State v. Heinemann

• Decision Date: 08 May 2007
• Docket Number: No. 17789.,17789.
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Gabriel P. HEINEMANN.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

920 A.2d 278

282 Conn. 281

STATE of Connecticut v. Gabriel P. HEINEMANN.

No. 17789.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued February 15, 2007.

Decided May 8, 2007.

Alice Osedach, assistant public defender, for the appellant (defendant).

John P. Gravalec-Pannone, senior assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, were Kevin T. Kane, chief state's attorney, and Lawrence J. Tytla, acting state's attorney, for the appellee (state).

Marsha L. Levick filed a brief for the Juvenile Law Center et al. as amici curiae.

BORDEN, NORCOTT, KATZ, VERTEFEUILLE and ZARELLA, Js.

KATZ, J.

The principal issue in this appeal is whether the trial court improperly failed to instruct the jury to consider the age of the defendant, Gabriel P. Heinemann, specifically, the level of maturity, sense of responsibility, vulnerability and personality traits of a sixteen year old, when deciding his defense of duress. According to the defendant, because it is more difficult for adolescents to resist pressures due to their limited decision-making capacity and their susceptibility to outside influences, the trial court improperly failed to provide an instruction that would have allowed the jury to factor his age into the defense, independent and regardless of how it related to the age of his coercers, with an eye toward accounting for the differences in how adolescents evaluate risks. The defendant also claims that the trial court improperly instructed the jury regarding accessorial liability as it pertains to the element of intent. We conclude that the trial court's instructions were proper. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment.

The defendant was charged in a ten count substitute information with conspiracy to commit robbery in the second degree in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a48(a)¹ and 53a-135(a)(2);² accessory to robbery in the second degree in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a8³ and 53a-135(a)(2); robbery in the second degree in violation of § 53a-135(a)(2); conspiracy to commit burglary in the first degree in violation General Statutes §§ 53a-48(a) and 53a-101(a)(2);⁴ accessory to burglary in the first degree in violation of §§ 53a-8 and 53a-101(a)(2); burglary in the first degree in violation § 53a-101(a)(2); conspiracy to commit larceny in the second degree in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a-48(a) and 53a-123(a)(3);⁵ accessory to larceny in the second degree in violation of §§ 53a-8 and 53a-123(a)(3); stealing a firearm in violation of General Statutes § 53a-212(a);⁶ and accessory to stealing a firearm in violation of §§ 53a-8 and 53a-212(a). Following a trial to the jury, he was convicted of all counts, and upon agreement at sentencing, the court merged the three conspiracy counts into one count and merged the accessory counts with the underlying substantive counts. Accordingly, the court sentenced the defendant on one count each for first degree burglary, second degree robbery, first degree conspiracy, second degree larceny and theft of a firearm to a total effective sentence of twelve years imprisonment, execution suspended after eight years, followed by five years probation. This appeal followed.⁷

The jury reasonably could have found the following facts. In late 2002, the defendant was sixteen years old and living with his father in Huntersville, North Carolina. His parents were divorced, and his mother and other family members lived in Mystic, Connecticut. During October, 2002, the defendant took a class in Connecticut that was required for him to obtain a driver's license in the state. In that class, he met Taylor Celico, whom he began to date. After the defendant returned to North Carolina, he kept in contact with Celico through e-mails, and when he returned to visit his mother in November, 2002, he met with Celico.

In December, 2002, he returned again to Mystic to visit his mother and other family members. On December 19, 2002, the defendant drove his mother's van to Celico's home with the intention of taking her to the movies. While the defendant and Celico were having coffee before the movie, Celico telephoned her friend Ashley Toth, whom the defendant had not met previously, and then requested that the defendant drive to Toth's home before the movie.

Toth lived in the town of Pawcatuck with her parents. At the Toth residence, the defendant, Celico and Toth were chatting when Toth's boyfriend, Rayquan Stokely and Christopher Thorne arrived. The only person that the defendant knew prior to this meeting was Celico. The defendant is white; Stokely and Thorne are black.

