State v. Gold
| Decision Date | 20 October 1980 |
| Citation | 180 Conn. 619,431 A.2d 501 |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE of Connecticut v. Murray R. GOLD. |
Louis Nizer, New York City, of the New York bar, with whom were Timothy C. Moynahan, Waterbury, and, on the brief, Francis M. Donnarumma, Waterbury, and Kenneth Schluger, law student, for appellant (defendant).
Francis M. McDonald, State's Atty., with whom were Walter H. Scanlon, Chief Asst. State's Atty., and Richard L. Shiffrin, Asst. State's Atty., for appellee (state).
Before COTTER, C. J., and LOISELLE, BOGDANSKI, SPEZIALE and PETERS, JJ.
On October 15, 1974, a grand jury in the judicial district of Waterbury returned a true bill comprised of two counts, indicting the defendant, Murray Gold, for the murders of Irving and Rhoda Pasternak, his former in-laws, on September 26, 1974. 1 On March 31, 1976, the defendant's first trial ended in a mistrial, when the jury was unable to reach a verdict. After a second trial, the defendant was found guilty of both murders, and on January 26, 1977, he was sentenced on each count to a term of not less than twenty-five years nor more than life at the Connecticut correctional institution at Somers, with the sentences to be served concurrently.
The charges against the defendant arose out of the violent deaths of Irving and Rhoda Pasternak on the evening of September 26, 1974. After dining with their daughter, Myrna Kahan, and her family on September 26, the Pasternaks returned to their home at 53 Fern Street, Waterbury, at approximately 8:30 p. m. At about 9 p. m. that same night Mrs. Pasternak telephoned Myrna Kahan from the upstairs master bedroom. While the two were conversing on the telephone, the doorbell at the Pasternak home rang. Mrs. Kahan heard her mother caution Mr. Pasternak not to open the door until he saw who was there. A short while later Mrs. Pasternak's voice changed and became excited. She told Mrs. Kahan that she heard Mr. Pasternak say and she instructed her to send Dr. Kahan, her husband "over here fast." Immediately Mrs. Kahan called the emergency 911 telephone number. It was 9:12 p. m. On another telephone located in his home, Dr. Kahan immediately called a Waterbury police officer, Arnold Mark, who was related to the Pasternaks through marriage, and asked him to go to the Pasternak home, which was located a few blocks from where Mark lived. At 9:13 p. m. Mrs. Pasternak, herself, called the emergency 911 number to report a "crazy man" at their home. Mrs. Kahan telephoned the Pasternak's next door neighbor, Fred Rubenstein, who, at Mrs. Kahan's request, looked out a window of his house and observed the Pasternak home. Rubenstein reported that he saw nothing unusual; he said that he saw a car parked in the Pasternak driveway, which he described to Mrs. Kahan as possibly a Volkswagon or some smaller car, but which he later identified as the Pasternaks' car. He also indicated that the porch light at the front door was lit.
Mark arrived at the Pasternak home within one and one-half minutes after he was called by Dr. Kahan at approximately 9:12 p. m. Mark observed Mr. Pasternak lying on the floor in the kitchen, his body covered with blood and mutilated by approximately thirty-five knife wounds. Upstairs he found Mrs. Pasternak dead in the master bedroom; she had been stabbed approximately twenty-five times. In the room he also saw a "Buck" hunting knife covered with blood, which was leaning against a pair of Mr. Pasternak's shoes. As Mark was descending the stairs, Dr. Kahan and his son ran into the house; the son was sent to call an ambulance at a neighbor's home. He went to see Fred Rubenstein, who called the 911 police emergency number at 9:19 p. m., some seven minutes, ten seconds after Mrs. Kahan's call and some six minutes, fifty-four seconds after Mrs. Pasternak's call.
Aside from the knife found by Mark, other evidence found in the house included an empty bottle-size brown paper bag and a discharged fire extinguisher, which were discovered in the vicinity of the front foyer and living room. A residue of powder was found on the fire extinguisher, on the oval-shaped mirror in the foyer, on the wall near the mirror, and on the living room rug. A trail of bloody footprints, some of which displayed Cat's Paw heel marks, led from the body of Mr. Pasternak to the foyer and stairs leading to the second floor. In a pair of blue trousers hung over a chair in the Pasternak master bedroom, $1174 was found. There was no evidence of robbery or theft. All money and valuables were intact and the house was not ransacked.
