State v. Carpio

• Decision Date: 14 March 2012
• Docket Number: No. 2009–28–C.A.,2009–28–C.A.
• Citation: 43 A.3d 1
• Parties: STATE v. Esteban CARPIO.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

43 A.3d 1

STATE

v.Esteban CARPIO.

No. 2009–28–C.A.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

March 14, 2012.

Jane M. McSoley, Department of Attorney General, for State.

Catherine Gibran, Office of the Public Defender, for Defendant.

Present: SUTTELL, C.J., GOLDBERG, FLAHERTY, ROBINSON, and INDEGLIA, JJ.

OPINION

Justice GOLDBERG, for the Court.

On April 16, 2005, horror descended upon the Providence Police Department when a male suspect, in custody because he was suspected of stabbing an eighty-four-year-old woman, disarmed a veteran police detective and then shot and killed him with his own service weapon.

The defendant, Esteban Carpio (defendant or Carpio), is before the Supreme Court on appeal from a judgment of conviction for the first-degree murder of a police officer; discharging a firearm while committing a crime of violence; and felony assault with a dangerous weapon. The defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, a consecutive sentence of life imprisonment for committing a crime of violence with a firearm resulting in death, and another consecutive twenty-year term for felony assault on an elderly woman. On appeal to this Court, the defendant contends that, based on his mental incapacity, he could not be found guilty of the crimes set forth in the indictment, and that the trial justice improperly instructed the jury on the question of criminal responsibility. The defendant also argues that the sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole was error. We deny and dismiss this appeal and affirm the judgment of the Superior Court in all respects.

Facts and Travel

The tumultuous and tragic events at the heart of this case began to unfold in the early afternoon of April 16, 2005, when Carpio, driving a red van, attempted to rob eighty-four-year-old Madeline Gatta (Mrs. Gatta), as she was standing in front of her home on Swift Street in Providence. The defendant, dressed in black, with his face concealed by a scarf and hat, approached Mrs. Gatta, who immediately began crying out for help; she felt a forceful blow to her upper back, causing her to collapse to the ground.¹ The defendant then undertook the first of three escapes that day—he took off on foot, in the opposite direction from Mrs. Gatta, and then fled in the red van. An alert neighbor was able to obtain the vehicle's registration number before defendant made his escape.

Earlier that same afternoon, Carpio's girlfriend, Samein Phin (Phin), had an appointment for a job interview with an escort service; the interview was to take place at a nearby restaurant. Carpio drove Phin to the designated restaurant in the red van; defendant accompanied Phin into the restaurant, but left shortly thereafter. According to Phin, she was at the interview for about an hour and was unaware of Carpio's whereabouts or activities during that time. Around 2 p.m., defendant called Phin's cell phone to inquire if someone else could drive her home. Phin flatly refused to try to find someone else to drive her, and she directed Carpio to “[c]ome pick me up.” Carpio returned to the restaurant in the red van, but immediately announced, “I want to go home and get the other car.” The two returned to Phin's apartment where they swapped the van for another vehicle and proceeded to the Providence Place Mall.

Meanwhile, a police search for the suspect involved in the assault against Mrs. Gatta continued throughout the afternoon. Aided by the van's license plate number, the investigating officers eventually were able to locate Carpio. The vehicle was registered to a rental agency, and was leased by Phin; Carpio was an authorized driver. The police also learned that defendant had a revoked Massachusetts driver's license and a suspended Rhode Island driver's license. Later that day, when police arrived at Phin's apartment, she initially denied that Carpio was home; however, defendant was apprehended without incident at the apartment.

In confronting Carpio, the officers identified themselves and informed him that they needed to speak with him; they requested that he accompany them to the police station. Phin told Carpio that the Providence Police detectives were there to help him. Although Carpio did not respond to the officers' request to go to the station, he offered no overt resistance when handcuffed. While accompanying defendant to the police cruiser, Detective Charles Boranian (Det. Boranian) felt Carpio begin to pull to his left as if he was preparing to escape; however, he was placed in the rear of the cruiser without resistance. The police officer driving the cruiser described Carpio as calm, the ride to the station as uneventful, and he noted that Carpio did not appear to be under the influence of any drugs or alcohol.