Shortly thereafter, the defendant, Stokely and Thorne met privately after Toth and Celico left the room and one of the males suggested that they get some marijuana. The three males, Celico and Toth then got into the defendant's van, and Toth and Celico directed the defendant to Erica DiBenedetto's home in Westerly, Rhode Island, where they believed they could obtain some marijuana. When they arrived, Toth and Celico waited in the van while the three males went to the second floor of the duplex where DiBenedetto lived. They rang her doorbell, and she let them in. DiBenedetto told them to have a seat. Her boyfriend was seated in the kitchen. Stokely and Thorne asked DiBenedetto if she had marijuana; she said that she did and went to retrieve it. As the defendant went to sit down, Stokely pulled out a gun and yelled "get on the floor." DiBenedetto and her boyfriend fell to the ground and lay facedown, while Stokely held a gun to their heads. Although she was lying facedown, DiBenedetto saw one of the black males and the defendant rummage through her home while the other black male held the gun to her and her boyfriend. At some point, DiBenedetto got up from the floor and handed them some marijuana and $200. Stokely and Thorne forced her to get back on the floor, facedown, and one of them kicked her. They bound her hands and her feet. DiBenedetto observed the defendant take presents from underneath her Christmas tree and place them in a sheet.

The defendant, Stokely and Thorne ran to the van shortly thereafter, holding a sheet containing Christmas presents. They got into the van, and the defendant drove them back to Toth's house. Everyone then went into the house, where Stephanie Bell had joined them. They went outside to smoke the marijuana taken from DiBenedetto. Stokely stated that he wanted to do another robbery and obtain some cocaine. He then instructed Toth to find out where Bobby Blanco, the boyfriend of one of Toth's school friends, lived.

The events that followed are the subject of this case. The six persons at Toth's house, now including Bell, got into the defendant's van. Toth gave the defendant directions to a wooded residential area in North Stonington, about twenty minutes away, to where she thought Blanco lived. When they reached a Mobil gas station at an intersection, Toth told the defendant to take a left turn. A short distance down that road, the defendant was told to stop the van in front of a house located at 168 Mystic Road. Stokely and Thorne got out of the van, saying they would return in ten to fifteen minutes, and the defendant remained inside the van with the three females.

The house at 168 Mystic Road in North Stonington belonged to Arnold Perkins and Janet Perkins, who lived there with their eighteen year old daughter. A door to the house had been left unlocked for the Perkins' daughter, who was out for the evening. It was approximately 9:15 p.m. when, as the couple was watching television, Janet Perkins heard a noise from the downstairs and thought it was her daughter returning home. She went to the top of the stairs, yelled down and, getting no answer, rejoined her husband. Approximately ten minutes later, a black male, either Stokely or Thorne, whom they never had seen before, came into the upstairs room with a shotgun and told the Perkins to get onto the floor. Arnold Perkins grabbed an end table and went toward the male. At that point, another black male entered the room, put a gun to Arnold Perkins' back and told him to get on the floor. Perkins dropped to the floor, and a blanket or jacket was put over his head. His hands were bound behind his back and his feet were bound together using telephone cord wires that had been pulled out from the wall. Stokely and Thorne kept asking Arnold Perkins where his son was; each time Perkins told them that he had no sons, only daughters. They asked him where the money was, and the couple feared that the men would hurt them. Arnold Perkins told them he did not have money in the house, but would take them to an automatic teller machine. One of the two intruders pulled Janet Perkins' rings off her fingers and then tied her up.

In the meantime, after waiting a few minutes outside the house for Stokely and Thorne, the defendant decided to drive the van back to the Mobil station to get gas. After returning to 168 Mystic Road, the defendant got out of the van and said he was going to check on how things were going. Five minutes later, the defendant came running back to the van, excited, and said that they had gone to the wrong house. The defendant then drove the van into the driveway of the home and turned it around so the passenger doors of the van were facing the house. The defendant got out of the van and made several trips from the home, putting items into the van.

At some point while these events were unfolding, Arnold Perkins heard a third male's voice, higher pitched than the voices belonging to the first two male intruders. Perkins could hear them taking items out of the house. One of the males asked Perkins if he had any guns in the house; he told them he did and that the guns were in the closet. While looking in the closet, the males found a safe and brought it out into the living room where the couple was tied up. The men untied Arnold Perkins, put the gun to the back of his head and demanded that he open the safe. After he complied, the two...