State v. Chiellini, 88-83-C

• Decision Date: 24 April 1989
• Docket Number: No. 88-83-C,88-83-C
• Parties: STATE, v. John CHIELLINI. A.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

Page 1195

557 A.2d 1195

STATE, v. John CHIELLINI.

No. 88-83-C.A.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

April 24, 1989.

James E. O'Neil, Atty. Gen., Mary E. Rogers, Nicholas Trott Long, Asst. Atty. Gens., for plaintiff.

Catherine A. Gibran, Barbara Hurst, Asst. Public Defenders, for defendant.

OPINION

MURRAY, Justice.

On July 9, 1985, a corpse was discovered lying face down in the tall grass of Merino Park in Providence, Rhode Island. Clad only in socks and sneakers, the woman's scarred body was heavily infested with maggots. The deceased was fifty-four-year-old Verna Mester. She had been stabbed over ninety times about the face, neck, chest, abdomen, legs, and arms. Two days in the July heat had badly decomposed the body.

Arthur C. Burns, former deputy chief medical examiner, performed an autopsy on Mester's remains. Although most of the wounds were superficial and individually would not have been life threatening, Dr. Burns concluded that Mester had bled to death. The medical examiner could determine neither the precise depth of the wounds nor the type of knife or blade used to kill Mester because of extensive decomposition. For this same reason, Dr. Burns also did not test for evidence of sexual activity or abuse.

Friends last saw Verna Mester alive on July 6, 1985. On that fateful night Mester and her live-in boyfriend of two years, Gilbert Jackman, visited a tavern known as Bobby's Lounge on Manton Avenue in Providence. The defendant, John Chiellini (Chiellini), was present in the barroom that evening. Jackman departed for home while Mester remained behind to converse with her friends Emily, Cindy, and Peggy. Chiellini left the bar at 11 p.m. At approximately ten minutes before midnight Mester and her companion Emily emerged from the tavern. The two women talked briefly on the street corner before going their separate ways. As Emily turned to walk from Bobby's Lounge to the Wedgewood, a tavern owned by defendant's in-laws, she cautioned Mester about venturing alone down a darkened and deserted Delaine Street. Mester had been drinking heavily that night and smoking generic-brand cigarettes.

At approximately 12:15 a.m. Doris Conklin (Mrs. Conklin), defendant's mother-in-law, was standing in front of the Wedgewood Tavern to catch a breath of fresh air when she saw Chiellini drive by in her daughter's car. The defendant was alone, and the vehicle appeared to be in fine condition at that time. The car accelerated by Mrs. Conklin, turned around in a gas station lot, and circled back past the Wedgewood within the span of a few minutes. Chiellini had taken the car earlier that evening, leaving his wife and children at home.

When defendant returned home at four o'clock in the morning, he woke his wife, Doris Chiellini (Doris), and told her that another vehicle had slammed into their car at 11 p.m. in front of the Wedgewood Tavern. The next morning Doris examined the car and discovered that "[i]t had a smashed grill. The license plate was on my kitchen table. There was a pack of no-name cigarettes on the front floor. There was flowers from the woods in the driver's door * * * and a blue jacket on the back seat." She further noticed that the taillights were damaged. Later that day defendant cleaned the interior and exterior of the car thoroughly. Doris thought this rather unusual. Doris also found the terry-cloth shirt which Chiellini had worn the night before crumpled on a pile of dirty clothes in the laundry basket. The shirt was covered with blood. When Doris asked her husband what had happened to his shirt, defendant explained that he had cut his finger while working on their vehicle's carburetor. Chiellini also borrowed a police scanner from his sister that day and listened to it constantly.

Concerned, Doris told her mother about the incident. After learning that a body had been discovered in Merino Park, Mrs. Conklin telephoned the Providence police department. She informed the police about defendant's blood-soaked shirt and the fictitious automobile accident. Mrs. Conklin also told the police the location of her daughter's car.

On July 10, 1985, Detective James Higgins located the car on Marvin Street in the Olneyville section of Providence. Upon noticing the broken taillight, Higgins recalled that while investigating the crime scene on the previous day, he had observed fragments of a taillight lens in close proximity to the body. Detective Higgins then returned to Merino Park and retrieved this evidence. Small pieces of chromeplated plastic were also discovered in the vicinity of the body by the Bureau of Criminal Investigation.

