State v. Edwards

• Citation: 513 A.2d 669,201 Conn. 125
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Vincent EDWARDS, Jr.
• Decision Date: 12 August 1986
• Court: Supreme Court of Connecticut

Page 669

513 A.2d 669

201 Conn. 125

STATE of Connecticut v. Vincent EDWARDS, Jr.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued April 1, 1986.

Decided Aug. 12, 1986.

Jon L. Schoenhorn, Sp. Public Defender, for appellant (defendant).

Susan C. Marks, Deputy Asst. State's Atty., with whom, on brief, was John M. Bailey, State's Atty., for appellee (state).

Before PETERS, C.J., and HEALEY, DANNEHY, SANTANIELLO and CALLAHAN, JJ.

ARTHUR H. HEALEY, Associate Justice.

The defendant, Vincent Edwards, Jr., was found guilty by a jury on November 23, 1983, of larceny in the fifth degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-125a, accessory to robbery in the second degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-135(a)(1), ¹ and forgery in the second degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-139. He received an effective sentence of ten years and he appealed from the judgment of conviction.

The defendant raises eight issues on appeal. He claims that: (1) the state failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was guilty of being an accessory to robbery in the second degree; (2) because of a conflict of interest, the defendant was denied his constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel; (3) the court erred in permitting a witness to make an in-court identification; (4) the state failed to prove the offense of forgery in the second degree beyond a reasonable doubt; (5) the court's instruction to the jury on the use of a false name violated the defendant's constitutional rights to due process and an impartial jury; (6) the trial court erred in failing to instruct the jury on a prior consistent statement; (7) the trial court erred in failing to instruct the jury on the inherent unreliability of accomplice testimony; and (8) the defendant was unconstitutionally denied his right on voir dire to question prospective jurors concerning their attitudes towards civil rights issues.

The jury could have reasonably found the following facts: Martin Katz, an owner of the Camera Corner on the Silas Deane Highway in Wethersfield, was working alone in the store at approximately noon on January 13, 1983. A black male, subsequently identified by Katz as the defendant, came into the store and inquired about renting a camera. Katz handed a camera to the defendant to examine and he returned it and left the store. A few minutes later, the defendant reentered the store and asked to see the camera again. As Katz held the camera, the defendant grabbed it and ran from the store. Kevin Sweeney, who visited Katz frequently, had just driven into the store parking lot, saw a man run from the store and enter the passenger side of a tan station wagon. Another individual was on the driver's side of the station wagon and the engine was running. Because Sweeney considered the man's actions to be suspicious, he noted the license plate number of the car. Sweeney entered the store and gave the plate number to Katz, who reported it to the Wethersfield police at 11:56 a.m. Katz estimated that Sweeney entered his store less than one minute after the defendant had fled with the camera.

The Wethersfield police department received a second complaint at 11:58 a.m. of a robbery at the Finast supermarket parking lot, approximately one-quarter mile south of the Camera Corner on the Silas Deane Highway. Veda Johnson, seventy-eight years old, had just finished putting groceries from a shopping cart into her car when she heard footsteps behind her and was then pushed into the cart. At the same time, she felt someone tugging at the purse on her left arm and saw a man run toward the rear of the store. Johnson saw a car come from behind the supermarket building and slow down when it approached the man running toward it. The passenger door opened and the man entered a "dirty yellow," "light-colored" station wagon which passed within thirty feet of her. She described the robber as a black male, twenty to twenty-five years old, wearing dark clothes with "medium conventional Afro hair," with no facial hair and about five feet, eleven inches tall. The driver of the car also appeared to be a black male.

At 12:15 p.m., a Wethersfield police officer on patrol responded to the radio broadcast of the camera store theft which included the license plate number of the car involved. The officer stopped a car matching the description on Wethersfield Avenue in Hartford. Both occupants, the defendant who was the driver of the car, and Danny Rhodes, were placed under arrest and the car was searched. Johnson's pocketbook and some of its contents were found under the passenger's seat and the camera was found inside the glove compartment. Shortly thereafter, at the Wethersfield police station, a department store credit card belonging to Johnson was found in the defendant's possession.

