State v. Hooks

• Decision Date: 02 February 1993
• Docket Number: No. 10650,10650
• Citation: 619 A.2d 1151,30 Conn.App. 232
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Kendall HOOKS.
• Court: Connecticut Court of Appeals

Page 1151

619 A.2d 1151

30 Conn.App. 232

STATE of Connecticut v. Kendall HOOKS.

No. 10650.

Appellate Court of Connecticut.

Argued Dec. 10, 1992.

Decided Feb. 2, 1993.

Lauren Weisfeld, Asst. Public Defender, with whom, on the brief, was G. Douglas Nash, Public Defender, for appellant (defendant).

Leah Hawley, Asst. State's Atty., with whom, on the brief, were John M. Bailey, State's Atty., and James E. Thomas, Sr. Asst. State's Atty., for appellee (State).

Before LAVERY, HEIMAN and FREDERICK A. FREEDMAN, JJ.

HEIMAN, Judge.

The defendant appeals from the judgment of conviction, rendered after a jury trial, of manslaughter in the first degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-55(a)(1), ¹ conspiracy to commit assault in the first degree in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a-48(a) ² and 53a-59(a)(1), ³ and assault in the first degree in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a-59(a)(1) ⁴ and 53a-8. ⁵ The defendant was acquitted of a charge of weapons in a motor vehicle in violation of General Statutes § 29-38. On appeal, the defendant claims that (1) the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction of the crime of assault in the first degree because the victim's injury was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt to have been a serious physical injury, (2) he could not have been convicted of the crime of conspiracy because the evidence disclosed that the act committed was unintended, (3) the trial court improperly refused to charge the jury on the lesser included offenses of criminally negligent homicide and accessory to criminally negligent homicide, (4) the trial court improperly refused to give a jury charge on the evaluation of an accomplice's testimony, and (5) the trial court's instructions on circumstantial evidence and inferences violated the defendant's rights to due process of law and the right to present a defense. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The jury reasonably could have found the following facts. On April 9, 1990, Hartford police officers were dispatched to the area of Kensington and Hampton Streets in the Stowe Village housing project on a report that a person had been shot. The officers found Corretta Pratt, a fifteen year old female, lying on the pavement, not breathing, and lacking a pulse. A post mortem examination revealed that she had sustained three gunshot wounds. These gunshots, fired from a .38 caliber weapon, injured her heart and liver and were sufficient to have caused her death. The officers also observed a trail of blood and followed it to the rear of 64 Hampton Street. Although they found no victim there, the officers' subsequent investigation revealed that Chad Adger, who had been shot in the same incident that took Pratt's life, had been taken to the hospital.

On the evening of the shootings, Ralph Gilliard and several other persons including the two victims were standing at the corner of Kensington and Hampton Streets when they observed a passing Oldsmobile automobile that was occupied by several people wearing black hooded sweatshirts. Several minutes later, the vehicle returned. Shots were fired from the rear passenger side of the car. Pratt was shot several times and died as a result of the gunshots. Adger suffered a graze wound to his face and was shot in the left ring finger leaving it dangling by a thread. The injury to his finger required surgery and resulted in a scar and some loss of function.

Both Gilliard and Adger later identified a vehicle found parked on Enfield Street as the one from which the shots had been fired. Adger based his identification of the car on the fact that the right front hubcap was missing. The vehicle, a two door burgundy Oldsmobile 98, was owned by Anthony Harris. On April 9, 1990, he loaned the car to Larry Jenkins who, in turn, loaned it to Mike Butler.

Prior to the shooting, several members of the "Garden Street Posse," including the defendant, were standing around on Garden Street talking. They discussed their dissatisfaction with certain actions of some Stowe Village residents. As a retaliatory action for the throwing of a garbage can at the car of one of the member's grandfather, some of the members of the posse were going to Stowe Village and "shoot it up." Mike Butler, Derrick Allen, Gregory Butler, two Jamaican youths and the defendant were in the car when it left Garden Street to go to Stowe Village. In their possession they had two .38 caliber weapons as well as a .32 caliber weapon and a sawed-off shot gun. The defendant had possession and control of one of the .38 caliber weapons. Pratt was killed by a .38 caliber bullet.

