State v. Correa

• Decision Date: 10 June 1997
• Docket Number: No. SC,SC
• Citation: 696 A.2d 944,241 Conn. 322
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Jesus Alberto CORREA.

Page 944

696 A.2d 944

241 Conn. 322

STATE of Connecticut v. Jesus Alberto CORREA.

No. SC 14956 Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Dec. 9, 1996.

Decided June 10, 1997.

Susan M. Hankins, Assistant Public Defender, with whom, on the brief, was John M. Barton, Assistant Public Defender, for appellant (defendant).

Michael E. O'Hare, Deputy Assistant State's Attorney, with whom was John M. Massameno, Senior Assistant State's Attorney, for appellee (State).

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

McDONALD, Associate Justice.

The defendant, Jesus Correa, was charged in an eleven count information with crimes committed during the November 15, 1990 murder and robbery of two men on Adelaide Street in Hartford and with the crime of attempted escape from the Hartford community correctional center. The defendant was convicted, after a jury trial, of all counts. ¹ Following a capital penalty hearing in which the jury found a mitigating factor, the defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of release, to run concurrently with additional sentences totaling seventy years. The defendant appeals from the judgment of conviction to this court pursuant to General Statutes § 51-199(b)(3).

The defendant claims that the trial court improperly: (1) admitted into evidence his statements to police because the statements were involuntary and given without a knowing, voluntary and intelligent waiver of his Miranda ² rights; (2) gave the jury a supplemental instruction that he could be convicted as an accessory; (3) violated his state constitutional right to due process by rendering a judgment of conviction of capital felony even though the jurors did not unanimously agree on either accessorial or principal liability; (4) refused to grant his motion for a mistrial after the state introduced inadmissible evidence; and (5) admitted expert testimony that invaded the province of the jury and was more prejudicial than probative. The defendant also claims that a new trial should be granted because the state's attorney, in closing arguments, violated his constitutional rights by appealing to ethnic prejudice and commenting on his refusal to testify. The defendant also requests that we inspect documents sealed by the trial court to determine whether they should have been disclosed pursuant to the Brady ³ doctrine. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The jury reasonably could have found the following facts. Rodolfo Garcia Tamayo was a Hartford drug dealer. Jorge Trujillo Izquierdo, a native of Colombia, South America, supplied Garcia with cocaine from New York. On November 14, 1990, Garcia met with the defendant and Yo-Yo, another drug dealer. Yo-Yo, whose identity remains unknown, was a Colombian who formerly had been a steady customer of Trujillo. Garcia and Trujillo agreed that on the following day, November 15, 1990, they would sell the defendant and Yo-Yo one kilogram of cocaine for $20,000.

Between 7:30 and 8 p.m. on November 15, 1990, the defendant borrowed a tan Cadillac El Dorado from Felix Rivera, who planned to sell the car to the defendant. The defendant had agreed to pay Rivera $1800 for the car, of which one half would be paid in cash and one half in cocaine. When the defendant borrowed the car, he told Rivera that he needed it to go "get the stuff" in order to pay for the car.

The defendant and another person took the Cadillac to Adelaide Street, where Garcia and Trujillo were already waiting in Garcia's car. When the defendant approached Garcia's car, Garcia attempted to exit his car. The defendant shot Garcia in the shoulder and head, and Garcia fell back into the driver's seat. The defendant then shot Trujillo, who was in the passenger seat, at close range in the head. He then shot Garcia again in the head. Garcia and Trujillo died of those wounds. Thereafter, the defendant removed a metal box from the back seat of Garcia's car, ran to the Cadillac and jumped into its passenger side. The defendant and the driver then left the scene in the Cadillac.

After disposing of his gun, the defendant took the metal box to the apartment of his girlfriend, Elizabeth Delgado, arriving at about 9 p.m. The defendant had blood on his clothes. He told Delgado that "he had gotten into a fight ... and he had to throw the gun away." Inside the box was a block of cocaine with a street value of $100,000. The defendant gave one or two ounces of the cocaine to Rivera in partial payment of the Cadillac. The defendant then put the empty box in the Cadillac and hid the remaining cocaine in his apartment at 54 Barker Street in Hartford.

Five days later, on November 20, 1990, the defendant was stopped in the Cadillac and arrested. During the early morning hours of November 21, 1990, the Hartford police executed a search warrant at the defendant's apartment. In the broiler pan storage area of the defendant's oven, they found a bag containing 839.7 grams of cocaine. At the defendant's apartment, the police also seized a shirt that later tested positive for gunshot residue on the left sleeve. Tests on the Cadillac showed similar residue on the steering wheel and the passenger door. The police found a metal box in the Cadillac and opened it with a key from Garcia's key ring.

