State v. Gargano

Citation121 A. 657,99 Conn. 103
CourtSupreme Court of Connecticut
Decision Date01 June 1923
PartiesSTATE v. GARGANO.

Opinion Refiled June 22, 1923.

Reargued June 15, 1923.

Appeal from Superior Court, New Haven County; Christopher L. Avery Judge.

Biagio Gargano, alias Benny Gargano, was convicted on the first count of an information, charging therein robbery with violence, and in the second count charging conspiracy to commit robbery with violence, and he appeals. Error, and new trial ordered.

Samuel Campner, Rocco Ierardi, and Samuel Markle, all of New Haven for appellant.

Arnon A. Alling, State's Atty., and Walter M. Pickett, Asst State's Atty., both of New Haven, for the State.

CURTIS, J.

The first reason of appeal alleges that the court erred in denying the defendant's motion to set aside the verdict. The defendant claims that under the evidence the jury could not reasonably have found that the guilt of the accused was proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

We have held repeatedly that a verdict should be set aside " only when manifest injustice has been done by the verdict, and the wrong is so plain and palpable as clearly to denote that some mistake was made by the jury in the application of legal principles, or as to justify the suspicion that they, or some of them, were influenced by corruption. prejudice, or partiality." State v. Buxton, 79 Conn. 477, 480, 65 A. 957; State v. Schutte, 97 Conn. 462, 464, 117 A. 508.

The defendant also states his claim in these terms:

" Under the evidence the jury could not reasonably have found that the evidence was inconsistent with a reasonable hypothesis or supposition that the accused was innocent."

This, of course, is merely another way of saying that the guilt of the accused was not proved beyond a reasonable doubt. State v. Rome, 64 Conn. 329, 30 A. 57; State v. Block, 87 Conn. 579, 89 A. 167, 49 L.R.A. (N. S.) 913.

The defendant's claim, in substance, is that the facts which the state claims to have proved do not directly show the guilt of the accused, but must be supplemented by inferences of other facts drawn from the facts proved, in order to connect the accused as a participator in the crimes charged, and that it is possible to infer from such facts that the accused was not a participator in the commission of the crimes charged, and hence that there is a possible hypothesis or supposition of the innocence of the accused.

The defendant fails to recognize that under the evidence in a case a possible hypothesis or supposition of innocence is a far different thing from a reasonable hypothesis or supposition of innocence. The jury have found that the evidence in this case is not consistent with a reasonable hypothesis or supposition that the defendant was innocent.

We have carefully examined the record and do not find that it is plain and palpable that manifest injustice has been done by the verdict. We are satisfied that the jury could have reasonably found that the guilt of the accused was proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

The defendant in his appeal seeks to have the finding corrected in numerous particulars. He claims that seven paragraphs of the finding should be stricken out because found without evidence, and that eleven paragraphs of the defendant's draft finding should be added to the finding.

In passing upon these claims we are dealing with a finding in a jury trial, where the finding merely represents the facts claimed to have been proved either by direct evidence or by inferences from circumstantial evidence, so-called, and is not an absolute settlement of the ultimate facts.

Under General Statutes, § 5829, such a finding can be corrected by us. But such a finding will not be corrected by this court merely to secure a meticulous accuracy as to details in the claims of proof. Nor for the purpose, as is here sought in certain particulars, of setting forth in the finding that there was no evidence " tending to prove certain facts." The finding will not be corrected in relation to a claim that the verdict was contrary to the evidence. Such a claim must find its support in the evidence, and not in the finding.

The finding, in the case of a jury trial, will be corrected only when it is reasonably necessary to fairly present a claimed error in law made by the court. Ordinarily, the errors claimed relate to the charge or to rulings upon the admission of evidence or to the ruling of the court upon some motion made upon the trial.

Turning to the claimed errors of the court as to the charge, and as to the rulings of the court upon the admission of evidence, and to the ruling upon a motion made upon the trial, we find that a fair presentation of the errors claimed does not require any of the changes in the finding sought by the defendant. The question of the correction of the finding as sought by the defendant requires, therefore, no further consideration, and those grounds of appeal cannot be sustained.

