State v. Delvalle

• Decision Date: 24 August 1999
• Docket Number: (SC 15863)
• Citation: 736 A.2d 125,250 Conn. 466
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE OF CONNECTICUT v. JOSE DELVALLE

250 Conn. 466

736 A.2d 125

STATE OF CONNECTICUT v. JOSE DELVALLE

(SC 15863)

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued March 24, 1999.

Officially released August 24, 1999.

Borden, Norcott, Palmer, McDonald and Peters, JS. Theresa M. Dalton, assistant public defender, for the appellant (defendant).

Susann E. Gill, senior assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, were Jonathan C. Benedict, state's attorney, John F. Blawie, assistant state's attorney, and Timothy J. Sugrue, executive assistant state's attorney, for the appellee (state).

Opinion

PALMER, J.

After a jury trial, the defendant, Jose Delvalle, was convicted of murder in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54a (a)¹ and conspiracy to commit murder in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a-54a (a) and 53a-48.² The trial court rendered judgment in accordance with the jury verdict,³ and the defendant appealed to this court.⁴ On appeal, the defendant claims that the trial court improperly instructed the jury on the presumption of innocence and reasonable doubt in violation of his rights under the sixth⁵ and fourteenth⁶ amendments to the United States constitution. We reject the defendant's claims and, accordingly, affirm the judgment of the trial court.⁷

The jury reasonably could have found the following facts. In January, 1996, the defendant and two other men known as "Peanut" and "Cano" were engaged in the sale of illegal drugs near the Greene Homes housing project in Bridgeport. The victim, Alrick Mitchell, recently had begun to sell drugs in the same area, which the defendant and his cohorts considered their territory.

On the afternoon of January 3, 1996, the victim and two friends, Luzanne Rosado and Juan Vasquez, were standing in front of Rosado's home, which bordered the Greene Homes housing complex. Three men wearing black hoods and sunglasses, subsequently identified as the defendant, Peanut and Cano, approached the victim. The defendant told the victim to move away from Rosado's property, and pulled out what appeared to be a TAC 9 assault weapon from under his coat to show the victim. The defendant then asked the victim if he had been selling drugs in the neighborhood. The victim replied that he had not. The victim then tried to retreat into Rosado's home, but Rosado, who indicated that she did not want any trouble, prevented him from doing so. The defendant then told the victim "you got to give me respect."

The defendant and his two companions pressured the victim into accompanying them as they left Rosado's yard. The victim walked a short distance with the three men, but then turned and ran. All three men fired their weapons at the fleeing victim. Two bullets struck the victim in the back of his head and neck, killing him. Eleven spent cartridge casings and one spent bullet were found on the ground in the area where the victim had been shot.

On appeal, the defendant contends, first, that the trial court, during its instructions on the presumption of innocence and reasonable doubt, improperly charged the jury that the principle requiring the state to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt is a "rule of law ... made to protect the innocent and not the guilty." The defendant claims that this charge impermissibly undermined the presumption of innocence and diluted the state's burden of proof in violation of the defendant's constitutional rights to due process and to a jury trial. The defendant's second claim is that the trial court, in instructing the jury on reasonable doubt, violated his rights to counsel and due process by informing the jury that reasonable doubt is not "a doubt suggested by the ingenuity of counsel...."⁸

In reviewing claims of improper jury instructions, we are guided by well established principles. "In determining whether it was ... reasonably possible that the jury was misled by the trial court's instructions, the charge to the jury is not to be critically dissected for the purpose of discovering possible inaccuracies of statement, but it is to be considered rather as to its probable effect upon the jury in guiding them to a correct verdict in the case.... The charge is to be read as a whole and individual instructions are not to be judged in artificial isolation from the overall charge.... The test to be applied ... is whether the charge, considered as a whole, presents the case to the jury so that no injustice will result." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Schiappa, 248 Conn. 132, 171, 728 A.2d 466 (1999); accord State v. Prioleau, 235 Conn. 274, 284, 664 A.2d 743 (1995).