The jury could have found that the defendant's crimes were motivated by the fact that he did not have $20,000 to pay Garcia and Trujillo for the cocaine and that he went to the meeting armed and intending to murder them and leave with the cocaine. The jury, therefore, could have, and did, find the crimes to be robbery murders.

On December 6, 1991, it was discovered that the defendant had cut the top and bottom portions of a bar in his cell window at the Hartford community correctional center. The defendant had used tape to hold the bar in place and to conceal what he had done. A hacksaw, pliers, screwdriver, and a roll of tape were found in the defendant's cell. The defendant had also broken part of the louver window outside of the cell bars.

I

The defendant claims that the trial court improperly admitted into evidence three statements that he had given to the Hartford police. He argues that the statements were involuntary and given only as a result of threats, coercion and inducements made by the police. The defendant also claims that he made the statements without a knowing, intelligent and voluntary waiver of his Miranda rights. We find no merit to the defendant's claims.

"[T]he use of an involuntary confession in a criminal trial is a denial of due process of law. Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 398, 98 S.Ct. 2408 [2416-17], 57 L.Ed.2d 290 (1978); Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 376, 84 S.Ct. 1774 [1780], 12 L.Ed.2d 908 (1964); Culombe v. Connecticut, 367 U.S. 568, 602, 81 S.Ct. 1860 [1879], 6 L.Ed.2d 1037 (1961); State v. Shifflett, 199 Conn. 718, 727, 508 A.2d 748 (1986). State v. Schroff, 206 Conn. 182, 195, 536 A.2d 952 (1988). Furthermore, a criminal defendant is entitled, as a matter of due process, to a reliable, clear-cut determination prior to trial that the confession sought to be introduced by the state was made voluntarily. Jackson v. Denno, supra [at], 391 . In Connecticut, the preliminary voluntariness determination is made by the trial court. See State v. Oliver, 160 Conn. 85, 95, 273 A.2d 867 (1970), cert. denied, 402 U.S. 946, 91 S.Ct. 1637, 29 L.Ed.2d 115 (1971).

"In order to be voluntary a confession must be the product of an essentially free and unconstrained choice by the maker.... If it is not, if his will has been overborne and his capacity for self-determination critically impaired, the use of the confession offends due process.... State v. Chung, [202 Conn. 39, 53, 519 A.2d 1175 (1987) ]. The determination of whether a confession is voluntary must be based on a consideration of the totality of circumstances surrounding it; id., [at] 53-54 ; including both the characteristics of the accused and the details of the interrogation.... State v. Madera, 210 Conn. 22, 41, 554 A.2d 263 (1989). Factors that may be taken into account, upon a proper factual showing, include: the youth of the accused; his lack of education; his intelligence; the lack of any advice as to his constitutional rights; the length of detention; the repeated and prolonged nature of the questioning; and the use of physical punishment, such as the deprivation of food and sleep.... Id.; see also State v. Shifflett, supra, 199 Conn. [at] 728 . Under the federal constitution ... coercive police activity is a necessary predicate to the finding that a confession is not voluntary.... Colorado v. Connelly, 479 U.S. 157, 167, 107 S.Ct. 515 [521-22], 93 L.Ed.2d 473 (1986).

"The trial court's findings as to the circumstances surrounding the defendant's interrogation and confession are findings of fact ... which will not be overturned unless they are clearly erroneous.... State v. Atkinson, [235 Conn. 748, 759, 670 A.2d 276 (1996) ]. On the ultimate issue of voluntariness, however, we will conduct an independent and scrupulous examination of the entire record to ascertain whether the trial court's finding is supported by substantial evidence.... State v. Chung, supra, 202 Conn. [at] 54 ...." (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. James, 237 Conn. 390, 410-12, 678 A.2d 1338 (1996).

The following evidence concerning the defendant's statements was introduced. On November 20, 1990, at approximately 8 p.m., Officer Ramon Bermudez of the Hartford police department stopped a tan Cadillac El Dorado occupied by persons identified as suspects in a homicide. Six or seven other police cruisers arrived and several officers, including Bermudez, approached the Cadillac with their service revolvers drawn.

Officer Charles Allen ordered the defendant out of the Cadillac, which he was driving. Bermudez handcuffed the defendant and placed the defendant in his cruiser. ⁴ Rivera, the other occupant of the Cadillac,...