State v. Hockenhull

• Decision Date: 27 May 1987
• Docket Number: No. 85-531-C,85-531-C
• Citation: 525 A.2d 926
• Parties: STATE of Rhode Island v. Charles HOCKENHULL. A.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

Page 926

525 A.2d 926

STATE of Rhode Island v. Charles HOCKENHULL.

No. 85-531-C.A.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

May 27, 1987.

William Reilly, Public Defender, Janice M. Weisfeld, Barbara Hurst, Asst. Public Defenders, Providence, for plaintiff.

James E. O'Neil, Atty. Gen., Jane M. McSoley, Thomas Dickinson, Asst. Attys. Gen., Providence, for defendant.

OPINION

WEISBERGER, Justice.

This case comes before us on appeal by the defendant, Charles Hockenhull, from a conviction of second-degree murder entered in the Superior Court after a jury trial. We reverse. The facts relevant to this appeal are as follows.

On November 8, 1984, at approximately 10:20 p.m., Joseph Rabuano was watching television with his girlfriend at his home on 31 West Street, apartment 4, West Warwick, when he heard a loud noise from apartment 5 next door. Rabuano's girlfriend turned the television down, and they heard a male and a female voice. The female voice cried out, "Charlie, what did you do to me? I'm bleeding."

Alarmed, Rabuano telephoned the police and, while waiting for them to respond, heard the female voice again, "I love you, Charlie. Hold me. I can't feel my feet anymore. There's blood going into my throat." Rabuano testified that the woman repeated over and over, "Hold me. Hold me. Charlie, I love you. Hold me."

Officer Nicholas Pellegrino and Officer Kevin O'Connell responded to the call, conversed briefly with Rabuano outside the apartment, and began ringing the doorbell at the back door of apartment 5. After receiving no response to the doorbell, Officer Pellegrino banged on the door and announced himself as a police officer. They then heard the front door of the apartment slam and saw defendant leave the apartment and head toward his car in the parking lot. The officers called out loudly ordering defendant to stop and identifying themselves as police officers. The defendant ran out of the parking lot and Officer O'Connell ran after him.

Officer Pellegrino proceeded to the front of the apartment and, upon noticing a blood spot on the partially open front door of apartment 5, began to push on the door to open it. Because the door was obstructed by a woman's body, Officer Pellegrino had to force the door open. Inside, he and Officer O'Connell, who had returned, discovered Lori Fallon lying on the floor breathing shallowly, her clothes stained with blood and her throat slashed. The room was smeared with blood.

After summoning the rescue squad, Officer O'Connell checked the other rooms of the apartment to make sure no one else was inside and then returned to attend to the victim. Sergeant Boulton arrived at the apartment after the rescue squad and ordered Officers O'Connell and Pellegrino to search for the suspect and take witness statements. Detective Peter Appollonio, the Bureau of Criminal Identification (BCI) officer for the department, arrived on the scene and secured the apartment. Detective James Smith thereafter arrived at the scene, returned to the West Warwick police station for proper processive BCI equipment, then went back to the scene with the equipment. He and Detective Appollonio then thoroughly searched, photographed, and diagrammed defendant's apartment. They seized a pillow, couch cushions, playing cards, a phone book, beer bottles, a peppermint schnapps bottle, a man's jacket, a scatter rug, a living room carpet, a sofa, and a pair of woman's sneakers. The seized items were transported to the crime laboratory where tests for the presence of blood were performed on the items. The police at no time attempted to obtain a search warrant.

The defendant was found by the police at approximately 5:10 a.m. When found, defendant was lying in a fetal position, off to the side of the road. He appeared to be semiconscious--his eyes were closed and he was shaking. His clothes were saturated with blood.

Lori Fallon died as a result of approximately twenty-six stab wounds. The defendant later told the police that he had no memory of stabbing Ms. Fallon, that he loved her, and that he could not believe she was dead.

The defendant raises three issues in support of his appeal. We shall address two of these issues in the order in which they were presented in defendant's brief and will provide such further facts as may be necessary to our consideration of these issues.

I INSTRUCTIONS TO THE JURY

The defendant asserts that the trial justice incorrectly instructed the jury on the effect of a finding of diminished capacity and further that the trial justice erred in refusing to instruct the jury on the lesser included offense of voluntary manslaughter. We agree.

