State v. Hernandez

• Decision Date: 22 December 1992
• Docket Number: No. 14168,14168
• Citation: State v. Hernandez, 224 Conn. 196, 618 A.2d 494 (Conn. 1992)
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Yuri HERNANDEZ.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

Page 494

618 A.2d 494

224 Conn. 196

STATE of Connecticut v. Yuri HERNANDEZ.

No. 14168.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Sept. 30, 1992.

Decided Dec. 22, 1992.

Robert S. Bello, with whom was Christopher R. Bello, Stamford, for appellant (defendant).

James A. Killen, Asst. State's Atty., with whom, on the brief, were Eugene J. Callahan, State's Atty., and Bruce Hudock, Asst. State's Atty., for the appellee (state).

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

SANTANIELLO, Associate Justice.

The defendant was found guilty by a jury of murder in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54a(a). ¹ The trial court rendered a judgment sentencing him to a term of imprisonment of forty years. The defendant appeals claiming that the trial court improperly: (1) limited the cross-examination of the state's primary witness; and (2) allowed the state to cross-examine the defendant concerning prior acts of uncharged misconduct. The defendant appealed directly to this court pursuant to General Statutes § 51-199(b)(3). ² We affirm.

The jury heard the following evidence that supports its conclusions that the defendant murdered the victim. In February, 1985, the defendant began selling drugs. In 1983, the defendant had made the acquaintance of Roberto Quinones and, in 1986, Quinones began selling drugs for the defendant at various nightclubs in Port Chester and White Plains, New York. Throughout 1986 Quinones and the defendant were together daily. They frequently met at the defendant's apartment at 9 Halloween Boulevard, Stamford, to prepare drugs for sale. They roomed together in other locations while they stored drugs in the defendant's apartment, and they went to nightclubs together. Quinones often drove the defendant to these places because the defendant did not have a United States ³ driver's license.

On September 21, 1986, the body of the victim, Sylvia Hunt, a prostitute, was discovered wrapped in a rolled carpet lying near the side of Interstate 95 in Greenwich, near the Mianus River Bridge. The state police were called, secured the area and summoned the state medical examiner. An examination of the body by the medical examiner disclosed that the body was punctured by fifteen stab wounds and that the cause of death was multiple stab wounds to the chest. Blood tests revealed traces of alcohol, cocaine and morphine in Hunt's body.

Subsequent to the discovery of the murder victim, the state police interviewed Quinones as part of their investigation. Quinones informed the police that the defendant had rented an apartment on Halloween Boulevard in Stamford from May to October, 1986. Quinones, who had been to the apartment on numerous occasions, testified that on a Saturday in September, 1986, he visited the defendant at his Halloween Boulevard apartment. The apartment had one entrance in the kitchen-living room area and another in the bedroom. Although Quinones had always used the bedroom entrance when visiting, the defendant told Quinones he could not enter that way and, on that particular day, he would have to use the kitchen entrance instead. That evening, after preparing drugs, the defendant and Quinones went to La Cascada, a nightclub, where the defendant told Quinones that he had killed a girl with a knife because she had been stealing his drugs and his "necklace chains." The defendant told Quinones that he had gone crazy and "killed her like a dog." He further stated that he had the body at his apartment but had otherwise cleaned up.

The following day Quinones returned to the Halloween Boulevard apartment to prepare more drugs. While in the apartment with the defendant, Quinones observed "a bulk in between the two mattresses" in the defendant's bedroom. The defendant asked Quinones to find the defendant's uncle so that the three of them could dispose of the body. Unable to locate the defendant's uncle, Quinones returned to the apartment, where he saw the living room rug rolled and tied.

About 4 a.m. the next day, Quinones, the defendant and the defendant's uncle drove in the defendant's red Buick automobile to the apartment. Quinones waited while the defendant and his uncle carried the rug down from the apartment and put it in the trunk of the defendant's car. The three men got into the car and the defendant drove to the Mianus River Bridge. Quinones watched as the defendant and his uncle removed the rug from the trunk and threw it behind the barrier alongside the highway. Quinones later identified the rug in which the victim's body was found as the same rug he had seen the defendant remove from the Halloween Boulevard apartment and discard along the highway. ⁴ Later that same day Quinones returned to the defendant's apartment and saw the defendant cut off bloodstained portions of his mattress, place them in plastic bags, and place the bags in the trunk of his car for disposal.

