State v. Gilbert

• Decision Date: 18 March 1994
• Docket Number: No. 14735,14735
• Citation: 229 Conn. 228,640 A.2d 61
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Michael J. GILBERT.

Page 61

640 A.2d 61

229 Conn. 228

STATE of Connecticut v. Michael J. GILBERT.

No. 14735.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Jan. 12, 1994.

Decided March 18, 1994 ^*.

Mark Shapera, Sp. Public Defender, for appellant (defendant).

James M. Ralls, Asst. State's Atty., with whom, on the brief, were Mark S. Solak, State's Atty., and Mark Stabile, Asst. State's Atty., for appellee (state).

Before PETERS, C.J., and BORDEN, BERDON, NORCOTT and KATZ, JJ.

KATZ, Associate Justice.

The principal issue in this certified appeal is whether the defendant's inability to remember the events of his life from two weeks before to five weeks after a motor vehicle accident prevented him from receiving a fair trial and thereby resulted in his being improperly convicted, after a jury trial, of manslaughter in the second degree with a motor vehicle in violation of General Statutes § 53a-56b, misconduct with a motor vehicle in violation of General Statutes § 53a-57, and operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor in violation of General Statutes § 14-227a. In upholding the trial court's judgment, the Appellate Court held that under the facts of the case, the defendant had not been deprived of his rights to due process of law as provided by the fourteenth amendment to the United States constitution and article first, §§ 8 and 20, of the Connecticut constitution. State v. Gilbert, 30 Conn.App. 428, 436, 620 A.2d 822 (1993). ¹ We agree.

The pertinent undisputed facts as set forth in the Appellate Court opinion are as follows. "On August 3, 1990, at approximately 8:30 p.m., the defendant, Michael J. Gilbert, left Hank's Restaurant on Route 6 in Brooklyn, Connecticut. He had been there for a few hours and had consumed some alcoholic drinks and pizza. Outside the restaurant, he smelled of alcohol, his speech was slurred and his balance was unsteady. He shuffled when walking and faltered getting into his vehicle, a 1981 Ford Escort. He slumped out of the driver's window and dropped his keys. His eyes were bloodshot and watery. He was upset and planned to drive to another bar located in another town.

"Some time before 9 p.m., the defendant, driving in the westbound lane on Route 6 with his headlights off, collided with a vehicle being operated in the eastbound lane. Route 6 is a two lane road, with one lane in each direction; the posted speed limit is forty-five miles per hour. The weather at the time was clear, and the road conditions were dry. The driver of the other vehicle, a 1980 Toyota Corolla, died as a result of injuries she received in the accident. The defendant was found unconscious in the driver's seat of his car. He smelled of alcohol, and there were several open and empty beer cans in the vehicle, as well as a number of unopened cans of beer. The point of impact appeared to be in the eastbound lane, in which the victim was driving.

"The defendant was taken to Day Kimball Hospital in Putnam, where, as part of the hospital's regular course of diagnosis and treatment of trauma patients, a blood sample was taken. The test revealed that the defendant's blood alcohol level per deciliter was 0.226, which translates to a 0.194 percent alcohol ratio. As a result of the accident, the defendant suffered a traumatic brain injury which resulted in temporary paralysis and coma. In addition, the defendant suffered some loss of memory." Id., at 429-30, 620 A.2d 822.

Following a competency hearing held pursuant to General Statutes § 54-56d, ² at which the court, Sferrazza, J., found the defendant competent to stand trial, the trial court considered the defendant's motion to dismiss in which he raised the claim that he could not receive a fair trial because of his amnesia. At the hearing on the motion to dismiss, the defendant argued, pursuant to Wilson v. United States, 391 F.2d 460, 463-64 (D.C.Cir.1968), for the application of a multifactor approach to the question of whether a defendant's loss of memory precludes his prosecution. Under Wilson, in determining the effect of amnesia on the trial's fairness the trial court should consider six factors: (1) the extent to which the amnesia affected the defendant's ability to consult with and assist his lawyer; (2) the extent to which the amnesia affected the defendant's ability to testify on his own behalf; (3) the extent to which the evidence in the suit could be extrinsically reconstructed in view of the defendant's amnesia, including evidence relating to the crime itself as well as any reasonably possible alibi; (4) the extent to which the government assisted the defendant and his counsel in that reconstruction; (5) the strength of the prosecution's case, with the most important consideration pertaining to whether the government's case is such as to negate all reasonable hypotheses of innocence; and (6) any other facts and circumstances that would indicate whether or not the defendant had a fair trial. Id.

