State v. Bruno

• Decision Date: 26 March 1996
• Docket Number: No. 14851,14851
• Citation: 673 A.2d 1117,236 Conn. 514
• Parties: , 108 Ed. Law Rep. 762 STATE of Connecticut v. Martyn D. BRUNO.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

Page 1117

673 A.2d 1117

236 Conn. 514, 108 Ed. Law Rep. 762

STATE of Connecticut v. Martyn D. BRUNO.

No. 14851.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Sept. 19, 1995.

Decided March 26, 1996.

Daniel S. Fabricant, Special Public Defender, for appellant (defendant).

Timothy J. Sugrue, Executive Assistant State's Attorney, with whom, on the brief, were Frank S. Maco, State's Attorney, and David Shepack, Assistant State's Attorney, for appellee (state).

Before PETERS, C.J., and CALLAHAN, BERDON, NORCOTT and PALMER, JJ.

NORCOTT, Associate Justice.

The defendant, Martyn D. Bruno, was convicted after a trial to a three judge court of one count of murder in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a-54a and 53a-8, and of three counts of tampering with physical evidence in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a-155(a)(1) and 53a-8. ¹ He received a total effective sentence of sixty years imprisonment. ² He now appeals directly to this court pursuant to General Statutes § 51-199(b). ³

The defendant raises several claims on appeal. He first claims that: (1) the trial court improperly concluded that he had failed to make a sufficient preliminary showing, under the relevant state law standard, to warrant its in camera inspection of certain confidential records of two state's witnesses; (2) alternatively, the trial court improperly prevented him from making the requisite preliminary showing; and (3) the trial court improperly failed to secure for the record certain of the privileged records to which he sought access. He next claims that there was insufficient evidence to support his murder conviction because: (1) there was insufficient evidence of his intent to kill the victim; and (2) the evidence failed to establish that he, and not the state's two key witnesses, killed the victim. Finally, he claims that the trial court improperly: (1) admitted certain testimony; (2) admitted certain physical evidence; and (3) limited his cross-examination of a state's witness. We affirm the judgment of conviction.

The court reasonably could have found the following facts. During the evening of July 17, 1991, David Rusinko was killed while "partying" at an isolated cabin in New Hartford with the defendant, Brian Bingham and Cara Ignacak. At that time, Rusinko and the defendant were both in their mid thirties and had been friends for many years. Bingham, then sixteen years old, had been a frequent drinking companion of the defendant for several months. Bingham and the defendant often visited the property of an abandoned summer camp that abutted the defendant's home, which consisted of 175 acres of wooded property and a number of structures, including a garage-like structure known as the "lower camp," and a three room cabin with a porch known as the "upper camp." Bingham was also acquainted with Rusinko, who was a neighbor, and they occasionally socialized together. Ignacak, then eighteen or nineteen years old, had been Bingham's girlfriend of three and one-half weeks. She had known Bingham from high school for approximately two years before they started dating, had met the defendant several times during the few weeks she and Bingham had been dating, and had met Rusinko for the first time on the day that he was killed.

During the afternoon of July 17, 1991, Bingham sought out Rusinko in New Hartford to ask him to buy liquor and to meet him later that evening, which Rusinko agreed to do. At approximately 6 p.m., Bingham and Ignacak went to the defendant's home and the three went to the lower camp. While there, the defendant told them that he was angry at Rusinko for his role both in the defendant's most recent conviction for drunk driving ⁴ and in a problem with a drug deal, and that he wanted to kill Rusinko.

The defendant and Bingham left the lower camp at 7:30 p.m. on Bingham's motorcycle to buy liquor and to meet Rusinko and invite him to spend the evening with them. They met Rusinko on the road and he agreed to join them and continued on to the lower camp on his bicycle. The defendant and Bingham returned a few minutes later with beer and vodka, and the four remained there for a short time drinking and talking. According to Bingham, the defendant, while at the lower camp, asked him to step in and help if Rusinko started to get the best of him in a fight, and Bingham agreed to do so.