The following week, the defendant and Quinones were driving by the area where the body had been left and noticed that the police had discovered the body. In late September or early October, Quinones drove the defendant to the airport, and the defendant told Quinones to give the defendant's car to the defendant's wife, who lived in White Plains.

One of Quinones' neighbors testified that, after the police had found the body, Quinones had told him that the defendant had stabbed a black prostitute to death, had rolled up the body in a rug, and had disposed of the body along the highway. In January, 1988, the police seized portions of the flooring and the doorjambs between the kitchen and bedroom areas from the defendant's apartment on Halloween Boulevard. Laboratory tests revealed the presence of human blood on some of the items.

In the fall of 1988, the police seized a red Buick parked in a garage on Oakwood Avenue in White Plains. The tenants at the address stated that the car had been left there by previous tenants, the defendant's wife and her brother, who had moved out one year earlier. The police found a number of yarn-like fibers in the trunk of the Buick. Laboratory tests revealed that these fibers were consistent with those taken from the rug in which the victim's body was found. The police also found a key chain bearing the initial "S" in the trunk of the Buick.

The police testified that the defendant had told them that he thought the key chain looked like one the defendant's wife had given him. ⁵ The police also testified that the defendant had told them that he had always kept a knife in the red Buick. He described the knife as a machete.

I

The defendant's first claim is that the trial court abused its discretion and prejudiced his defense by refusing to allow him to cross-examine Quinones, the state's primary witness, concerning uncharged misconduct that had occurred ten months after the murder. ⁶ At trial, Quinones testified that the defendant had told Quinones that he had killed Hunt. The defendant attempted to establish that Quinones had killed the victim. ⁷ The defendant attempted to bolster this theory by introducing into evidence the fact that, in July, 1987, Quinones had threatened to slash a former girlfriend and to kill her, her husband and other members of her family. After hearing argument outside the presence of the jury, the trial court excluded this evidence because it was too remote in time and not factually similar to the murder.

Our case law recognizes the right of a defendant to introduce evidence that indicates that another person, not the defendant, committed the crime with which the defendant is charged. See, e.g., State v. Echols, 203 Conn. 385, 392, 524 A.2d 1143 (1987); State v. Burge, 195 Conn. 232, 252, 487 A.2d 532 (1985); Siemon v. Stoughton, 184 Conn. 547, 555-56, 440 A.2d 210 (1981); State v. Giguere, 184 Conn. 400, 405, 439 A.2d 1040 (1981); State v. Marshall, 166 Conn. 593, 601, 353 A.2d 756 (1974). The defendant must, however, present evidence that directly connects a third party to the crime with which the defendant has been charged. State v. Echols, supra; Siemon v. Stoughton, supra; State v. Giguere, supra. "It is not enough to show that another had the motive to commit the crime; State v. Marshall, supra; State v. Perelli, 125 Conn. 321, 328, 5 A.2d 705 (1939); nor is it enough to raise a bare suspicion that some other person may have committed the crime of which the defendant is accused. Brown v. State, 275 Ind. 227, 231, 416 N.E.2d 828 (1981)." State v. Echols, supra.

The rules of relevancy govern both the initial presentation of third party culpability evidence, and the admissibility of particular evidence in that regard. See State v. Echols, supra, 203 Conn. at 393, 524 A.2d 1143; State v. Burge, supra; State v. Giguere, supra, 184 Conn. at 405-406, 439 A.2d 1040; State v. Marshall, supra, 166 Conn. at 601-602, 353 A.2d 756. Whether third party culpability evidence is direct enough to be admissible is ultimately a matter of the discretion of the trial court. State v. Echols, supra.

"We test the question of remoteness by this rule: 'Generally speaking, the question of remoteness, as justifying the exclusion of evidence, must depend upon all the considerations, including time, the character of the evidence, and all the surrounding circumstances which in the opinion of the court ought to have a bearing upon its worthiness to be brought into the consideration and determination of the matter in contention.' State v. Kelly, 77 Conn. 266, 269, 58 A. 705 [1904]." Bishop v. Copp, 96 Conn. 571, 580, 114 A. 682 (1921). The evidence in question here related to conduct that occurred ten months after the murder that arose under very different circumstances and the threat was made to different individuals. Furthermore, there is no connection between Quinones' former girlfriend and the murder victim. Compare State v. Burge, supra, 195 Conn. at 252, 487 A.2d 532 (third party had confessed to recent commission of similar assault); State v. Ross, 18...