State v. Hoyeson
| Decision Date | 08 December 1966 |
| Citation | 224 A.2d 735,154 Conn. 302 |
| Parties | STATE of Connecticut v. Raymond E. HOYESON. |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
Samuel H. Woltch, Special Public Defender, for appellant (defendant).
Joseph T. Gormley, Jr., Asst. State's Atty., with whom, on the brief, was Otto J. Saur, State's Atty., for appellee (state).
Before KING, C. J, and ALCORN, HOUSE, COTTER and RYAN, JJ. KING, Chief Justice.
The information charged the defendant in the first count with rape (General Statutes § 53-238); in the second count with burglary with personal violence (§ 53-69); and in the third count with assault with intent to murder (§ 53-12). He was tried to the jury on the second and third counts only. On the second count he was convicted of the crime therein charged, and on the third count he was convicted of the included, but lesser, crime of aggravated assault (§ 53-16). See cases such as State v. Mele, 140 Conn. 398, 402, 100 A.2d 570; State v. Pallanck, 146 Conn. 527, 529, 152 A.2d 633. Thereafter, the first count was nolled.
In his appeal from his conviction, the defendant claims, as to the second, and also the third, count, that the court erred in denying his motion to set aside the verdict as unsupported by the evidence, and that the court erred in four rulings on evidence. A claim for certain corrections of the finding need not be separately discussed since its subject matter is necessarily embraced in the claim as to the inadequacy of the evidence to support a conviction under either count.
The state offered evidence from which the jury could properly find that the defendant, during the night of October 26 and 27, 1964, with two comrades, Richard Ryan and Roy Spencer, went to the rear yard of the residence of a Dr. Coler, in Bridgeport, after all the lights were out in the Coler house; that the defendant had told Spencer that he wanted to see a girl; that Ryan and the defendant opened a window having an inside screen; that Ryan heard the screen being cut and then saw Spencer boost the defendant through the window; that Spencer and Ryan then went to the rear of the house; and that a few minutes later the defendant came running out of the back door and told Spencer he had just stabbed someone inside.
There was evidence that the defendant had expressed ill will toward, and an intention to 'get', a girl named Lucy because she had told the defendant's mother that the defendant had raped her; that for about a year Lucy had occupied, as the defendant knew, a particular bedroom on the second floor of the Coler house; that some weeks before the night in question Lucy had moved to another room on the third floor of the same house and thereafter Norman Moskowitz, a student at the University of Bridgeport, had occupied Lucy's former room; that on the night in question the defendant had broken into the house; and that, about 3 o'clock in the morning, Moskowitz was awakened in the darkness by an unknown assailant who slashed and stabbed him with a knife or other sharp instrument, inflicting severe wounds, and who then fled from the room down the back stairs near the rear door.
It was the state's claim that the defendant had slashed and stabbed Moskowitz thinking that he was Lucy, and, in support of this claim, the state offered evidence of admissions which the defendant had made to fellow inmates in the jail that he had stabbed a boy thinking he was a girl whom the defendant knew and disliked. The case thus bore a considerable similarity to State v. Costa, 95 Conn. 140, 145, 110 A. 875.
The defendant's claims as to the insufficiency of the evidence are based on three main grounds.
The first ground is that Spencer and Ryan testified that the defendant's breaking and entering was before eleven in the evening, whereas the state's evidence was that the assault on Moskowitz took place about 3 o'clock in the morning. It is elementary that a trier, whether court or jury, is entitled to credit some portions of a witness' testimony and discredit other portions. Desmarais v. Pinto, 147 Conn. 109, 111, 157 A.2d 596; Rickert v. Fraser, 152 Conn. 678, 681, 211 A.2d 702.
The rule often becomes applicable where, as here, the testimony in question comes from a witness who is a friend of the accused and presumably is interested in his welfare. It is obvious that the jury credited the basic testimony of Ryan and Spencer but rejected their testimony as to the hour when the entry took place. Moskowitz' testimony abundantly supported the stat's claim that the assault took place a little after 3 o'clock in the morning. The time of entry was further supported by testimony of Dr. Coler that, before he went to bed, between 11 and 11:30 p. m., all the doors and windows were closed, although after the assault the window screen was found cut and the rear door open.
The second ground is that the state did not prove that the defendant made the assault on Moskowitz because it failed to produce any knife or other instrument capable of inflicting the wounds which Moskowitz received. This claim is based on medical testimony of a Dr. Carlos Peranta that most, although not all, of the wounds were parallel and that the parallel wounds were probably made by a two-pronged instrument such as a scissors.
Ryan testified that on the following day the defendant told him that he had buried the knife which he had had that night. The state did offer evidence that the defendant had had a single-bladed knife in his possession on the night in question, but of course this evidence did not prove that he had no other cutting instrument. Any uncertainties which there might be as to the actual instrument or instruments used would not be fatal to the state's case in the light of the admissions of the defendant to Spencer and later, in jail, to Charles Johnson and Joseph Harris that he had stabbed a boy thinking he was a girl who had told his mother he had raped her. The evidence warranted the jury in deciding that the defendant had perpetrated the...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
State v. Moye
...obligated to prove motive as an element of murder, the presence of a motive would be relevant to proving intent. State v. Hoyeson, 154 Conn. 302, 307, 224 A.2d 735 (1966). The prosecution's theory was that the defendant killed McDuffie, who was one of the defendant's runners, because McDuff......
-
State v. Johnson
...whether court or jury, is entitled to credit some portions of a witness' testimony and discredit other portions.'' State v. Hoyeson, 154 Conn. 302, 305, 224 A.2d 735 (1966). We therefore conclude that the jury was free to credit portions of Carroll's testimony to reach the inference that th......
-
Walker v. Commissioner of Correction
...its discretion in finding that Brown's trial testimony was generally truthful despite some discrepancies. See State v. Hoyeson, 154 Conn. 302, 305, 224 A.2d 735 (1966) ("a trier [of facts] is entitled to credit some portions of a witness' testimony and discredit other portions"). Furthermor......
-
State v. Reynolds
...a motive for a crime.... But it strengthens its case when an adequate motive can be shown.” (Citation omitted.) State v. Hoyeson, 154 Conn. 302, 307, 224 A.2d 735 (1966). “Evidence of prior misconduct that tends to show that the defendant harbored hostility toward the intended victim of a v......