State v. James
| Decision Date | 05 March 2013 |
| Docket Number | AC 32807 |
| Court | Connecticut Court of Appeals |
| Parties | STATE OF CONNECTICUT v. RON ALEX JAMES |
The "officially released" date that appears near the beginning of each opinion is the date the opinion will be published in the Connecticut Law Journal or the date it was released as a slip opinion. The operative date for the beginning of all time periods for filing postopinion motions and petitions for certification is the "officially released" date appearing in the opinion. In no event will any such motions be accepted before the "officially released" date.
All opinions are subject to modification and technical correction prior to official publication in the Connecticut Reports and Connecticut Appellate Reports. In the event of discrepancies between the electronic version of an opinion and the print version appearing in the Connecticut Law Journal and subsequently in the Connecticut Reports or Connecticut Appellate Reports, the latest print version is to be considered authoritative.
The syllabus and procedural history accompanying the opinion as it appears on the Commission on Official Legal Publications Electronic Bulletin Board Service and in the Connecticut Law Journal and bound volumes of official reports are copyrighted by the Secretary of the State, State of Connecticut, and may not be reproduced and distributed without the express written permission of the Commission on Official Legal Publications, Judicial Branch, State of Connecticut.Robinson, Bear and Peters, Js.
(Appeal from Superior Court, judicial district of New
Susan M. Hankins, assigned counsel, for the appellant (defendant).
Mitchell S. Brody, senior assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, were Michael Dearington, state's attorney, and Gary Nicholson, senior assistant state's attorney, for the appellee (state).
The defendant, Ron Alex James, appeals from the judgment of conviction, rendered after a jury trial, of two counts of assault in the first degree with a firearm as a principal or accessory in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a-59 (a) (5) and 53a-8 and conspiracy to commit assault in the first degree with a firearm in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a-48 and 53a-59 (a) (5). The defendant claims that (1) the court improperly denied his motion for a judgment of acquittal because the evidence presented to the jury was insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was one of the perpetrators involved in the shooting of the two victims, (2) the court improperly refused to charge the jury on the defense of third party culpability in violation of his right to due process and his right to present a defense and (3) prosecutorial improprieties in the prosecutor's argument to the jury also deprived him of his right to due process. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.
The jury reasonably could have found the following facts. At approximately 2 a.m. on September 20, 2005, Robert Pouncey and Chacarra Stephens were conversing in a first floor apartment at 429 Dixwell Avenue in New Haven. They were sitting on Pouncey's bed, near a window, when they heard multiple gunshots, and projectiles entered through the window. Pouncey was shot twice in the back; Stephens was hit five times in the legs. Neither victim saw who had fired the shots. Several nine millimeter shell casings were found on the ground below the window. The window screen and a fan that was in the window were perforated with bullet holes, and several projectiles were found inside the bedroom. A firearms examiner later determined that the gunshots had come from a nine millimeter Beretta semiautomatic pistol and a .44 caliber Charter Arms Bulldog revolver.
Also at approximately 2 a.m. on September 20, 2005, Shaniya Bell, a resident of 559 Sherman Parkway, which is one street over from Dixwell Avenue, was looking out of her third floor apartment window when she observed two black males exit from a grey Ford Focus parked on the street below. She noticed one of the two men handling a silver gun. Both men were wearing black shirts; one was wearing blue jeans, white sneakers and a "skully." Bell could not see the men's faces clearly enough to positively identify either of the men. The two men began to walk in the direction of Dixwell Avenue, at which point she lost sight of them. She called 911 to report seeing the gun. While on the phone, she heard several gunshots. Immediately after hearing the gunshots, she saw the same two men that she had observed earlier running from the direction of Dixwell Avenue. The men got into the grey Ford Focus, executed a U-turn and sped away southbound on Sherman Avenue, in the direction of Munson Street.
Police officers were dispatched to the area. Officer George Smith, Jr., was in his cruiser and responded to the call by driving west along Munson Street. As he was approaching Munson Street's intersection with Sherman Parkway, he saw a grey Ford Focus approaching southbound on Sherman Parkway; the vehicle then turned right onto Munson Street. The vehicle matched the description of the vehicle that the dispatcher had indicated over the police radio had been seen fleeing from the vicinity of the shooting. Smith activated the cruiser's overhead lights and siren, attempting to pull the vehicle over near the Munson Street intersection with Crescent Street. Officer Robert Levy pulled up behind Smith in another cruiser to assist Smith. When Smith and Levy got out of their cruisers to approach the vehicle, which had pulled over but had not come to a full stop, the vehicle sped off down Crescent Street. The police officers pursued in their cruisers, but eventually lost sight of the vehicle near the intersection of Osbourne Avenue and Dyer Street.
Other officers who had heard over the police radio about the search for the grey Ford Focus and who were patrolling in a cruiser along Diamond Street, which intersects with Dyer Street, observed a baseball cap lying in the road. It was later determined that the inner brim of that cap contained the defendant's DNA. When the officers stopped to retrieve the cap, they noticed an unoccupied grey Ford Focus parked directly across from the cap in the driveway of 55 Diamond Street.
The owner of 55 Diamond Street had no connection to the Ford Focus found in his driveway; it was not in his driveway when he had gone to bed that night. A car rental contract found inside the vehicle indicated that the Ford Focus had been rented by Jamie Walker, the defendant's girlfriend, on September 12, 2005, and was scheduled to be returned on September 19, 2005. Jamie Walker had provided the rental car company with two telephone contact numbers, one of which was registered to a cell phone belonging to Elizabeth Tyson, the defendant's mother. Two fingerprints belonging to the defendant were found on the hood of the Ford Focus; a fingerprint belonging to a James Walker, Jr., was also found on the vehicle's right door, under the window.1
Two cell phones were found inside the vehicle. One of the cell phones belonged to Tyson. Later investigation revealed a call made from Tyson's cell phone on September 20, 2005, at 1:29 a.m., shortly before the shootings, to a number used by James Walker, Jr.2 The other cell phone had Tyson's cell phone number stored in its database next to the name "Alley Doo," which was a nickname used by the defendant. When the police later spoke with Tyson regarding their interest in speaking with the defendant, she provided them with the cell phone number for the phone found in the Ford Focus as the defendant's contact number.
The nine millimeter Beretta semiautomatic pistol used in the shooting was found in the rear yard of 54 Diamond Street, directly across the street from where the grey Ford Focus was located. At the base of a stockade fence located at the rear of 54 Diamond Street, the police found a clean, dry sneaker which contained DNA that later was found to be consistent with that of James Walker, Jr. On top of the fence, the police found some blue jean fabric. On the other side of the fence, the ground had been disturbed in a manner consistent with someone having jumped over the fence and landed. Following a police investigation, the defendant was arrested and convicted. This appeal followed.
The defendant first claims that the court improperly denied his motion for a judgment of acquittal because the only issue truly in contention at trial was the identity of the perpetrators involved in the shooting, and the evidence presented by the state regarding that issue was constitutionally insufficient to permit a rational juror to find beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was one of those perpetrators and, therefore, guilty as a principal, accessory or conspirator. Although there was no direct, eyewitness testimony placing the defendant at the crime staging area, at the shooting itself, in the vehicle that fled from the shooting or at the site where that vehicle was abandoned, we nevertheless agree with the state that there was sufficient circumstantial evidence from which the jury reasonably and permissibly could have inferred that the defendant was one of the perpetrators of the shooting and, thus, guilty of the crimes charged.
(Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Green, 81 Conn. App. 152, 155, 838 A.2d 1030, cert. denied, 268 Conn. 909, 845 A.2d 413 (2004).
...
To continue reading
Request your trial