During investigation by the Waterbury police department a button was photographed in the master bedroom. It was photographed first on the center of the floor between the doorway and the bed and later on the floor near the television. In the first photograph the button had two white plastic loops in the buttonholes; in the second photograph the loops were on the floor a distance of two feet from the button. Mark, the first person to arrive at the Pasternak home, testified that he saw a dark button near the television set in the master bedroom. On September 27, 1974, the day after the murders, trooper Henry Maynard of the Connecticut state police made a sketch of the crime scene, including the master bedroom . He did not see a button in that bedroom, and a button was not initially included in the sketch. A day or two later, however, Maynard added a button to the sketch, but did not remember at whose direction. The subsequent state police investigation also produced numerous latent finger and palm prints; a total of twenty-seven prints were identified; one palm print and eight fingerprints which were identifiable were not identified. Neither the paper bag, the fire extinguisher, the knife handle, nor the button showed any identifiable fingerprints, palm prints, or finger ridge detail. From the evidence he observed at the crime scene, trooper Luneau, the Connecticut state policeman who was in charge of the latent fingerprint section of the forensic laboratory, was of the opinion that the assailant wore gloves. None of the prints identified matched those of Murray Gold.
James McDonald of the New Haven crime laboratory testified that as a result of his reexamination of the Pasternak house on September 30, 1974, he found two white plastic loops on the floor of the Pasternak master bedroom. He also testified that he removed from the blue shag rug in the master bedroom a small white plastic cylinder having the same appearance as the two plastic loops. McDonald identified these items as being parts of plastic that come with buttoneer kits. A buttoneer kit which the state claimed was seized from the defendant's New York apartment was admitted into evidence. From tests he conducted, McDonald concluded that the plastic pieces he had found in the Pasternak bedroom had been attached to the stubs left on the "base tie" in the buttoneer kit allegedly seized from Gold's apartment.
On appeal the defendant has raised numerous claims. Our ruling concerning declarations against penal interest is dispositive and mandates a new trial. Nevertheless, we address other issues that would be likely to arise at retrial.
DECLARATIONS AGAINST PENAL INTEREST
The defense attempted to introduce certain evidence in order to raise the possibility that one Bruce Sanford, who had committed suicide on December 10, 1974, committed the Pasternak murders. This evidence included alleged statements by Sanford against his penal interest, identification testimony by Dorothy Crocco, testimony regarding the activities of Sanford on the date of the murders and subsequent thereto, and testimony as to physical evidence claimed to link Sanford to the crimes. More specifically, in a hearing outside the presence of the jury, the following testimony was elicited: Glorianna Sanford, the wife of Bruce Sanford, testified that on September 26, 1974, the day of the Pasternak murders, Sanford had been drinking and was "kind of plastered" and "without expression." When his wife told him that she couldn't allow him to behave in this manner in front of the children, he walked into the bathroom and when he emerged, he had cut his throat. The following day, September 27, 1974, Sanford and his wife drove to Florida.
Patricia Morrison testified that she had been a friend of Bruce Sanford for twenty years. On September 24, 1974, two nights before the murders, she received a telephone call from Sanford. He was very upset about Mr. Pasternak. He had told her, Morrison also stated that Sanford told her that if his wife "didn't get what she had coming to her from this hearing, that he would get the no good Jew bastard one way or the other," and that he went on and on swearing about Pasternak until she got him calmed down about it. On September 26, 1974, the night of the murders, Sanford called Morrison late in the evening, possibly after 1 a. m. He told her he needed her help, and that he had "just done something that he wasn't gonna be able to get out of." When she asked him where he was, he replied, He asked Morrison to help him get out of the state. She refused.
Robert Bourassa, who had been a friend of Sanford's for approximately a year before Sanford's suicide testified that on the night of the murders, September 26, 1974, he and a friend, Craig Yashenko, went to Sanford's home at approximately 8 p. m. as a result of a telephone call from Glorianna Sanford. When they arrived she told them that she could not find Sanford, and she wanted Bourassa to go through the house with her to find him. Sanford could not be located. Later that evening...
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