State v. Gonzalez

• Decision Date: 15 April 2014
• Docket Number: No. 18991.,18991.
• Citation: 149 Conn. 408,87 A.3d 1101
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Jason GONZALEZ.

149 Conn. 408

87 A.3d 1101

STATE of Connecticut

v.Jason GONZALEZ.

No. 18991.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Jan. 10, 2014.

Decided April 15, 2014.

Denise B. Smoker, senior assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, were David I. Cohen, state's attorney, and Richard J. Colangelo, Jr., senior assistant state's attorney, for the appellant (state).

Glenn W. Falk, Madison, assigned counsel, for the appellee (defendant).

ROGERS, C.J., and PALMER, ZARELLA, EVELEIGH, McDONALD, ESPINOSA and ROBINSON, Js.

ROBINSON, J.

The sole issue in this certified appeal is whether there is sufficient evidence to support the jury's verdict that the defendant, Jason Gonzalez, committed manslaughter in the first degree with a firearm as an accessory in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a–8a) ¹ and 53a–55a (a),² in connection with a shooting that occurred during an altercation in Norwalk's Roodner Court housing complex (Roodner Court) on Christmas night in 2007. The state appeals, upon our grant of its petition for certification,³ from the judgment of the Appellate Court reversing in part the trial court's judgment of conviction and remanding the case to that court with direction to render judgment of acquittal on the charge of manslaughter in the first degree with a firearm as an accessory, the charge that enhanced the defendant's sentence in accordance with General Statutes § 53–202k.⁴ State v. Gonzalez, 135 Conn.App. 101, 102–103, 41 A.3d 340 (2012). On appeal, the state contends that the Appellate Court improperly concluded that there was insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant had acted as an accessory by intentionally aiding Donald Wilson, the person who fired the fatal shots. Guided by, inter alia, our recent decision in State v. Bennett, 307 Conn. 758, 59 A.3d 221 (2013), we conclude that the record contains insufficient evidence to prove that the defendant intentionally aided Wilson in committing the homicide. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Appellate Court.

The record reveals the following relevant facts, which the jury reasonably could have found, and procedural history. On the night of December 25, 2007, Kenny Jackson was in a third floor apartment in Roodner Court's building thirteen, celebrating Christmas by having drinks with friends. Shortly before 11 p.m., Jackson left the apartment and went downstairs to the first floor of the building in an attempt to purchase marijuana and crack cocaine. In the first floor hallway, Jackson encountered several people, including the defendant and Wilson. Jackson asked them, “who's straight,” which is street slang for “[w]ho's got drugs,” to which Wilson replied that “he [had] something.” Jackson then went with Wilson to a balcony in the second floor hallway to consummate the drug sale.

While Jackson and Wilson were in the second floor hallway, the victim, Larry Paulk, a longtime acquaintance of Jackson, exited his mother's apartment, where his family had gathered for a Christmas celebration, and “star[ed]” at the men, leading Jackson to sense that the victim was bothered by the drug sale occurring there. Jackson and Wilson then left the second floor and went to the back door on the first floor of the building to complete the sale out of the victim's view. Shortly thereafter, the victim came downstairs and around the corner toward that back doorway; Jackson asked Wilson to “[w]ait until he leaves” before making the sale. The victim then walked down the hallway toward the building's front door. Jackson and Wilson then moved in that same direction, at which point the defendant was waiting by the front door. As the victim left the building, the defendant said “Merry Christmas.” The victim, however, ignored him, leading the defendant to call the victim an “asshole.” The victim then turned, reentered the building, and confronted the defendant in the vestibule area, where two young women also were present.

Although Jackson attempted to defuse the brewing confrontation by saying, “Larry, he didn't say anything to you,” the defendant drew a Glock semiautomatic handgun and pointed it at the victim, stating, “Yeah, I didn't say anything. I didn't say anything to you.” While the two men were standing face-to-face, the victim then grabbed at the handgun in the defendant's hand, and they began to wrestle, prompting Jackson to flee from the building to the nearby streets. Shortly thereafter, while in flight, Jackson heard a gunshot; he did not see who fired the gun. Jackson then flagged down James Wright, a Norwalk police officer, for assistance.

