State v. D'Antuono

• Decision Date: 09 March 1982
• Citation: 186 Conn. 414,441 A.2d 846
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Raymond D'ANTUONO.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

Page 846

441 A.2d 846

186 Conn. 414

STATE of Connecticut v. Raymond D'ANTUONO.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Jan. 6, 1982.

Decided March 9, 1982.

Joette Katz, Asst. Public Defender, with whom, on the brief, was Anthony V. DeMayo, Public Defender, for appellant (defendant).

Linda K. Lager, Asst. State's Atty., with whom, on the brief, were Arnold Markle, State's Atty., and Michael Dearington, Asst. State's Atty., for appellee (state).

Before SPEZIALE, C. J., and PETERS, PARSKEY, ARMENTANO and SHEA, JJ.

ARMENTANO, Associate Justice.

On July 23, 1978, a young woman was atrociously beaten and stabbed to death with kitchen utensils. The defendant was indicted by a grand jury for the crime of murder in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54a(a). ¹ He elected to be tried by a three-judge court. The defendant was found guilty as charged, and on June 20, 1979, was sentenced to a term of not less than twenty-five years to life. In the defendant's appeal from the judgment rendered on his conviction, the issues are whether, at the time of the killing, (1) the defendant acted under the influence of an extreme emotional disturbance for which there was a reasonable explanation or excuse, mitigating culpability by explaining his specific intent; and (2) the defendant was so intoxicated that he lacked the capacity to form the specific intent to cause the death of the victim. General Statutes § 53a-54a(a). The defendant does not dispute that he caused her death.

The New Haven police entered the victim's New Haven apartment at approximately 11:15 o'clock on the night of Sunday, July 23, 1978. Her mother had become alarmed when she did not report to work that day at Yale-New Haven Hospital or answer her telephone. The police found the victim lying dead in the bathtub with a canvas handbag over her head. The trial court could reasonably have found that she had been stabbed repeatedly with a two-tined carving fork, a three-tined fork, and a serrated knife with a two-pronged tip. Her nose had been broken, and her face and upper body were severely bruised. These multiple blunt force injuries and stabbings, which penetrated the right common carotid artery, internal jugular veins and heart, and hemorrhaged into the chest and heart sac, caused her death.

Moreover, her body exhibited at least two postmortem slashes extending from each breast to her knees. These slashes probably were executed with the carving fork, which was found with both tines bent back on themselves, and clean of most of the blood, in the bathroom sink. The other fork and the knife were found scattered among the contents of the victim's handbag on the living room floor. One of the fork tines had been broken off, and the other tines were bent. The handles of both utensils were also broken off and found in the bathtub with the body.

The trial court could reasonably have inferred that some of the stabbings occurred in the living room and some in the bedroom, before the body was dragged on the floor into the bathroom and placed in the bathtub, together with the victim's car keys, a book, and several papers.

The defendant met the victim at a bar in New Haven on Thursday, July 20, 1978, and spent the night at her apartment. They set a date to meet on Saturday, July 22, 1978, after she worked the 1:30 to 10:00 o'clock evening shift as a registered nurse at the Yale-New Haven Hospital emergency room. The defendant was late for the date because he had overslept.

The couple arrived at a bar, located a few blocks from the victim's apartment in New Haven, at approximately midnight. Before they left the bar at 2:00 o'clock in the morning the bartender served approximately three rum and cokes to the victim, and four or five twelve-ounce bottles of beer to the defendant. The defendant told the bartender that that evening he had taken some Valium. They appeared to the bartender to be a normal couple out on a date. A long-time friend of the defendant's testified that he, the defendant and a woman with the same name as the victim shared a marijuana cigarette that night outside the bar, at the defendant's suggestion.

As they were leaving the bar, the defendant told the bartender that they were returning to the victim's apartment to listen to music and relax. A woman who was sitting on her porch on the route between the victim's apartment and a sandwich shop observed the couple walking toward the shop and back in the direction of the apartment. On their way back to the apartment the defendant appeared upset that the victim could not find his glasses after searching through her purse. Neither of them appeared intoxicated.