At police headquarters, the arresting detectives escorted Carpio to a conference room; they removed the handcuffs and permitted him to “take a seat wherever he wanted” in the conference room, so that he would be comfortable and feel free to speak with the officers. Tragically, in light of the ensuing events, defendant chose a seat that was in line with the open door. While waiting for the lead investigator—Detective James Allen (Det. Allen)—to arrive, the other detectives engaged Carpio in small talk in an effort to put him at ease. The defendant responded by repeating the officers' questions before giving an answer, if he answered at all. Carpio told the detectives that his name was Boselino Carr, that he worked as a barber, lived in Boston, and that he had never been arrested. The record reflects that the majority of this was untrue.²

When Det. Allen entered the conference room, he positioned himself across from Carpio, with his back to the door. Detective Allen's firearm, a department-issued .40–caliber Beretta semi-automatic pistol, plainly was visible in a holster on his belt. At various times during Det. Allen's interview, several detectives entered and left the conference room as the questioning continued. The record discloses that Detective Timothy McGann (Det. McGann) and Detective Emilio Matos (Det. Matos) were present during the beginning of the interview.

Detective Allen began the interview by asking Carpio background questions, similar to those questions posed earlier by the other detectives, but in greater detail. Carpio persisted in repeating the question before giving an answer. According to the detectives, as the interview progressed, Carpio increasingly became rude and disrespectful. The defendant told Det. Allen that he worked as a barber in Massachusetts and that he had a girlfriend and daughter in Rhode Island. When Carpio stated that his name was Boselino Carr and that he had never been arrested, Det. Allen informed him that “we know who you are, and you are in some serious trouble.”At this point, defendant became agitated and began fidgeting in his chair.

Detectives Allen and McGann were alone in the conference room when Carpio asked for a glass of water; Det. McGann left the room to retrieve a glass of water, leaving Carpio alone with Det. Allen. When Det. McGann returned, there was shouting and the sounds of a violent struggle in the conference room, and he was shocked to discover that the conference room door was closed and locked from the inside.

The record discloses that as Det. McGann frantically tried to break down the door, the shouting continued, followed by gunshots and then silence. His calls to Det. Allen received no response, at which point Det. McGann drew his firearm and backed away from the door, expecting Carpio to exit the conference room to attempt an escape. However, as more officers converged on the area, Det. McGann heard several more gunshots. All efforts to communicate with Det. Allen were met with silence. Eventually, after three attempts to breach the door with a battering ram, the officers gained access to the conference room. Detective Allen lay mortally wounded on the conference room floor and Carpio was gone.³ Detective Allen was transported to Rhode Island Hospital by rescue, where he was pronounced dead at 12:29 a.m. on Sunday, April 17, 2005. Detective Allen was fifty years old; he was survived by a wife and two daughters. Detective Allen honorably served the people of Providence for twenty-seven years.

The conference room was in disarray and Carpio was missing. It was not until the officers entered an adjoining office with its window shot out that they realized that Carpio had escaped. The murder weapon, later determined to be Det. Allen's firearm, was discovered on the metal grate below the office with the shattered window. An extensive manhunt was undertaken by the Providence Police, members of the Rhode Island State Police, and the F.B.I. The search was aided by an alert passerby and a vigilant taxi driver. The passerby testified that she and her boyfriend were driving past the Providence Public Safety Complex around midnight on the night of the murder, when she heard the sound of shattering glass and saw glass fragments flying. The witness testified that she saw a man standing in a window several stories above the ground; he pushed the glass out of the window frame and climbed onto the ledge, hanging by his hands before dropping to the ground below. Despite the long fall, the man sprang to his feet and quickly walked down the street. The witness noted that the man was dressed in dark clothing, and was possibly wearing jeans and a black bomber jacket or a hoodie. After striding down the highway overpass, the man jumped over a fence and disappeared from sight.

The defendant, having made his second escape of the day, appeared unannounced at the apartment of a friend, Harmony Boise (Boise), in downtown Providence. Boise noticed that defendant was bleeding from his hands and that he was extremely agitated, continuously looking out the window and chanting, “Niggers ain't shit ... Bitches ain't shit.” The defendant refused to tell Boise what had...