State v. Hughes

• Citation: 341 Conn. 387,267 A.3d 81
• Decision Date: 23 November 2021
• Docket Number: SC 20268
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Dante Alexander HUGHES
• Court: Supreme Court of Connecticut

341 Conn. 387

267 A.3d 81

STATE of Connecticut

v.Dante Alexander HUGHES

SC 20268

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued March 31, 2021

Officially released November 23, 2021^*

Vishal K. Garg, West Hartford, for the appellant (defendant).

Jonathan M. Sousa, deputy assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, were Michael L. Regan, former state's attorney, and Paul J. Narducci, state's attorney, for the appellee (state).

Robinson, C. J., and McDonald, D'Auria, Kahn, Ecker and Keller, Js.

KELLER, J.

Following a jury trial, the defendant, Dante Alexander Hughes, was convicted of manslaughter in the first degree with a firearm in violation of General Statutes § 53a-55a, after the jury found him not guilty of murder but rejected his claim of self-defense. In a subsequent trial to the court, the defendant was found guilty of criminal possession of a firearm in violation of General Statutes § 53a-217 in connection with the same incident. On appeal,¹ the defendant claims that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to disprove, beyond a reasonable doubt, any of the elements of self-defense because the state failed to present affirmative evidence that discredited the defendant's testimonial account of the incident. The defendant also claims that the trial court improperly denied his motion for a new trial on the ground of juror misconduct, specifically, a juror's consultation of a dictionary definition of "manslaughter," because the court applied an incorrect legal standard and misallocated the burden of proof. We affirm the judgment of conviction.

The record reveals the following facts, which the jury reasonably could have found, and procedural history.² In the early morning hours of December 11, 2016, the defendant and his girlfriend, Latoya Knight, stopped for a drink at Ryan's Pub, a neighborhood bar in Groton, after Knight picked the defendant up from work in the couple's Nissan Armada. Knight was already intoxicated when the couple arrived at the pub. While the defendant and Knight were inside the pub, the defendant engaged in a friendly conversation with two other patrons, John Hoyt and then the victim, Joseph Gingerella.

At some point, the defendant and Knight started arguing. Knight slapped a beer bottle out of the defendant's hand, picked it up, and hit him in the face with it. She then demanded the keys to the Armada and stormed outside through the pub's side door with the keys in hand. When the defendant went to follow her, the pub's bartender, Rachel Smith, tried to stop him because she could see that he was angry and told him not to hurt Knight. The defendant pushed Smith away and continued to follow Knight. Smith then asked Andrew Flynn, another patron, Hoyt, and the victim to check on Knight.

When the defendant reached the Armada, Knight was sitting in the driver's seat. The defendant opened the door and punched Knight multiple times in the face, causing her nose to bleed. Hoyt and the victim then approached the Armada, positioned themselves on either side of the defendant, and attempted to stop the assault. Hoyt put his hands underneath the defendant's arms and tried to pull him away. The victim also tried to pull the defendant away from Knight and yelled, "[y]ou're not gonna hit her like that! ... [Y]ou're not gonna put your hand[s] on her!" The defendant and the victim continued arguing, and Flynn intervened by extending his arms between the two of them and telling them to "chill."

Another pub patron observing the incident, Elvira Gonzalez, saw both Flynn and the victim gesture with their hands for the defendant to calm down. Smith, who had gone outside to tell everyone to calm down, saw Flynn gesture to her that everything was okay. Seconds later, several witnesses present at the scene heard multiple gunshots fired, but no one saw the defendant pull the trigger or observed the victim immediately before he was fatally shot.³ After Hoyt heard the shots, he turned around to see what had happened and saw the defendant holding a gun and the victim lying on the ground, shielding himself with his hand up. The defendant then fled the scene.

The defendant went to his home, changed his clothes, and made phone calls to his two brothers, his sister, and his mother. Thereafter, one of the defendant's brothers picked him up and drove him to the Norwich home of their uncle, Shelton Rawls. The defendant told Rawls that he had shot someone after telling that person to mind his own business and to leave him and Knight alone, and that he thought he had killed this person. He asked Rawls to cut his hair, and Rawls then cut off the defendant's green dreadlocks. The defendant's other brother met the defendant at Rawls' house later that morning to give the defendant a new prepaid cell phone. Before turning off the subscriber phone that he had been using, the defendant sent a text message to his work supervisor that stated, "[n]ot coming in for a long time ...."