At trial, testimony was presented to the effect that in the hours immediately preceding the homicide defendant consumed a significant quantity of drugs and alcohol. Relying on this evidence, defense counsel requested the trial justice to instruct the jury that diminished mental capacity sufficient to negate the element of specific intent to kill reduces the crime of murder to the crime of voluntary manslaughter. Although the trial justice did instruct the jury that a defendant's intoxication due to alcohol or drug consumption is recognized by the law as a defense to an offense that requires a specific intent, he did not explain to the jury that the absence of a specific intent to kill owing to a defendant's diminished capacity would reduce the crime of murder to the lesser included crime of voluntary manslaughter. Instead, the trial justice told the jury to return a verdict of not guilty if they found that defendant's diminished capacity negated his ability to form a specific intent to kill. ¹ Moreover the trial justice neglected to instruct the jury on the elements of manslaughter by reason of diminished capacity but instructed them only in regard to the offense of involuntary manslaughter. ² Defense counsel made timely objection to the trial justice's instructions.

Under the diminished capacity doctrine, an essential element of the crime of murder is absent when a defendant is so intoxicated as to render him incapable of forming the specific intent to kill. State v. Correra, 430 A.2d 1251 (R.I.1981). ³ A defendant's diminished mental capacity reduces the crime of murder to the lesser included crime of voluntary manslaughter. Id.; see State v. Turley, 113 R.I. 104, 318 A.2d 455 (1974).

Manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a human being without malice aforethought, either express or implied. State v. Lillibridge, 454 A.2d 237 (R.I.1982); State v. Goff, 107 R.I. 331, 267 A.2d 686 (1970). Because manslaughter is a "catch-all" concept encompassing "all homicides which are neither murder nor innocent," Perkins & Boyce, Criminal Law 102 (3d ed. 1982), it may be applied in varying contexts.

Involuntary manslaughter is generally defined as an unintentional homicide without malice aforethought, committed either in performance of an unlawful act not amounting to a felony or in the performance of a lawful act with criminal negligence. State v. Freeman, 473 A.2d 1149 (R.I.1984); State v. Lillibridge, 454 A.2d 237 (R.I.1982); State v. Vargas, 420 A.2d 809 (R.I.1980). Involuntary manslaughter resulting from criminal negligence is a lesser degree of homicide than an act that may constitute murder as the result of the wanton recklessness of the accused. See State v. Iovino, 524 A.2d 556 (R.I.1987).

Voluntary manslaughter, on the other hand, is the product of a deliberate act that does not include the element of malice aforethought by reason of one or more mitigating factors. ⁴ Such mitigating factors may exist when the crime is committed in the heat of passion arising as a result of adequate provocation. State v. Lillibridge, 454 A.2d 237 (R.I.1982); State v. Vargas, 420 A.2d 809 (R.I.1980); State v. Goff, 107 R.I. 331, 267 A.2d 686 (1970). Voluntary manslaughter may also result from a deliberate act of homicide wherein the accused is suffering from sufficiently diminished capacity that renders him unable to form the specific intent necessary to constitute murder. Such diminished capacity may result from intoxication "of such a degree as to completely paralyze the will of the respondent, take from him the power to withstand evil impulses and render his mind incapable of forming any sane design." State v. Vanasse, 42 R.I. 278, 281, 107 A. 85, 86 (1919); see State v. Doyon, 416 A.2d 130 (R.I. 1980); State v. McGehearty, 121 R.I. 55, 394 A.2d 1348 (1978); Danahey v. State, 118 R.I. 268, 373 A.2d 489 (1977); State v. Turley, 113 R.I. 104, 318 A.2d 455 (1974).

In the case at bar the applicable form of manslaughter raised by the factual issues is that of voluntary manslaughter reduced from the crime of murder by virtue of the doctrine of diminished capacity, under which severe intoxication resulting from the ingestion of alcohol and drugs precludes the formation of a specific intent to kill.

In this case the trial justice determined that an instruction on diminished capacity was warranted by the evidence, but he failed to instruct the jury properly on the lesser included offense of voluntary manslaughter by reason of diminished capacity. General Laws 1956 (1985 Reenactment) § 8-2-38 requires a trial justice to instruct the jury in the law that must be applied to the issues raised by the parties in order to secure a fair trial. A trial justice's refusal to give an instruction to which the defendant is entitled may constitute prejudicial error. State v. Robalewski, 418 A.2d 817 (R.I.1980); State v. Milazzo, 116 R.I. 443, 358 A.2d 35 (1976); State v. Butler, 107 R.I. 489, 268 A.2d 433 (1970); Macaruso v. Massart, 96 R.I. 168, 190 A.2d 14 (1963).

We have repeatedly stated that a criminal defendant is entitled to an instruction on a lesser included offense if such an instruction is warranted by the evidence. State v. Lemon, 497 A.2d 713 (R.I.1985); State v. Kaner, 463 A.2d 1348 (R.I.1983); State v. Austin, 462 A.2d 359 (R.I.1983). As a matter of practice, we...