In the meantime, Fred Paulk (Fred), the victim's brother, who was also attending his family's Christmas celebration, heard two gunshots approximately three minutes after the victim left the second floor apartment. Fred then ran to the balcony and saw the victim wrestling with the defendant on the ground in the first floor hallway, while one of the young women held the defendant around the waist, telling him to stop fighting. Fred then saw Wilson standing in the front doorway pointing the defendant's gun, which had fallen to the floor during the struggle, at the victim.⁵ When the victim broke loose from the struggle, he fell back against the wall with mailboxes for the building, and the defendant and the woman fell toward the door. Despite Fred's pleas, Wilson fired two shots at the victim at close range; one, the fatal shot, struck him in the chest, and the other struck him in the elbow and upper arm before the bullet lodged in the victim's chest wall. Wilson then grabbed the defendant by his shirt, and dragged him out of the building moving backward like he “was using him as a shield,” with one hand, while pointing the gun with the other. Fred yelled at Wilson as he and the defendant ran away, threatening to kill him. The police arrived at the scene shortly thereafter.⁶

The defendant and Wilson were subsequently arrested.⁷ The state charged the defendant in a four count amended information with manslaughter in the first degree with a firearm as an accessory in violation of §§ 53a–8(a) and 53a–55a(a), criminal possession of a firearm in violation of General Statutes § 53a–217(a)(1),⁸ carrying a pistol without a permit in violation of General Statutes § 29–35(a), and sought the sentence enhancement pursuant to § 53–202k for having committed a class A, B or C felony with a firearm. The case was tried to a jury. Following the trial court's denial of the defendant's motions for acquittal,⁹ the jury returned a verdict finding the defendant guilty on all counts. The trial court rendered a judgment of guilty in accordance with the jury's verdict, and sentenced the defendant to a total effective sentence of forty-five years imprisonment, of which ten years was a mandatory minimum.¹⁰

The defendant appealed from the manslaughter conviction and the associated sentence enhancement ¹¹ to the Appellate Court, claiming, inter alia,¹² that there was insufficient evidence that he had “solicited, requested, commanded, importuned or intentionally aided” Wilson in the commission of the homicide. State v. Gonzalez, supra, 135 Conn.App. at 103, 41 A.3d 340. In a unanimous opinion, the Appellate Court agreed with the defendant, and rejected the state's argument that “the defendant was properly convicted upon sufficient evidence, both direct and circumstantial, and from the ‘intricate chain of eminently reasonable and logical inferences flowing from the evidence.’ ” Id., at 108–109, 41 A.3d 340. The Appellate Court determined that the “record is devoid of any evidence that the defendant solicited, requested, commanded, importuned or intentionally aided Wilson in the commission of the crime of manslaughter. Moreover, there were no facts before the jury from which it reasonably could have inferred that the defendant engaged in such conduct. The testimony adduced at trial indicated that the defendant pointed a gun at the victim, and the two then began struggling for the weapon. The record contains no evidence, however, as to how the gun came into Wilson's possession, nor any evidence of any conduct by the defendant which reasonably could be interpreted as assisting Wilson.” ¹³Id., at 109, 41 A.3d 340. The court further noted that, “[a]lthough the defendant brandished a gun at the victim, the evidence suggests that this event occurred independently of the drug transaction. There was no evidence that the defendant participated at all in the drug transaction.” ¹⁴Id., at 110, 41 A.3d 340. Thus, the Appellate Court concluded that “the jury could not have inferred reasonably and logically that there was sufficient evidence to convict the defendant of manslaughter in the first degree with a firearm as an accessory.” Id., at 113, 41 A.3d 340. Accordingly, the Appellate Court reversed the trial court's judgment “with respect to the defendant's conviction of manslaughter in the first degree with a firearm as an accessory and with respect to the sentence enhancement pursuant to § 53–202k,” and remanded the case to that court “with direction to render judgment of acquittal on that charge and to resentence the defendant on the remaining charges....” Id. The Appellate Court affirmed the trial court's judgment “in all other respects.” Id. This certified appeal followed. See footnote 3 of this opinion.

On appeal to this court, the state claims that, under the well established standard of review applicable to sufficiency of the evidence claims, the jury's verdict is supported by a “chain of reasonable and logical inferences from the evidence that established the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” The state posits that, from the evidence adduced at trial, the jury reasonably could have inferred that the defendant acted to aid Wilson because: (1) given the correlation between guns and the narcotics trade, Wilson and the defendant “were operating together to sell drugs inside ... Roodner Court,” and the “defen...