At the Wethersfield police station, the defendant was fingerprinted, filled out a fingerprint card and misidentified himself as Michael Anthony. He stated that he had taken the camera from the store but that his partner had taken the pocketbook. Rhodes, who had also misidentified himself to the police, testified that he was the driver of the car when the defendant grabbed Johnson's pocketbook.

I

The defendant's first claim of error, encompassing three independent claims relating to the second count of the substitute information, ² is that the state failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the offense of accessory to robbery in the second degree. ³ The defendant claims in his first subissue that he cannot be convicted under an information which charges him "with a single offense by alternative means stated disjunctively within a single count." The defendant was charged with robbery in the second degree or with aiding another person in the commission of robbery in the second degree under General Statutes §§ 53a-135(a)(1) and 53a-8. ⁴ He claims that whether the defendant was a principal or an accessory are two "mutually exclusive" theories of liability.

The defendant cites State v. Eason, 192 Conn. 37, 470 A.2d 688 (1984) in support of his claim. In Eason, supra, 40, 470 A.2d 688, we stated that the substitute information in that case had been improperly drafted because it had charged the commission of two or more offenses in the alternative and therefore did not definitely apprise the defendant of the specific charge against him. See State v. Cofone, 164 Conn. 162, 167, 319 A.2d 381 (1972). Eason, however, is factually inapposite to the facts of this case. In Eason, the defendant had been charged with two distinct criminal acts which violated one statute in the same count. State v. Eason, supra, 192 Conn. 40-41, 470 A.2d 688. In the instant case, the defendant was charged in the second count with only one crime, the crime of robbery in the second degree. While the defendant specifically noted during oral argument and in his brief that he was not basing his argument on the belief that there were two offenses at issue, his reasoning presupposes that there are two separate offenses.

As we have only recently reiterated, there is no such crime as being an accessory. State v. Harris, 198 Conn. 158, 163, 502 A.2d 880 (1985); State v. Baker, 195 Conn. 598, 608, 489 A.2d 1041 (1985). The defendant was charged with one substantive offense, robbery in the second degree. "The accessory statute merely provides alternate means by which a substantive crime may be committed." (Emphasis added.) State v. Baker, supra. The defendant also raises the claim that because he was charged in the "disjunctive" the information, based on "logic and legal precedent," failed to allege the commission of all the necessary elements of a charged offense and, therefore, failed to charge that offense. We disagree. The defendant was charged with the commission of all the elements necessary for robbery in the second degree. Even if the information had only included the language of General Statutes § 53a-135(a)(1), the defendant could not be heard to complain if the jury had been instructed on both principal liability and accessorial liability under § 53a-8.

"If [the defendant was] accused of committing crime X, or crime Y, or crime Z, he understandably may be left in a quandary." State v. Cofone, supra, 164 Conn. 167, 319 A.2d 381. That was not the case here. The defendant was charged with only one crime and the jury, persuaded that the facts demonstrated accessorial liability as one of the alternative means by which the crime could have been committed, found the defendant guilty of violating General Statutes § 53a-135(a)(1) because he intentionally aided in the commission of the robbery. The defendant's claim must fail.

The defendant raises a second subissue in which he claims that "because the defendant was acquitted of the principal offense of robbery in the second degree he cannot as a matter of law be convicted as accessory." The defendant conceded at oral argument and in his reply brief, that unless limited to its facts or unless reconsidered, State v. Harris, supra, was dispositive of his claim. We decline to limit Harris to its facts or to reconsider its holding. As we stated in Harris, supra, 198 Conn. 166, 502 A.2d 880, the "jury did not 'acquit' [the defendant] of the charge of robbery in the second degree. On the contrary, the jury found him guilty of violating General Statutes § 53a-135(a)(1) by reason of the liability imposed on him through General Statutes § 53a-8." The defendant's claim is without merit.

The defendant's third subissue is that, under the facts of this case, he was not guilty of accessory to robbery in the second degree. Because the jury found the defendant guilty by reason of accessorial liability, he claims that the jury had to find that Rhodes had been the principal and that the defendant had been the driver of the car. The victim testified that after her pocketbook had been taken the robber fled toward a car as it rounded the corner of the supermarket, entered it, and...