State v. Casey

• Decision Date: 19 August 1986
• Citation: 513 A.2d 1183,201 Conn. 174
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Roy Edward CASEY.

Page 1183

513 A.2d 1183

201 Conn. 174

STATE of Connecticut v. Roy Edward CASEY.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued June 10, 1986.

Decided Aug. 19, 1986.

Temmy Ann Pieszak, Asst. Public Defender, with whom, on brief, were Joette Katz, Public Defender, and Suzanne Zitser, Asst. Public Defender, for appellant (defendant).

Carl Schuman, Asst. State's Atty., with whom were David Cohen, Asst. State's Atty., and, on brief, Eugene J. Callahan State's Atty., and Paul Autley, Law Student Intern, for appellee (State).

Before PETERS, C.J., and HEALEY, SHEA, DANNEHY and F. HENNESSY, JJ.

ARTHUR H. HEALEY, Justice.

The issue dispositive of this appeal is whether the trial court erred in its charge to the jury on the defense of extreme emotional disturbance, provided by General Statutes (Rev. to 1981) § 53a-54a(a). ¹

The defendant was found guilty by a jury of the murder of Brian Williams in violation of General Statutes (Rev. to 1981) § 53a-54a. The trial court had granted the defendant's motion for judgment of acquittal on an additional charge of criminal attempt at murder of the victim's sister. General Statutes §§ 53a-49 and 53a-54a(a). The defendant was sentenced to twenty-five years imprisonment.

The defendant raises six issues on appeal: (1) whether the trial court's instructions on extreme emotional disturbance were adequate; (2) whether the defendant was deprived of a fair trial and due process of law by the state's references to the defendant's invocation of his fifth amendment rights; (3) whether the trial court's instructions on insanity were erroneous; (4) whether the defendant was deprived of effective assistance of counsel; ² (5) whether the trial court erred in refusing to charge the jury on criminally negligent homicide; and (6) whether the trial court's instruction on manslaughter constituted reversible error. ³ While our finding of error on the first issue is dispositive of this appeal, we will discuss such other assignments of error insofar as they may impact on a new trial.

The jury could have reasonably found the following facts: The defendant, Roy E. Casey, rented a room at a low monthly rental from eighty-three year old Madeline Bauerfeld of Belltown Road, Stamford, in exchange for general upkeep and maintenance of her property. On April 19, 1982, at approximately 6:30 p.m., the defendant saw the victim washing a car in the driveway of his home next to the Bauerfeld residence. The defendant and the victim argued about the water from the victim's hose coming onto the Bauerfeld lawn which had been newly seeded that day.

The defendant, fifty-eight years old, and the victim, twenty-two years old, had argued about similar incidents over the years. On the day of the incident, the defendant went into the house to have Bauerfeld speak with the victim. Bauerfeld and the victim became involved in an argument during which the defendant heard the victim say: "F__k you" to her. Bauerfeld then heard her door open. The defendant fired four shots from a shotgun, three of which hit the victim and resulted in his immediate death.

Shortly after the shooting, the defendant telephoned the Stamford police department and reported that he had killed "the bastard that threatened me. [The victim] said he was going to kill me. [The victim is] not going to kill me, 'cause he's dead." He proceeded to supply the police with his and the victim's names, ages and addresses, the type of weapon he had used and its location. He said the argument had begun because the victim had let water run onto his lawn. The tape recording of this telephone conversation with the police from his home was an exhibit in evidence.

Two of the police officers who had responded to the scene testified that the defendant was "unusually calm," "like he was a shell" and that he "didn't really seem to respond too much to the situation." The defendant was then interviewed by the police.

A clinical psychologist, Charles Opsahl, testified for the defense that, based on the results of tests performed on the defendant, the defendant's behavior on the night of the shooting was consistent with a "transient, disassociative state." Opsahl further testified that in such a state, which is a disassociation or separation between thought and feeling, the defendant would have been incapable of forming any intentions and would have fired the gun even if two police officers had been standing "right next to him." The defendant testified at trial that he did not remember getting his gun, loading it, or shooting the victim and he remembered only "parts" of the telephone call to the police and his subsequent arrest and police interview. He remembered Bauerfeld yelling at him that he had killed "the kid next door" and that when he looked out the door and saw the victim, he then telephoned the police.