The information, under which the defendant was tried, charged Salvatore Santaniello, Roberto Santaniello, Raffaele Cipolla, Antonio Ruggiero alias Antonio Barese, Alberto Esposito, Armando Ruggiero, Nunzio Straiano alias Frank Straino, Lorenzo D'Amore, and the defendant, in the first count with the commission of the crime of robbery with violence, and also in a second count with a conspiracy to commit that crime.

Prior to the trial of the defendant. Salvatore and Roberto Santaniello, Raffaele Cipolla, Alberto Esposito, and Antonio Ruggiero alias Antonio Barese, pleaded guilty to the offenses charged in the information. Upon the trial of the defendant the state offered in evidence the record of the conviction of the above parties upon their pleas of guilty to the crimes charged in the information, under which the accused was put upon trial, for the purpose of establishing that the crime of robbery was in fact committed at the place and time stated in the information. The object of the state was to establish that this crime was committed as an element in the proof of the guilt of the accused under both counts.

The pleas of guilty of certain of those persons jointly charged in an information with the commission of a crime are, in effect, merely confessions or statements by those parties that they committed such crimes. The fact that they pleaded guilty, or the record of such pleas, is not admissible upon the trial of another person jointly charged with the commission of the same crimes.

The plea of guilty by, or the conviction of one person of the commission of a crime, or a record of such plea, does not establish the fact that such crime was committed as against any other person, and is not admissible as tending to prove such fact. Rex v. Turner, 1 Moody's Crown Cases, 347; McKenna v. Whipple, 97 Conn. 701, 118 A. 40; State v. Justesen, 35 Utah, 105, 99 P. 456; State v. Bowker, 26 Or. 309, 38 P. 124.

The confession involved in a plea of guilty in court by one charged with a crime is as much hearsay as if the confession were made out of court.

It is necessary for the state to prove the whole case against any accused, in spite of a confession by plea of guilty by one jointly charged with the accused. People v. Stevens, 47 Mich. 411, 11 N.W. 220.

It is true that a presumption of law, like that of sanity, may throw upon an accused the duty of going forward with the evidence upon an essential element of the crime, but the burden of proving it imposed by law upon the state " rests upon the state and remains upon it throughout the trial." When such a presumption of law exists, the state may, in the first instance, and until evidence to the contrary is introduced by the defendant, rest upon the presumption, just as it might upon evidence sufficient to make out a prima facie case. State v. Lee, 69 Conn. 198-199, 37 A. 75.

But such presumption is not evidence and has no probative force. Vincent v. Mutual R. F. L. Ass'n, 77 Conn. 290, 58 A. 963.

The state claims that the case of State v. Wakefield, 88 Conn. 164, 90 A. 230, establishes the law in this state to the effect that where, in the criminal trial of one person, the commission of a certain crime is a relevant fact, it may be proved by the record of the conviction or plea of guilty of another for such crime. The opinion of this court in that case does not contain such a ruling. The question of the admission of the confession or plea of Plew in that case was never raised in the lower court, or in this court. We say on page 170 of 88 Conn., on page 232 of 90 Atl., that opinion, " in the strict sense there was no testimony or confession by Plew before the jury."

In a criminal prosecution of an accessory as such at common law it was necessary to allege and prove the offense of a definite principal and his conviction. The necessity for these common-law requirements in a criminal prosecution of an accessory have been done away with by express statutory provision, and every person who aids and assists in the commission of a crime is made a principal. General Statutes, § 6716; State v. Grady, 34 Conn. 131; State v. Hamlin, 47 Conn. 118, 36 Am.Rep. 54; State v. Scott, 80 Conn. 323, 68 A. 258.

Therefore precedents as to the evidence admissible in support of the allegations required in the prosecution at common law of an accessory as such are not necessarily pertinent in a prosecution of a principal in a criminal proceeding in which such allegations are not required. In the common-law prosecution of an accessory as such, where the conviction of the principal was an essential element of the crime, the procedure followed in this state is thus stated in the Revision of Swift's Digest, vol. 2, p. 390:

" In the indictment of an accessory alone after the conviction of the principal, it is not
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  • State v. Foster
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Connecticut
    • 17 Marzo 1987
    ...in being labeled an 'accessory' or a 'principal' for the purpose of determining criminal responsibility. See State v. Gargano, 99 Conn. 103, 109, 121 A. 657 (1923); State v. Hamlin, 47 Conn. 95, 118 (1879); General Statutes (1875 Rev.) p. 545. The modern approach 'is to abandon completely t......
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