The trial court considered the specific findings required by Wilson to be "impractical and unnecessary to a determination of whether a defendant would be denied due process of law if forced to stand trial." The court instead adopted the approach employed by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in United States v. Sullivan, 406 F.2d 180, 186 (2d Cir.1969). Unlike the Wilson test that requires a trial court both to conduct a pretrial competency hearing and make a posttrial determination as to whether the defendant had been able to perform " 'the functions essential to the fairness and accuracy of the particular proceedings in which he [was] presently involved' " as measured by six factors; Wilson v. United States, supra, 391 F.2d at 463; the Sullivan test requires a more limited inquiry. The Sullivan test focuses on whether amnesia prevented the defendant from forming the requisite intent for the offenses charged and on whether the defendant was competent at the time of trial to consult rationally with counsel and to understand the nature of the proceedings against him. United States v. Sullivan, supra, at 186.

Although, in deciding the motion to dismiss, the trial court expressed its preference for the Sullivan test, it nevertheless performed a case-by-case analysis and concluded that the defendant's amnesia did not severely undermine his present ability to consult rationally with his attorney or strip him of the opportunity to reconstruct events independent of his recollections. As part of its evaluation, the court reviewed both reports that had been prepared pursuant to § 54-56d for assessment of the defendant's competency to stand trial. Each report concluded that the defendant could communicate and consult rationally with his attorney and could provide information regarding some of the related charges, including the lapse of insurance on his vehicle.

The trial court found that the only significant consequence of the accident had been the defendant's loss of memory. The court noted that the charges did not require specific intent or guilty knowledge. It further remarked that there was an open file policy with regard to discovery, so that the defendant had access to: the state's accident reconstruction report; names, addresses and statements of witnesses; photographs and information as to the physical evidence found at the scene; and medical information, including blood alcohol levels, on both the victim and the defendant. The court observed that the defendant could not claim alibi or mistaken identification in light of the evidence that he had been found alone in his car immediately after the accident. The court determined, therefore, that the significant issues were intoxication and causation, matters usually proven by physical evidence and independent witnesses. In denying the defendant's motion to dismiss, the trial court concluded that the defendant had access to all of the available information necessary to reconstruct the accident, and that his amnesia did not interfere with his ability to have a fair trial.

During the trial before Judge Dunn, the defendant made a motion in limine to prevent the introduction of "testimony concerning [his] conversations ... during the period immediately preceding the accident," claiming that he could not confront such witnesses due to his amnesia. Specifically, the defendant argued that his amnesia prevented him from "confronting" two witnesses, Delana O'Neill and Henry Hewig, with whom he allegedly had conversed outside of Hank's Restaurant before the accident. ³ After the trial court denied the defendant's motion in limine, O'Neill and Hewig testified for the state. The defendant cross-examined the latter regarding the direction Hewig saw him take outside the restaurant, the appearance of the defendant's eyes, and certain purported inconsistencies between Hewig's testimony and the statement that Hewig had given to the state police two days after the accident. ⁴ The defendant did not cross-examine O'Neill, and did not present any independent evidence regarding his encounter with those two men.

Following the jury's verdict of guilty of all the crimes charged, the defendant moved for a judgment of acquittal, relying on the Wilson factors. The trial court denied the motion, and rendered a judgment of conviction. The defendant appealed from the judgment of conviction to the Appellate Court.

Without specifically endorsing the Wilson or the Sullivan approach, the Appellate Court concluded from its review of the record that "the trial court reasonably could have concluded that the defendant possessed a 'sufficient present ability to consult with his lawyer with a reasonable degree of rational understanding--and ... a rational as well as factual understanding of the proceedings against him' ... and that the defense had an ample opportunity to reconstruct the events of the evening in question and to cross-examine witnesses, even without the defendant's specific recollection of events." (Citation...