On the day following the incident, the defendant stated that he hoped that the guns had been thrown away. He also stated to Keith Wilson that he had been trying to shoot "Sammy," but that he had missed. He also told Wilson that if the police became aware of his involvement "he would have to do time."

The defendant gave four separate and somewhat conflicting statements to the police. In his statement of May 1, 1990, he stated that his friends were angry about an incident that had occurred at Stowe Village but disclaimed any involvement in the shootings. He claimed that he had left to visit his girlfriend. On October 4, 1990, he was again interviewed by the police. In that interview he stated that his statement of May 1, 1990, was not truthful. He admitted that he had been in the car when the shots were fired but that neither he nor Allen had fired any weapons. He claimed that "Jamaica Mickey" had fired the shots. On October 9, 1990, the defendant was again interviewed by the police. On this occasion, he named all of the people who had been in the car on the day of the incident, and again claimed that "Jamaica Mickey" had opened fire into a crowd of people. In the same interview, he also stated that they had gone to Stowe Village to find some people with whom they had been fighting for the purpose of engaging in a fistfight, but that "Jamaica Mickey" and another person were armed. Finally, on October 18, 1990, the defendant stated that both "Jamaica Mickey" and Mike Butler had guns, but that he was only sure that "Jamaica Mickey" had fired. He was not able to tell whether Butler had fired. ⁶

I

The defendant first claims that the evidence produced at trial was insufficient for the jury to find that the defendant, with intent to cause serious physical injury to another person, caused such injury by means of a deadly weapon or a dangerous instrument. General Statutes § 53a-59(a)(1). The defendant posits that the evidence is deficient in several respects. First, he claims that the victim was, at the time of trial, pain free from the finger injury. Second, he asserts that after undergoing physical therapy, the victim reinjured his finger while playing basketball. While he concedes that the evidence demonstrated that the victim does not have full use of his left hand ring finger because it does not bend, and because it cannot be straightened from a forty-five degree angle, he asserts that the evidence does not support a conclusion that this disability resulted from the shooting injury but could have been caused by the subsequent basketball injury. The basis upon which he makes this claim is his assertion that the victim testified only that the appearance of the finger at the time of trial was the same as when he left the hospital. The defendant interprets that to limit the evidence to a scar half the size of a dime a half inch below the knuckle as the only sequelae from this shooting. We do not agree and conclude that the evidence was sufficient to support the jury finding.

Our review of the evidence reveals that Adger testified that his left ring finger had been shot and was hanging off, attached only by some bone and skin. Additionally, he testified that prior to the incident, his left ring finger appeared the same as did the right ring finger, and he displayed both his left and right ring fingers to the jury. The evidence also revealed that he was unable to straighten completely or bend his left ring finger. It was bent from the middle knuckle at approximately a forty-five degree angle. Adger also testified that he had reinjured his left ring finger playing basketball, but that the left ring finger still looked the same as it had looked after his discharge from the hospital and before it was injured in the basketball game.

To determine whether the evidence was sufficient to justify a conviction, we first construe the evidence in the light most favorable to sustaining the verdict. State v. Cruz, 28 Conn.App. 575, 578, 611 A.2d 457 (1992). We then determine whether, "from that evidence and all the reasonable inferences which it yields, a [trier of fact] could reasonably have concluded that the defendant was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt." State v. Uribe, 14 Conn.App. 388, 393, 540 A.2d 1081 (1988). "In this process of review, it does not diminish the probative force of the evidence that it consists, in whole or in part, of evidence that is circumstantial rather than direct...." (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Somerville, 214 Conn. 378, 390, 572 A.2d 944 (1990); State v. Maxwell, 29 Conn.App. 704, 708, 618 A.2d 43 (1992). "It is not one fact, but the cumulative impact of a multitude of facts which establishes guilt in a case involving substantial circumstantial evidence." (Citation omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Maxwell, supra.

It is the sole province of the jury as the trier of fact to draw reasonable and logical inferences from the facts that they find. State v. Gray, 221 Conn. 713, 721, 607 A.2d 391, cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 207, 121 L.Ed.2d 148 (1992). It is also the jury's exclusive province to weigh the conflicting evidence and determine the credibility of the witnesses. State v. Pinnock, 220 Conn. 765, 778, 601 A.2d 521 (1992); State v. Lago, 28 Conn.App. 9, 31, 611 A.2d 866, cert. denied, 223...