According to the defendant, when they arrived back at the apartment they engaged in sexual intercourse, after which an argument ensued. He claims that the victim was very upset because she thought he was only interested in casual sex and did not want to live with her. The defendant claims that when he tried to reassure her she attempted to stab him with a large two-tined carving fork. After struggling with her over the fork, he claims to remember nothing further until he found himself in her living room, and, after searching, found the victim in the bathtub.

Upon discovering the body, the defendant took a nap on the blood-stained bed. Then, the defendant placed a canvas handbag over her head, wiped some of the blood from the floor and the walls, attempted to erase his fingerprints and washed his hands in the sink. He left the apartment at dawn, and returned home to contemplate. He made no attempt to ascertain whether she was dead, and claims he did not know she was dead until he read a newspaper article the next day.

Sometime between 2:30 and 3:30 o'clock on Sunday afternoon the defendant telephoned the victim's place of employment and asked to speak with her. Later that afternoon, he returned to the bar, slept there for a few hours and left at approximately 11 o'clock at night. He telephoned the victim's apartment at approximately 4 o'clock Monday morning and spoke with the police officer who had answered the phone. Upon hearing that the police were involved in a serious investigation and that the victim was in guarded condition, he agreed to be interviewed by the police. At 5:45 o'clock in the morning the defendant voluntarily appeared at the police station where he explained to the police that he had left the victim's apartment early Sunday morning because she was expecting a former boyfriend to arrive.

On Monday evening he returned to the bar for a few hours, and told the bartender that he wished he could find the person who had killed the victim. A New Haven police detective found the defendant there, and the defendant voluntarily went to the police station for further questioning. The defendant claimed to want to cooperate, and explained that he had left the apartment at 3:30 o'clock Sunday morning because the victim was expecting a former boyfriend to arrive at four o'clock. The defendant agreed to assist the police in locating the boyfriend.

On Tuesday, July 25, 1978, after having matched the defendant's fingerprints with those found in the apartment, and after having conducted a search of the defendant's apartment with his consent, two detectives asked the defendant to return with them to the police station. The defendant voluntarily returned to the station, signed a form indicating that he understood his Miranda rights, and gave a statement in which he admitted having caused the victim's death.

I

The defendant's first claim of error is that the trial court erred in finding that he had not proved the affirmative defense of extreme emotional disturbance by a fair preponderance of the evidence. General Statutes § 53a-54a(a) provides, in part, that "it shall be an affirmative defense (to murder) 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 ...." In construing this defense, this court has explained that "(i)n determining whether the defendant has established the affirmative defense of extreme emotional disturbance by a fair preponderance of the evidence as a mitigation of murder to manslaughter, the trier of fact must find that: (a) the emotional disturbance is not a mental disease or defect that rises to the level of insanity as defined in the code; (b) the defendant was exposed to an extremely unusual and overwhelming state, that is, not mere annoyance or unhappiness; and (c) the defendant had an extreme emotional reaction to it, as a result of which there was a loss of self-control, and reason was overborne by intense feelings, such as passion, anger, distress, grief, excessive agitation or other similar emotions. Consideration is given to whether the intensity of these feelings was such that his usual intellectual controls failed and the normal rational thinking for the individual no longer prevailed at the time of the act." State v. Zdanis, --- Conn. ---, ---, 438 A.2d 696 (42 Conn.L.J., No. 23, pp. 10, 11) (1980), cert. denied sub nom., Zdanis v. Connecticut, 450 U.S. 1003, 101 S.Ct. 1715, 70 L.Ed.2d 207 (1981); see General Statutes § 53a-12(b); ² State v. Elliott, 177 Conn. 1, 7-10, 411 A.2d 3 (1979); People v. Casassa, 49 N.Y.2d 668, 675, 427 N.Y.S.2d 769, 404 N.E.2d 1310, cert. denied sub nom., Casassa v. New York, 449 U.S. 842, 101 S.Ct. 122, 66 L.Ed.2d 50 (1980).

Extreme emotional disturbance does not negate intent. See Patterson v. New York, 432 U.S. 197, 207, 97 S.Ct. 2319, 2325, 53 L.Ed.2d 281 (1977); State v. Zdanis, supra, --- Conn. at ---, 438 A.2d 696; State v. Elliott, supra, 177 Conn. 6, 411 A.2d 3. It serves merely to explain reasonably the circumstances leading to the formation of intent. State v. Elliott, supra, 177 Conn. 6, 411 A.2d 3; People v....