State v. Hull
| Decision Date | 21 March 1989 |
| Docket Number | No. 13189,13189 |
| Citation | 210 Conn. 481,556 A.2d 154 |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE of Connecticut v. Robert E. HULL. |
Denise Dishongh, special public defender, with whom was Louis S. Avitabile, Sp. Public Defender, for appellant (defendant).
Geoffrey E. Marion, Deputy Asst. State's Atty., with whom, on the brief, were John T. Redway, State's Atty., and Christine Marsching, Legal Intern, for appellee (state).
Before PETERS, C.J., ARTHUR H. HEALEY, SHEA, CALLAHAN and COVELLO, JJ.
The principal issue in this appeal is whether the defendant's constitutional rights were violated by the admission of testimony informing the jury that the defendant, after having been advised of his Miranda rights, invoked his right to silence by requesting an attorney. The defendant, Robert E. Hull, was charged with having committed the crime of murder, in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54a(a), 1 in connection with the stabbing death of his wife. A jury found the defendant guilty as charged, and the trial court, after denying his motion for acquittal, sentenced him to a thirty-five year term of imprisonment. The defendant has appealed. We find no reversible error.
The jury could reasonably have found the following facts. In April, 1985, the defendant's wife, the victim, left the defendant because of his drinking problem and moved to Connecticut. In May, 1985, the victim filed for divorce and a restraining order was issued against the defendant. On June 19, 1985, the defendant, after leaving a suicide note with a friend in Vermont, drove to Middletown, Connecticut, to see the victim. At approximately 4 p.m., the defendant telephoned the victim at a neighbor's house. The victim sounded frightened and told the defendant that she wanted to end their marriage. At approximately 4:20 p.m., the defendant drove his pickup truck into the driveway of the house in Middletown where the victim was staying. The two engaged in an argument, first in the driveway and then in the house. The argument ended in a scuffle, during which the defendant repeatedly stabbed the victim. Carrying the bloody knife away with him, the defendant then drove off in his truck. The police, responding to a neighbor's call, found the victim lying on the kitchen floor with eleven stab wounds. She was pronounced dead at 5:25 p.m.
The police officers found and stopped the defendant in his truck at 5:40 p.m. on West Street, in Middletown. They observed signs of intoxication and smelled the odor of alcohol as the defendant exited his truck at their request. They arrested him for driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol and took him to the police station. He was later charged with the murder of the victim.
At the trial, the defendant did not deny that he had killed the victim. Rather, he relied upon evidence of his intoxication at the time of the incident in support of his argument that he lacked the specific intent to commit murder. He maintains, therefore, that he could be found guilty only of one of a number of lesser included manslaughter offenses: first degree manslaughter due to extreme emotional disturbance, intent to cause serious physical injury or reckless first degree manslaughter. (The only intentional first degree manslaughter is extreme emotional disturbance.) He was nonetheless found guilty as charged.
In his appeal, the defendant has raised seven overall claims of error challenging a total of thirteen alleged deficiencies in the proceedings at his trial. Except for the final claim of error, which challenges three nonconstitutional evidentiary rulings by the trial court, these claims represent issues not presented to the trial court. We remind counsel that wholesale appellate reconstruction of trial court proceedings does not serve the administration of justice. State v. Pelletier, 209 Conn. 564, 566-67, 552 A.2d 805 (1989); State v. Hinckley, 198 Conn. 77, 86-87, 502 A.2d 388 (1985). Appellate review of newly discovered issues cannot be guaranteed by couching every claim of error in the constitutional language of State v. Evans, 165 Conn. 61, 70, 327 A.2d 576 (1973), or the common law doctrine of plain error codified in Practice Book § 4185. 2 Belated appellate scrutiny is warranted only for egregious errors that undermine the fairness of a trial and cast doubt on the integrity of judicial proceedings.