Detective James Ronald Wilson had the car towed to the police impoundment lot on orders from headquarters. When Doris noticed the car missing shortly thereafter, she reported it stolen. At that point Detective Wilson asked her to come to the station house for questioning. While at the station Doris gave the police permission to search both her car and her home. Despite having her written consent, the police obtained warrants before searching either the automobile or the house. The police inventoried the car first and seized numerous items including pieces of the damaged taillight assembly and the front grille. Doris next accompanied the police to her house for a full-scale search. Among other things seized from the Chiellinis' home were defendant's shirt and trousers, a penknife, and a package of generic cigarettes.

On November 22, 1985, a grand jury returned an indictment against Chiellini, charging him with the murder of Verna Mester. At trial John Henry Jackson, a resident of a high-rise-apartment complex overlooking Merino Park, testified that in the early morning hours of July 7, 1985, he heard engines racing and tires squealing on the street below. He peered outside his window and saw a van attempting to free a lightcolored brown car that appeared to be stuck on a rubbish pile in the park. Jackson stated that the van initially pushed the automobile from the rear. When the car's left taillight broke, the van then pushed from the front. The two men operating the vehicles finally extricated the car after half an hour's effort. Later at the police garage, Jackson identified Chiellini's car as the vehicle he had seen that morning. Doris had testified that defendant's brother had access to a van.

The state called three expert witnesses on its behalf. David Nichols, a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent specializing in plastics analysis, testified that he had examined the pieces of the taillight lens at the request of the Providence police department. His examination revealed that the lens fragments found at the park belonged to Chiellini's vehicle. Nichols also testified that the pieces of plastic discovered near the crime scene had broken off the front grille of Chiellini's automobile.

The chief forensic serologist of the FBI Crime Laboratory, William Eubanks, testified that he had examined blood samples from both Verna Mester and defendant. Because Mester's blood had deteriorated so badly, Eubanks could only obtain an enzyme grouping for it. Relying on the results of this enzyme analysis, Eubanks determined that the blood stains on Chiellini's shirt were consistent with the blood type of Verna Mester. He further elaborated that only 7 percent of the Caucasian population has that particular blood-enzyme grouping. Eubanks concluded that the blood on the shirt was not Chiellini's.

Peter R. DeForest, an expert in criminalistics, testified that he had examined the blood stains on defendant's shirt. DeForest stated that these stains were in a "spatter pattern." Such a pattern, DeForest noted, is consistent with stabbing or bludgeoning. DeForest also found a denser distribution of bloodstains near Chiellini's leftfront pocket, suggesting that the distance from the left side of the shirt to the source of blood was shorter than other areas of the garment. Doris had testified earlier that defendant was left-handed.

This trial concluded after ten days with the record comprising two volumes of 582 pages. The jury returned a guilty verdict against Chiellini for second degree murder. The trial justice denied defendant's motion for a new trial and sentenced him to life imprisonment. Chiellini raises three arguments on appeal. We shall address defendant's contentions in the order in which they appear in his brief.

I

The first argument raised by defendant addresses prosecutorial misconduct. The defendant claims that the prosecutor, through Detective James Wilson, intentionally or recklessly misled the grand jury by exaggerating or fabricating incriminating evidence against him. Such blatant and flagrant prosecutorial malfeasance, Chiellini argues, impaired the integrity of the grand-jury process and violated his federal and state constitutional rights. ¹ Despite having been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of murdering Mester, defendant urges this court to dismiss the indictment brought against him. This we decline to do.

The burden of establishing that prosecutorial improprieties or irregularities before the grand jury were of such a flagrant and overbearing nature as to justify dismissal of an indictment is a heavy one, particularly after a petit jury has found a defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the charges contained therein. The United States Supreme Court, as well as this court, has recently stated that dismissal of an indictment based upon an alleged nonconstitutional error is appropriate only " 'if it is established that the violation substantially influenced the grand jury's decision to indict,' or if there is 'grave doubt' that the decision to indict was free from the substantial influence of such violations." Bank of Nova Scotia v. United States, 487 U.S. 250, ----, 108 S.Ct. 2369, 2374, 101 L.Ed.2d 228, 238 (1988) (quoting United States v. Mechanik, 475 U.S. 66, 78, 106 S.Ct. 938, 945-46, 89 L.Ed.2d 50, 60-61 (1986) (O'Connor, J., concurring)...