At approximately 8 p.m., the group moved to the cabin at the upper camp. Shortly after their arrival, while Rusinko was inside the cabin, the defendant joined Bingham and Ignacak on the porch and again told them that he intended to harm Rusinko. Shortly thereafter, the defendant began yelling at and shoving Rusinko, but stopped when Ignacak suffered a seizure of some sort. After Ignacak had recovered, the altercation between the defendant and Rusinko resumed, and Bingham stepped in and knocked Rusinko to the floor. The defendant and Bingham then proceeded to beat Rusinko into unconsciousness, first by punching and kicking him, and then by hitting him with pieces of metal pipe that had been lying about the cabin. The defendant next attempted to break Rusinko's neck and, when that failed, slashed his throat. When it appeared that Rusinko was dead, the defendant and Bingham rolled his body into the fire in the cabin's fireplace, along with the steel pipes used to beat him, glass beer bottles and the defendant's sneakers. At approximately 11:30 p.m., when Rusinko's body was "starting to bubble," Bingham and Ignacak left the cabin to bring Ignacak home. The defendant spent the night at the cabin.

The defendant and Bingham returned to the cabin one or two days later to dispose of Rusinko's remains and to conceal other evidence of the murder. They smashed Rusinko's bones in the fireplace, collected them into a plastic bag, and disposed of them in an outhouse at the camp. Police investigating the murder recovered a small amount of human skeletal remains from the outhouse, which were identified as Rusinko's. The defendant and Bingham also threw off the porch the steel pipes that had been burned in the fireplace, attempted to cover blood stains around the cabin with fresh paint, burned the porch railings and the plastic bag and, sometime later, disassembled and buried Rusinko's bicycle.

At trial, the defendant testified in his own defense. He claimed that during the day and evening of the murder he had consumed a great deal of alcohol and Valium and, as a result, had experienced a blackout that evening at the upper camp, which left him unable to remember Rusinko's murder. He admitted to concealing the evidence of the murder with Bingham. His theories of defense were: (1) that Bingham and Ignacak had killed Rusinko without his participation; ⁵ and (2) that, due to his consumption of alcohol and Valium preceding the murder, he had been unable to form the requisite specific intent to murder Rusinko. The trial court convicted the defendant on all counts except for conspiracy to commit murder, and denied his motions for acquittal ⁶ and for a new trial. ⁷ Additional facts will be discussed as they become relevant in the context of the defendant's specific claims.

I

Prior to trial, the defendant moved for disclosure and an in camera examination of any psychiatric records of Ignacak and Bingham for the purpose of discovering material therein relevant to their abilities accurately to perceive, recall and relate events. To this end, he subpoenaed certain of their psychiatric and school records. ⁸ After the state completed its direct examination of each witness, the defendant renewed his motion and made an offer of proof in order to obtain an in camera inspection by the court of the records. The trial court concluded that the defendant had failed to provide a sufficient foundation to warrant further inquiry into the records of either witness and, therefore, denied his request for an in camera inspection. The trial court marked for identification and sealed for appellate review some, but not all, of the records sought by the defendant. ⁹

On appeal, the defendant claims that: (1) the trial court improperly concluded that he had failed to make a sufficient preliminary showing to justify its in camera review of Ignacak's and Bingham's records; (2) alternatively, the trial court improperly prevented him from making a sufficient showing under the proper standard; and (3) the trial court improperly failed to mark for identification and to seal for appellate review certain of Bingham's records. We are persuaded only by the defendant's third contention and conclude that the trial court's failure to preserve the records properly was harmless.

A

We turn first to the defendant's claim that the trial court improperly concluded that his offers of proof were insufficient, under Connecticut law, to warrant its in camera inspection of Ignacak's and Bingham's psychiatric and special education records. We are not persuaded by the defendant's claim.

It is well settled in this state that before a criminal defendant may obtain an in camera inspection of a witness' confidential records ¹⁰ for purposes of impeachment, he or she must first demonstrate that "there is reasonable ground to believe that the failure to produce the information is likely to impair the defendant's right of confrontation such that the witness' direct testimony should be stricken." State v. Esposito, 192 Conn. 166, 179, 471 A.2d 949 (1984); see also State v. Kulmac, 230 Conn. 43, 59, 644 A.2d 887 (1994) (department of children and youth services records); State v. Joyner, 225 Conn. 450, 477, 625 A.2d 791 (1993) (records of treatment for substance abuse); State v. D'Ambrosio, 212 Conn. 50, 58, 561 A.2d 422 (1989), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 1063, 110 S.Ct. 880, 107 L.Ed.2d 963 (1990) (psychiatric and substance abuse treatment records); State v. James, 211 Conn. 555, 578, 560 A.2d 426 (1989) (school records); State v. Pierson, 201 Conn. 211, 225, 514 A.2d 724 (1986), on appeal after remand, 208 Conn. 683, 546 A.2d...