State v. Doucette

• Decision Date: 30 December 1959
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Howard R. DOUCETTE. Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

Page 487

157 A.2d 487

147 Conn. 95

STATE of Connecticut v. Howard R. DOUCETTE.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

Dec. 30, 1959.

Benedict M. Holden, Jr., Sp. Public Defender, Hartford, for appellant (defendant).

John D. LaBelle, State's Atty., Manchester, for appellee (state).

Before BALDWIN, C. J., and KING, MURPHY, MELLITZ and SHEA, JJ.

KING, Associate Justice.

Howard R. Doucette, who is the defendant, and Edward J. Rogers were indicted for the murder of Howard Doucette, Jr., and were tried together by three judges under the provisions of what is now § 54-82 of the General Statutes. Rogers was acquitted. Doucette was convicted of murder in the first degree, and from that judgment this appeal was taken. The state claimed that on September 24, 1955, Doucette murdered the decedent, a male child about two months old, by holding his head up to an unlighted gas oven, after the gas had been turned on, thereby causing death by asphyxiation. For some eight months before the child was born, Doucette and the decedent's mother, Mrs. Reina Hunt Lee, a married woman, had been living together as Mr. and Mrs. Doucette in a basement apartment consisting of one room and a private bath. Not until about two years after the child's death was a homicide suspected, and the state's case largely consisted of two confessions by Doucette and evidence concerning a re-enactment by him of the homicide.

The first claim of the defendant is that there was insufficient extrinsic evidence of the corpus delicti to warrant the court's admission of his confessions of July 24 and July 26, 1957, and the evidence of his re-enactment of the homicide before the police on July 24, 1957. Each of the two confessions, as well as the evidence as to the re-enactment, amounted to a full confession of guilt of the crime charged, although all were repudiated by the defendant when he took the stand. At the time when the evidence in question was admitted, it could not be known whether the defendant would choose to take the stand. But for the admission of it in the state's case in chief, the defendant might have elected not to take the stand and to rely on a claim that the state had failed to make out a prima facie case of guilt. State v. Pundy, 147 Conn. 7, 12, 156 A.2d 193, and cases cited.

The defendant's re-enactment took place before the police in the basement apartment which the defendant and Mrs. Lee were occupying at the time of the baby's death. In the course of the re-enactment, the defendant demonstrated how he had held the baby's head up to the unlighted gas oven. This re-enactment covered all of the essential elements of the crime charged. See State v. Willis, 71 Conn. 293, 314, 41 A. 820. It pointed out nothing, however, except an ordinary gas stove such as might be found in almost any similar apartment. Without extrinsic evidence that death was caused by asphyxiation, the gas stove was without significance as a lethal weapon or instrumentality. See State v. Litman, 106 Conn. 345, 352, 138 A. 132. The re-enactment was a confession, although not in writing, and nothing more. It was a confession by demonstration. State v. Castelli, 92 Conn. 58, 67, 101 A. 476; Cashman v. Terminal Taxi Co., 131 Conn. 31, 33, 37 A.2d 613. Had the defendant been deaf and dumb and unable to write, for instance, the only method available for direct communication to the police might have been re-enactment. The same requirement of extrinsic evidence of the corpus delicti should apply as though the re-enactment had been an ordinary written confession. A full re-enactment was treated as a confession in State v. Castelli, supra, and the admissibility of proof of the re-enactment held subject to the customary preliminary question as to its voluntary character. The finding in the present case makes clear that the court correctly treated the re-enactment as in effect a confession.

'[T]he corpus delicti [that is, that the crime charged has been committed by someone] cannot be established by the extra-judicial confession of the defendant unsupported by corroborative evidence.' State v. LaLouche, 116 Conn. 691, 693, 166 A. 252, 253; State v. Skinner, 132 Conn. 163, 166, 43 A.2d 76; State v. Guastamachio, 137 Conn. 179, 182, 75 A.2d 429. This is the almost universal rule. Notes, 127 A.L.R. 1130, 1131, 45 A.L.R.2d 1316, 1320; 7 Wigmore, Evidence (3d Ed.) § 2071. As to the extent of the corroborative proof of the corpus delicti which is required before a confession can be admitted in evidence, there is less unanimity of opinion. Differences may in part be accounted for by the almost infinite variety of factual situations in which the question has arisen. The federal cases are collected in an annotation in 99 L.Ed. 110. Leading decisions in the state and federal courts may be found in 127 A.L.R. at pages 1133-1141 and 45 A.L.R.2d at pages 1325-1338.

