains occurred directly after the court had given a correct instruction on the element of intent and while the court was explaining causation. The instruction in question reads as follows:

"Now, the second element is that the defendant, acting with that intent to cause the death of another person, caused the death of that person. This means that the defendant's conduct was the proximate cause of the victim's death. An act or omitted act is a proximate cause of death when it substantially and materially contributes that natural continuous sequence unbroken by any intervening cause to the resulting death. It is the cause without which the death would not have occurred and it's the predominating cause, the substantial factor, from which death followed as a natural, direct, and immediate consequence. It's not necessary that the particular kind of harm that results from the defendant's act be intended by him or the death or injury caused by the defendant's conduct is a foreseeable and natural result of that conduct. The law considers the chain of legal causation unbroken and holds the defendant criminally responsible." ⁴ (Emphasis added.)

The section of the trial court's instruction in question could only be misinterpreted as informing the jury that to find the defendant guilty of the victim's murder it had only to find proven that the defendant was the source of the conduct that caused her death, if we were to view the charge in isolation from what immediately preceded it. Viewing this portion of the charge in such isolation, however, would be completely unjustified, because immediately prior to it the court instructed the jury that "the first element [of the crime of murder] is that the defendant had the intent to cause the death of another person. So now, I'm going to give you the law as it applies to the concept of intent." (Emphasis added.) The court then fully and accurately charged the jury on the element of intent. It then stated: "Now, the second element is that the defendant, acting with that intent to cause the death of another person, caused the death of that person." (Emphasis added.) This was followed by the charge on causation of which the defendant complains.

In the context of the court's instructions concerning intent and causation, it would strain reason to believe that the jury could have heard the challenged instruction as eliminating the element of intent. We believe that construed reasonably in context the meaning conveyed was that obviously intended by the trial court; that is, that the jury, in order to convict the defendant of murder, had to find proven both that the defendant intended to cause the victim's death and that his conduct was, in fact, the proximate cause of her death. ⁵

Moreover, the trial court gave instructions, both prior and subsequent to the instruction at issue, that properly informed the jury that it had to find proven that the defendant intended to cause the victim's death before it could convict him of murder. Of particular note is that, after the instruction concerning causation was given, the trial court charged the jury on the manslaughter crimes that were lesser included offenses of the charged crime of murder. In those instructions the court emphasized that the differentiating factor between murder and the lesser included homicides was the differing intents required for conviction, and that the intent required...