State v. Garrison

• Citation: 525 A.2d 498,203 Conn. 466
• Decision Date: 12 May 1987
• Docket Number: No. 12731,12731
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Jessie GARRISON.

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525 A.2d 498 203 Conn. 466 STATE of Connecticut
v.
Jessie GARRISON. No. 12731. Supreme Court of Connecticut. Argued April 2, 1987.
Decided May 12, 1987.

[203 Conn. 467] Timothy H. Everett, Hartford, with whom, on the brief, were Stuart Friedman and Theodore Baldwin-LeClair, Legal Interns, for appellant (defendant).

Judith Rossi, Deputy Asst. State's Atty., with whom, on the brief, were James G. Clark and Warren Maxwell, Asst. State's Attys., for appellee (state).

Before [203 Conn. 466] PETERS, C.J., and HEALEY, CALLAHAN, BORDEN and FRACASSE, JJ.

[203 Conn. 467] PETERS, Chief Justice.

The basic issue in this appeal is the sufficiency of the evidence to support the conviction of the defendant, Jessie Garrison, after a trial to the court, of manslaughter in the first degree with a firearm in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a-55(a)(1) and 53a-55a(a). ¹ When this case was first appealed one year ago, we remanded for further articulation by the trial court of its reasons for rejecting the two defenses on which the defendant had relied, self-defense under General Statutes § 53a-19 ²

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and defense of premises [203 Conn. 468] under General Statutes § 53a-20. ³ State v. Garrison, 199 Conn. 383, 507 A.2d 467 (1986) (Garrison I ). ⁴ In light of the supplemental memorandum subsequently filed by the trial court, the defendant now renews his appeal from the judgment against him. We find no error.

[203 Conn. 469] The underlying facts that led to the charges against the defendant are undisputed. As reported in Garrison I, supra, 385-86, 507 A.2d 467, and in the trial court's three memoranda of decision, the defendant, on January 2, 1982, was visiting at his sister's Hartford apartment, when the victim, Jeremiah Sharp, arrived on the premises. The victim had been living with the defendant's sister intermittently for the past four years, and had his clothes in the apartment, but they had recently quarreled anew. The victim arrived intoxicated, and immediately got into an argument with the defendant's sister, which the defendant tried to stop. The defendant's sister went to her bedroom, but the argument continued between the defendant and the victim, with the defendant urging the victim to leave.

In the course of the argument between the defendant and the victim, the victim reached inside his jacket and the defendant noticed that the victim had a pistol in his waistband. Although the victim was the larger man, the defendant was younger, alert and sober, while the victim was drunk, staggering and not in full control of himself. The defendant disarmed the victim by removing the pistol from his waistband. The victim then armed himself with a steak knife and advanced toward the defendant with the knife held high. The defendant backed up, and fired a shot, hitting the victim in the left ankle. Instead of backing up further into an adjacent room, the defendant fired a second shot which caused a fatal injury to the victim.

On these facts, the defendant moved for a judgment of acquittal of manslaughter for three reasons. He urged the trial court to conclude that the state had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that: (1) the defendant knew he could avoid using deadly physical force with complete safety by retreating; General Statutes § 53a-19; (2) the defendant was not acting to prevent an attempt by a criminal trespasser to commit a [203 Conn. 470] crime of violence on the premises; General Statutes § 53a-20; (3) the defendant had the requisite intent to cause serious physical injury. The trial court denied this motion and found the defendant guilty as charged. On appeal, the defendant continues to maintain that the state did not meet its burden of proof on the first two of

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these claims of justification, self-defense and defense of premises. We will address these claims separately. We find neither to be persuasive. I

A person is justified in using deadly physical force, under the self-defense statute, § 53a-19 (a), only when he reasonably believes such force to be necessary because he "reasonably believes that [his attacker] is (1) using or about to use deadly physical force, or (2) inflicting or about to inflict great bodily harm." Even then, under § 53a-19(b), with exceptions not applicable here, "a person is not justified in using deadly physical force upon another person if he knows that he can avoid the necessity of using such force with complete safety ... by retreating...." As we noted in Garrison I, supra, 199 Conn. at 387, 507 A.2d 467, § 53a-19 "presents a question of fact about what the defendant himself reasonably believed about his exposure to jeopardy under the circumstances. State v. DeJesus, 194 Conn. 376, 389, 481 A.2d 1277 (1984); State v. Corchado, 188 Conn. 653, 663, 453 A.2d 427 (1982)."

Viewing the evidence from this perspective, the defendant maintains that the trial court was in error in its conclusion that his use of deadly physical force was not justified. The trial court determined that "[t]he defendant could not have reasonably believed the use of deadly physical force was necessary if he reasonably believed he could have disarmed the decedent." The court relied on the defendant's prior disarming of the victim of his pistol, and on the defendant's sobriety and [203 Conn. 471] alertness in contrast to the victim's staggering inebriation, in further concluding that "the defendant could have thrown the decedent off balance, disarmed him of his knife, and avoided the use of deadly physical force." Therefore, according to the court, the defendant's use of force was excessive. The defendant criticizes these conclusions because they are not based on a finding that the defendant himself knew or believed that he might have been able to avoid using deadly force by disarming his attacker.

The state replies that the trial court was entitled, as the trier of fact, to make a determination about the circumstances as they appeared to the defendant. Such a determination required the court to draw inferences from the facts that had...