With respect to the defendant's first claim of instructional error, we recently considered, and rejected, a claim that it was constitutionally improper for the trial court to have instructed the jury that the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt is a "rule of law... made to protect the innocent and not the guilty...." State v. Schiappa, supra, 248 Conn. 168. In Schiappa, we addressed a challenge to instructional language virtually identical to that used by the trial court in this case. See id., 170-71. In this case, the trial court instructed the jury: "Now ... the state does not desire the conviction of an innocent person or any person whose guilt upon the evidence is in the realm of reasonable doubt. The state has as much concern in having an innocent person acquitted as in having a guilty person punished. But for the safety and well-being of all persons of the state, for the protection of life and property, the state, of course, is concerned in securing the conviction of persons who have been proven by the evidence to have been guilty of committing ... the crime or crimes charged beyond a reasonable doubt.

"It is the sworn duty of the court and the jurors to safeguard the rights of persons charged with crimes by respecting the presumption of innocence which the law imputes to every person so charged by making the state meet its burden of proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. But you must keep in mind that this rule of law is made to protect the innocent and not the guilty. If and when the presumption of innocence has been overcome by evidence proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused is guilty of the crime or crimes charged, then it is the sworn duty of the jury to enforce the law and to render such verdicts." (Emphasis added.)

In rejecting the defendant's claim in Schiappa, we relied on the fact that, as in this case, the "challenged portion of the instruction was immediately preceded by language underscoring the presumption of innocence and the state's burden of proof'; id., 172; and that "the allegedly improper language was immediately followed by an instruction that again emphasizes these two critical constitutional principles...." Id. We also observed in Schiappa that the trial court, both in its preliminary instructions prior to trial and in its final instructions to the jury at the conclusion of the trial, had "repeatedly apprised the jury [in clear and legally correct terms] regarding the presumption of innocence and the state's burden of establishing guilt beyond a reasonable doubt." Id. As in Schiappa, the trial court in this case repeatedly and accurately explained those principles in its preliminary and final instructions to the jury. This case, therefore, is indistinguishable from Schiappa.⁹

The defendant has provided no persuasive reason why we should reconsider our determination of this issue in Schiappa. Accordingly, we conclude, as we did in Schiappa, that "the trial court's charge, when viewed in its entirety, adequately apprised the jury that the defendant was entitled to a presumption of innocence unless and until the state proved [him] guilty beyond a reasonable doubt." Id., 173. In the absence of any reasonable likelihood of juror confusion regarding the state's burden and the quantum of proof required for a conviction, the defendant's constitutional claim must fail.¹⁰ See id., 176-77.

Second, the defendant claims that the trial court improperly instructed the jury that reasonable doubt is not "a doubt suggested by the ingenuity of counsel,"¹¹ and that that language violated his right to counsel and to a fair trial. We repeatedly "have upheld similar language on the ground that [it] did not, when properly considered in the broader context of the trial court's instructions in their entirety, [dilute] the state's burden of proof or otherwise misle[ad] the jury in any way." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Taylor, 239 Conn. 481, 504-505, 687 A.2d 489 (1996), cert. denied, 521 U.S. 1121, 117 S. Ct. 2515, 138 L. Ed. 2d 1017 (1997); cf. State v. Edwards, 247 Conn. 318, 329-30, 721 A.2d 519 (1998); State v. Hines, 243 Conn. 796, 817-20, 709 A.2d 522 (1998). We reach the same conclusion in this case. We see no reasonable possibility that the challenged language, when viewed in the context of the charge as a whole; see footnote 11 of this opinion; resulted in juror misunderstanding regarding the state's burden of proving the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Furthermore, the court informed the jury that reasonable doubt is not a doubt suggested by the ingenuity of counsel or of a juror "not warranted by the evidence." (Emphasis added.) The phrase "not warranted by the evidence" qualifies the "ingenuity of counsel" language, and renders even more remote any possibility that the jury was misled by the latter phrase. See State v. Hines, supra, 819 n.18 ("[T]he phrase `ingenuity of counsel' is immediately succeeded by the phrase `or by a juror and unwarranted by the evidence.' Such language ... indicate[s] to the jury that doubt may not be created by an argument of counsel or other jurors that is ingenious, but has no basis in the evidence. It is an accurate statement of the law to say that all findings of fact must be supported by the evidence.").¹² We, therefore, reject the defendant's claim that the jury charge was constitutionally infirm.

Although we...