State v. Ferdinand R.

• Decision Date: 20 December 2011
• Docket Number: No. 31878.,31878.
• Citation: 132 Conn.App. 594,33 A.3d 793
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. FERDINAND R.1
• Court: Connecticut Court of Appeals

132 Conn.App. 594

33 A.3d 793

STATE of Connecticut

v.FERDINAND R.1

No. 31878.

Appellate Court of Connecticut.

Argued Sept. 15, 2011.Decided Dec. 20, 2011.

Martin Zeldis, public defender, for the appellant (defendant).

Nancy L. Chupak, senior assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, were David I. Cohen, state's attorney, and Maureen Ornousky, senior assistant state's attorney, for the appellee (state).

DiPENTIMA, C.J., and ESPINOSA and PELLEGRINO, Js.

ESPINOSA, J.

The defendant, Ferdinand R., appeals from the trial court's judgment of conviction, following a jury trial, of sexual assault in a spousal relationship in violation of General Statutes § 53a–70b (b). On appeal, the defendant claims that (1) the evidence at trial was insufficient to convict him and (2) the court erroneously admitted certain uncharged misconduct evidence. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The jury reasonably could have found the following facts. After a few weeks of dating, the defendant married the victim on April 13, 2007. A justice of the peace performed the marriage ceremony in the defendant's apartment in Stamford. At the time of the marriage, the victim worked as a live-in housekeeper in New York City. This required her to be in New York Monday through Friday, and occasionally on weekends. Typically, however, the victim spent weekends with the defendant at his apartment. At the end of her work week, the victim would travel by train from New York to Connecticut, and the defendant would pick her up at the train station. During the week, the two would talk to each other on the telephone almost every day. On July 15, 2007, the victim's employment contract ended, and she began working for a new employer in New York City on July 16, 2007. She also moved in with the defendant.

Almost immediately after they married, the defendant began treating the victim differently. More specifically, he became more possessive and jealous of the victim and began indicating that he thought that she was being unfaithful. This attitude shift toward the victim manifested in several incidents over the next two months. First, on July 13, 2007, when the victim asked the defendant to take her to the train station, the defendant grabbed a knife, put it in her hand and forced her to hold it to his chest. The victim told the defendant that she would not hurt him, and the defendant eventually took her to the train station.

On July 19, 2007, a burst pipe in the New York train station delayed the victim's return to Connecticut. When she finally arrived home late that night, the defendant refused to accept her explanation for returning so late. The defendant smashed a plate, picked up a knife and followed the victim into the living room, where he pushed her onto a table and cut her arm. When the victim accused him of cutting her and making her bleed, the defendant cut the palm of his own hand. The victim did not seek medical treatment or contact the police.

The next incident occurred on July 28, 2007. A family that the victim had met while working for her former employer invited her to have lunch with them. Upon hearing this from the victim, the defendant went into the kitchen, got a knife and put the knife against her neck. The victim attempted to explain who the family was and tried to invite the defendant to join them. The defendant refused and would not let the victim spend time with the family until they came to the apartment and met with him. When they arrived, the family invited the defendant to join them; the defendant agreed and went to lunch with them and the victim.

One additional episode occurred before the events that led to the defendant's arrest. On August 22, 2007, the victim arrived at the apartment after work before the defendant. The victim called the defendant's sister and asked her to talk to the defendant about his increasingly threatening behavior. The victim was fearful of the defendant because he had been making threats, telling her to “watch out.” The victim was still on the telephone with the sister when the defendant came home. When the victim asked the defendant to speak with his sister, he took off his belt and struck her with it two times. The victim pleaded with the defendant to stop, and she put the sister on speakerphone; the defendant relented when the sister threatened to call the police. The victim again did not contact the police regarding the incident.