I

The defendant claims that the trial court denied him his constitutional rights to an adequately instructed jury and to a fair trial by failing to provide the jury with complete instructions on the defense of extreme emotional disturbance. We see no need to invoke a constitutional analysis in order to resolve this claim. The defendant filed a written request to charge on the defense of extreme emotional disturbance that included the statements that a "homicide influenced by an extreme emotional disturbance is not one which is necessarily committed in the 'hot blood' stage" and that the "defense does not even require a provoking or triggering event." The court did not instruct the jury as requested by the defendant. The defendant contends that the instructions, because they did not incorporate his request, were inadequate under the circumstances of this case. We agree.

A request to charge which is relevant to the issues of the case and which is an accurate statement of the law must be given. A refusal to charge in the exact words of a request will not constitute error if the requested charge is given in substance. State v. Gabriel, 192 Conn. 405, 418, 473 A.2d 300 (1984); State v. Cooper, 182 Conn. 207, 211, 438 A.2d 418 (1980). The state does not dispute that the request was relevant to an issue in the case, the defendant's intent, or that it was an accurate statement of the law. Rather, the state argues that the court's instructions "adequately covered" the substance of the defendant's request and that the requested language "would not have added appreciably to the jury's understanding of the law...." We disagree.

The trial court's charge on extreme emotional disturbance began with a reading of the relevant language of § 53a-54a(a) that "it shall be an affirmative defense that the Defendant acted under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance for which there was a reasonable explanation or excuse, the reasonableness of which is to be determined from the viewpoint of a person in the defendant's situation under the circumstances as the defendant believed them to be, provided nothing contained in this subsection shall constitute a defense to a prosecution for or preclude a conviction of manslaughter in the first degree or any other crime." The court then noted that a defense of extreme emotional disturbance may mitigate culpability and that the burden of proving its existence was on the defendant, and defined the terms "extreme" and "emotional disturbance." In informing the jury about the preconditions for invocation of the defense, the court stated that the defendant was required to prove that he "was exposed to an extremely unusual and overwhelming state, that is, not mere annoyance or unhappiness" and that "[t]he defendant had an extreme emotional reaction to it as a result of which there was a loss of self control, and reason was over borne by extreme intense feelings such as passion, anger, distress, grief, excessive agitation or other similar emotions." The court nowhere alluded to the possibility that extreme emotional disturbance might arise by virtue of a significant mental trauma causing a long period of brooding and a sudden, apparently unprovoked, violent reaction.

In State v. Elliott, 177 Conn. 1, 6-7, 411 A.2d 3 (1979), we cited with approval Patterson v. New York, 432 U.S. 197, 97 S.Ct. 2319, 53 L.Ed.2d 281 (1977), in which the United States Supreme Court "noted that the defense of extreme emotional disturbance is a considerably expanded version of the common law defense of heat of passion or sudden provocation." We determined in State v. Elliott, supra, that § 53a-54a(a) "does not require a provoking or triggering event" nor does it require that the homicide be committed in the hot blood stage; id.; and that the "defenses of extreme emotional disturbance and heat of passion are not interchangeable." Id., 177 Conn. at 4, 411 A.2d 3. The charge on this defense to the extent given by the trial court was inadequate under the circumstances of this case.

The basis for the defense theory at trial was the entire history of the relationship between the defendant and the victim rather than the single incident of the water on the newly seeded lawn and the subsequent argument that occurred just prior to the killing. The defense sought to show that the homicide in this case, as in Elliott, "was brought about by a significant mental trauma that caused the defendant to brood for a long period of time and then react violently, seemingly without provocation." Id., 8, 411 A.2d 3.

This case more closely resembles State v. Elliott than State v. Reid, 193 Conn. 646, 480 A.2d 463 (1984), in which we held jury instructions similar to those found to be erroneous in State v. Elliott, supra, to constitute harmless error. In State v. Reid, supra, the defendant was nevertheless found guilty of manslaughter in the first degree despite the erroneous jury instructions. Unlike the present case, the erroneous portion of the charge in State v. Reid, supra, 659, 480 A.2d 463, was "wholly compatible with the defendant's theory" of a sudden, single incident of...