The Connecticut rule, which we reaffirm, is 'that, although the confession is evidence tending to prove both the fact that the crime [charged] was committed [by someone, that is, the corpus delicti] and the defendant's agency therein, it is not sufficient of itself to prove the former, and, without evidence aliunde of facts also tending to prove the corpus delicti, it is not enough to warrant a conviction; and that there must be such extrinsic corroborative evidence as will, when taken in connection with the confession, establish the corpus delicti in the mind of the trier beyond a reasonable doubt.' State v. Skinner, supra [132 Conn. 163, 43 A.2d 77.] This appears to be the general rule. 7 Wigmore, op. cit., p. 397. 'The independent evidence must tend to establish that the crime charged has been committed and must be material and substantial, but need not be such as would establish the corpus delicti beyond a reasonable doubt apart from the confession. * * * Properly this [extrinsic] evidence should be introduced and the court satisfied of its substantial character and sufficiency to render the confession admissible before the latter is allowed in evidence.' State v. LaLouche, supra, 116 Conn. 695, 166 A. 253. This is in accord with Opper v. United States, 348 U.S. 84, 93, 75 S.Ct. 158, 99 L.Ed. 101. Neither of the confessions, nor the evidence as to the re-enactment, in effect constituting a third confession, can be treated as extrinsic corroborative evidence of the corpus delicti. '[E]ven two positive confessions of guilt, without independent proof of the corpus delicti, would not be sufficient to authorize a conviction.' Bines v. State, 118 Ga. 320, 327, 45 S.E. 376, 379, 68 L.R.A. 33. It remains to consider the evidence of the corpus delicti presented by the state apart from the confessions and the evidence as to the re-enactment and, in the application of our rule, to determine whether such evidence of the corpus delicti was sufficient to authorize the admission of the two confessions and the evidence of the re-enactment. For convenience, these three items of evidence will hereinafter be referred to as confessions.

Evidence extrinsic to the confessions and relied upon by the state tended to prove that after the baby had died the police were called instead of a doctor, that when the police arrived the baby was fully dressed and had on a bonnet, and that Rogers, who had stayed at the apartment the night of the death, had left before the police arrived. Of course, there was abundant extrinsic evidence that the child had died, and of opportunity on the part of the defendant to murder him. Opportunity, however, is but one circumstance and, standing alone, proves nothing. State v. Skinner, supra, 132 Conn. 167, 43 A.2d 76. The mere fact of the child's death, while essential to a conviction, cannot be considered as material or substantial evidence that he was murdered. See State v. Mashelesky 81 Conn. 22, 30, 70 A. 62. Calling the police was not indicative of guilt. The failure to call a doctor instead of the police was unusual, perhaps, but was certainly not substantial or material evidence of the corpus delicti. The dressing of the body, even if the baby was undressed when he died, is of little, if any, evidential force, because the police and the medical examiner had full opportunity to, and did, examine the body. Certainly the defendant would have no ground to believe that they would be likely to curtail an investigation because of the slight extra labor involved in undressing the body. The medical examiner found what he diagnosed as a diaper rash on the body; he did not think that an autopsy was called for, nor was there evidence that the rash was an indication of, or was caused by, asphyxiation. The decedent was not Rogers' child, and the fact that Rogers left before the arrival of the police was of no material significance. We fail to see how any or all of this could be considered as material or substantial evidence of the child's murder.

Two other items of extrinsic evidence are relied upon by the state. Each was admitted over the objection of the defendant. After the death of the baby, the defendant and Mrs. Lee continued, as before, to live together. On July 20, 1957, nearly two years later, a detective and a policewoman, in the course of an investigation of a matter wholly unrelated to any homicide, interviewed the defendant and Mrs. Lee. As a result, the defendant, on July 22, 1957, was presented in the Hartford Police Court on a charge of fornication. The case was continued. On further investigation that day, the officers found that the defendant and Mrs. Lee were the parents of the baby who had died on September 24, 1955. After further questioning, the defendant, on July 23, 1957, made a statement which was reduced to writing and signed by him. This statement in effect said that the defendant and Mrs. Lee had been living together for some time prior to the birth of the decedent on July 27, 1955, that subsequently Mrs. Lee had had two miscarriages, and that she had given birth to a child only six...