The defendant made arrangements to be driven to Boston, Massachusetts, by one of his brother's friends and decided to make his way across the Canadian border from there. While heading to Canada, the defendant called several family members using the prepaid phone but used a function on the phone that prevents the person receiving the call from seeing the phone number of the person who is calling. The defendant made a stop at Niagara Falls, New York, and threw the gun that he had used to shoot the victim into the Niagara River. Afterward, he walked across a bridge into Canada, where he was detained by Canadian border agents.

Nine days after the shooting, Groton police detectives drove to Canada, took custody of the defendant, and brought him back to Connecticut, where he was placed under arrest. Groton detectives subsequently interrogated the defendant. For most of the approximately two hour interrogation, the defendant denied any involvement in the shooting. He falsely claimed that he had left the area before the shooting occurred and had no idea how it happened. He also falsely claimed that he did not own a gun, had fought with Knight outside the pub but no one intervened, had left the pub after calling a cab to take him to the bus station, had cut his hair in Buffalo, New York, because he had an upcoming job interview, and had traveled to Canada for enjoyment. At one point, when the interrogating officers urged the defendant to tell them the real story because they already knew that he had shot the victim, he responded, "[y]ou got no cameras." Approximately one hour and forty minutes into the interrogation, the defendant admitted that he had shot the victim but claimed to have done so in self-defense. He claimed that the victim had started to pull up his shirt, and the defendant "thought [that the victim] was reaching for something ... that he was going for a gun." He stated that he was trying to protect himself and was "not trying to kill [the victim]." He also indicated that he "didn't know [that the victim] didn't have nothin'."

In two substitute informations, the defendant was charged with murder in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54a (a) and criminal possession of a firearm. At trial, the defendant asserted a defense of self-defense. The state disputed that the defendant had acted in self-defense but also argued that he was not entitled to the defense because he had a duty to retreat.⁴ At the close of evidence, pursuant to the state's request, the trial court instructed the jury on both murder and the lesser included offense of manslaughter in the first degree with a firearm. The court also instructed the jury on its obligation to consider whether the defendant acted in self-defense, if it found the defendant guilty of either crime.

The jury found the defendant guilty of manslaughter in the first degree with a firearm, and the court thereafter found the defendant guilty of criminal possession of a firearm. The court rendered judgment in accordance with the verdict and its finding, and imposed a total effective sentence of fifty years of imprisonment, execution suspended after forty-five years, followed by five years of probation.

Following his conviction, the defendant filed a motion for a new trial on the ground of juror misconduct, after learning that, during deliberations, a juror had consulted a dictionary for the definition of "manslaughter." The trial court recognized that misconduct had occurred but, following a hearing, denied the motion, concluding that no actual prejudice resulted from the misconduct. This appeal followed. Additional facts and procedural history will be set forth as necessary.

I

The defendant's first claim is that he is entitled to an acquittal on the charge of manslaughter in the first degree with a firearm because the state failed to meet its burden, pursuant to General Statutes § 53a-12 (a), of disproving, beyond a reasonable doubt, any of the elements of his self-defense claim. He contends that the state was obligated to present affirmative evidence to discredit his testimonial account of what occurred at the precise moment of the shooting. Specifically, he claims that the state failed (1) to present affirmative evidence that the victim did not make a gesture that the defendant could reasonably have believed was as an attempt to reach for a deadly weapon, or (2) to establish the statutory disqualification for self-defense of failure to retreat. The state asserts that it can, and did, satisfy its burden of persuasion through direct and circumstantial evidence proving that the defendant did not reasonably believe that the victim was about to use deadly physical force against him. We agree with the state. Therefore, we need not consider the state's alternative claim that, even if the defendant had held such a belief, the jury reasonably could have concluded that he had a duty to retreat.

The defendant did not raise this insufficiency claim in the trial court, but his unpreserved claim is nonetheless reviewable under ...