The events that led to the defendant's arrest began the morning of September 14, 2007. After the victim got out of the shower, the defendant followed her into the living room and accused her of having an affair with her former employer in New York. The defendant then picked up the victim, saying that they should have sex. The victim told the defendant that she did not want to have sex and indicated that she was too tired and needed to go to work. Despite her protests, the defendant carried her into the bedroom, put her on the bed and proceeded to have sex with her. During the intercourse, the victim cried and told the defendant that she did not want to have sex with him, but the defendant did not stop. Following intercourse, the victim got dressed, and the defendant drove her to the train station so that she could get to work.

During the day, the defendant called the victim to apologize, saying that he did not like what had happened. The victim remained upset by the incident, however, and halfway through the day she called the justice of the peace who had performed their marriage ceremony to ask where the nearest “domestic violence office” was. The justice of the peace met the victim at the train station and gave her directions to the nearest domestic violence crisis center. The staff at the crisis center told the victim that she had to go to the police, and the victim did so later that day. When she went to the police station, the victim told the police that her husband had started to beat her. The police tried to convince her to give a statement, but she refused and returned home in a taxi.

When the victim exited the taxi in front of the apartment, the defendant was waiting for her outside on the second floor veranda. He demanded that she come to him. Noticing that his face was red and that he seemed very upset, the victim refused and asked if she could go back to New York or sleep outside. The defendant repeated his demand that she come to him, and the victim turned and started to run away down the street. The defendant ran outside and chased her, catching up to her when she fell down and hurt her knee. The defendant then forcibly picked her up and began carrying her back to the apartment. The victim begged the defendant to let her go and yelled out for someone to call the police, saying that the defendant would beat and kill her. A neighbor who was walking home from a friend's house saw what was happening and heard the victim's cries for help; he went back to his friend's house and called the police.

The police arrived shortly thereafter and found the victim and the defendant in the middle of the street. The officers separated the two, taking the defendant into custody and taking the victim back to the police station. At the station, the victim gave a sworn statement to the police that included details about the problems that she and the defendant had been having and a description of the events of that morning.

The state charged the defendant with failure to register as a sex offender in connection with a prior unrelated conviction ² and sexual assault in a spousal relationship. The defendant pleaded guilty to failure to register as a sex offender. The court denied the defendant's motion for a judgment of acquittal during the jury trial on the spousal sexual assault charge, and the jury returned a verdict of guilty. The court rendered judgment of guilty in accordance with the defendant's plea and the jury verdict, and sentenced the defendant to five years incarceration for failure to register as a sex offender and twenty years incarceration for sexual assault in a spousal relationship to be served consecutively to each other, for a total effective sentence of twenty-five years incarceration. The defendant filed the present appeal on January 4, 2011.

I

The defendant first claims that his conviction was improper because the evidence was insufficient to convict him of sexual assault in a spousal relationship under § 53a–70b (b). He argues that this court should interpret the statute to require proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he (1) acted with the specific intent to commit the act of sexual assault and (2) used force greater than necessary to separate the victim's legs or made an immediate threat of use of force. The defendant bases these arguments on the theory that “marriage is different” and urges us to consider § 53a–70b in light of its history, purposes and the fundamental differences between the act of sex between strangers or acquaintances and the act of sex between spouses. If we read the statute this way, the defendant argues, the evidence at trial was not sufficient to support his conviction. We reject the defendant's interpretation of § 53a–70b and conclude that the evidence at trial was sufficient to convict the defendant of sexual assault in a spousal relationship.

Questions of statutory interpretation are subject to plenary review by this court. See, e.g., State v. Boyd, 272 Conn. 72, 76, 861 A.2d 1155 (2004). When we are presented with the task of interpreting statutes, “[t]he meaning of a statute shall, in the first instance, be ascertained from the text of the statute itself and its relationship to other statutes.” General Statutes § 1–2z. Only if the statute is ambiguous on its face or application of the plain meaning of the text would yield an absurd or unworkable result do we consider extratextual evidence of the statute's meaning. See General Statutes § 1–2z. When we interpret statutory text, “the legislat...