We will, therefore, limit our plenary review to only three of the defendant's multiple claims of error. We decline to review any of the issues raised under the first or second claims of error, which challenge the legal sufficiency of the trial court's instructions to the jury. Read as a whole, the charge adequately informed the jury of the questions it had to resolve. We also decline to review the third claim of error, which charges the trial court with a duty, sua sponte, to determine whether expert testimony, offered by the state in rebuttal to similar testimony by a defense witness, complied with the requirements of General Statutes § 54-86i. 3 Finally we decline to review the defendant's sixth claim of error alleging misconduct in the prosecutor's arguments to the jury because the prosecutor's conduct did not manifest an egregious pattern of blatant prejudicial misstatements.
The issues before us therefore devolve into the following three remaining claims of error. Under State v. Evans, supra, we must decide the defendant's fourth and fifth claims, which challenge the admissibility of evidence at trial that (1) informed the jury that the defendant had invoked his constitutional right to silence by asking for an attorney and (2) included the two knives seized from the defendant's truck at the time of his warrantless arrest. Also, because proper objections were taken at trial, we must review the hearsay claims raised in the seventh claim of error. We conclude that none of these alleged deficiencies in the proceedings at trial furnishes any basis for setting aside the defendant's conviction.
We consider first whether the trial court erred in permitting three state's witnesses to testify and the prosecutor to comment that the defendant, after his arrest and after he had been advised of his Miranda 4 rights, requested the assistance of his attorney. The defendant contends that admission of this evidence violated his due process rights as guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment to the United States constitution. Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610, 617-19, 96 S.Ct. 2240, 2244-45, 49 L.Ed.2d 91 (1976). This issue, which is reviewable under State v. Evans, supra, despite the defendant's failure to voice a timely objection at trial; State v. Plourde, 208 Conn. 455, 462, 545 A.2d 1071 (1988), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 109 S.Ct. 847, 102 L.Ed.2d 979 has three parts. First, does a defendant invoke his constitutional right to silence by requesting the assistance of counsel? Second, may the state elicit impeachment testimony about the defendant's invocation of his right to silence in order to rebut a defense of intoxication or to describe its investigative efforts? Third, was it harmful, in this case, to admit testimony about the defendant's invocation of his right to silence?
The testimony in question was given by three police officers, Michael Adorno, Joseph Bibisi and Louis Tosto. Each officer referred to the defendant's request to call his attorney while describing the sequence of events at the police station after the defendant's arrest. According to the officers' testimony, the defendant was brought to the police station by Officer Adorno who had placed him under arrest for driving while intoxicated. Upon arrival at headquarters, the defendant was taken to the processing room, where, at approximately 6:53 p.m., Adorno advised him of his Miranda rights. The defendant, indicating his understanding, initialed each of the rights listed on a Miranda rights form. He submitted to a toximeter test and then to a urine test. Afterwards Adorno remained with the defendant forty-five minutes to one hour longer, during which time the defendant asked to call his attorney and was allowed to do so, but was unable to reach him.
Officer Bibisi first came into contact with the defendant at approximately 8 p.m. in the booking room at the police station and again informed him of his rights. Bibisi noticed what appeared to be blood on the defendant's clothes, asked him to remove them, and gave the defendant a jump suit. The defendant then asked for his attorney. He appeared unable to locate the telephone number in the telephone book so Bibisi called the attorney for him, but again there was no answer. The defendant was then taken to the cell block.
At approximately 8:57 p.m., Officer Tosto was assigned to process the defendant on the murder charge. He and another officer took the defendant from his cell to the booking area, where Tosto informed him that he was being charged with murder, and that a bond had been set. Tosto also advised the defendant of his Miranda rights. The defendant, after having been given his glasses, read the waiver of rights form and initialed each right until he came to the one referring to his right to counsel, at which point he requested that his attorney, Attorney Peters or Attorney Fortuna, be contacted. Tosto called Fortuna's office, obtained Fortuna's home telephone number and then reached Fortuna at home. After a conversation between the defendant and Fortuna, Tosto continued processing the defendant by taking fingernail scrapings, mug shots and fingerprints.
The prosecutor in his summation discussed testimony presented by Officer Bibisi that indicated that the defendant was not very intoxicated. The prosecutor then stated, ...
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