State v. Jones

• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: PETERS
• Citation: State v. Jones, 193 Conn. 70, 475 A.2d 1087 (Conn. 1984)
• Decision Date: 24 April 1984
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Reginald JONES.

Page 1087

475 A.2d 1087

193 Conn. 70

STATE of Connecticut v. Reginald JONES.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Feb. 7, 1984.

Decided April 24, 1984.

John R. Williams, New Haven, with whom, on the brief, were Sue L. Wise, New Haven, and Elizabeth M. Inkster, Madison, for appellant (defendant).

Julia D. Dewey, Asst. State's Atty., with whom, on the brief, were Arnold Markle, State's Atty., Michael Dearington, Asst. State's Atty., and Edmund Perry, law student intern, for appellee (State).

Before PETERS, PARSKEY, SHEA, GRILLO and SPONZO, JJ.

PETERS, Associate Justice.

The principal issue in this case is whether the defendant's conviction for felony murder must be reversed because the trial judge erred in instructing the jury on the statutory defense of insanity. The defendant, Reginald Jones, was charged by indictment on February 22, 1979, with felony murder, in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54c. ¹ The jury returned a verdict of guilty and the trial court rendered judgment in accordance with the verdict. The defendant appeals from the judgment of conviction.

The jury might reasonably have found the following facts. In the early afternoon of December 14, 1978, the defendant, then seventeen years old, went to Wilbur Cross High School in New Haven. He was not enrolled at Wilbur Cross as a student. After walking around the school halls for a few minutes, the defendant approached two different individuals and asked where he could get some money or marijuana. He told one witness that if he found a drug dealer he would stick him up. One of the individuals approached by the defendant suggested that he should rob the school store, where he would find $600 or $700 in an envelope. The defendant proceeded to the store, approached the counter, pointed a gun at Anthony Annunziata, the teacher on duty, and demanded that Annunziata give him the money. When Annunziata did not respond, the defendant fire a single shot and fled. The victim died as a result of a gunshot wound.

Several witnesses observed the defendant in the vicinity of the school store prior to the shooting. The student who was working in the store with the victim witnessed the crime and positively identified the defendant. After a search of the defendant's residence, the police recovered a gun from the defendant's bedroom which matched a bullet found on the floor of the Yale-New Haven Hospital operating room in which the victim had died. Following his arrest, the defendant confessed his involvement in the offense.

Although the defendant objected to the admission of much of the evidence described above, he did not seriously dispute that he had shot and killed Annunziata. The defendant relied primarily on an insanity defense.

The defendant raises numerous claims of error on this appeal. He claims that the trial court erred (1) in failing to dismiss the indictment despite systematic discrimination against blacks and women in the selection of grand jury foremen in New Haven; (2) in permitting consideration of an indictment whose disjunctive language violated his right to a unanimous jury verdict; (3) in denying his motions to suppress his confession and the tangible evidence seized from his bedroom; (4) in various aspects of its charge to the jury, principally the portion defining the defense of insanity; and (5) in denying his motion to disqualify all prosecutors for the judicial district of New Haven. We will address first those claims that relate to the indictment, then those that relate to admissibility of evidence, to the jury instructions and to disqualification.

I

In his first claim of error, the defendant argues that systematic discrimination against blacks and women in the selection of grand jury foremen in the judicial district of New Haven violated his rights under the due process and equal protection clauses of the constitution of the United States and article first, §§ 8 and 20, of the constitution of Connecticut, and that, as a result, the indictment against him must be dismissed. At the pretrial hearing on the motion to dismiss the indictment, the defendant introduced evidence describing the grand jury selection process from January 1, 1958, through February 22, 1979, the date he was indicted. The trial court, however, made no findings of fact when it denied the motion. Although much of the proffered evidence was statistical in nature, the state has conceded neither its accuracy nor its probative quality. Furthermore, the defendant's brief fails to set out the facts on which it relies, as Practice Book § 3060F(b) requires. On this state of the record, we decline to consider this claim further. ²

II

The defendant next claims that the indictment was fatally defective because of its use of disjunctive language. The indictment charged, in the language of the felony murder statute, ³ that the defendant "did commit or attempt to commit a robbery and in the course of and in furtherance of such crime or flight therefrom he, or another participant, caused the death of a person...." (Emphasis added.) According to the defendant, this indictment charged two separate predicate felonies--robbery and attempted robbery--in the alternative, and therefore erroneously permitted the jury to convict him in the absence of a unanimous agreement among the jurors that he had committed one or the other of the predicate crimes charged. This possibility, the defendant asserts, deprived him of his right to a unanimous jury verdict. We disagree.

The defendant's argument rests on the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in United States v. Gipson, 553 F.2d 453 (5th Cir.1977). There, the defendant was charged with selling or receiving a stolen vehicle, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2313. ⁴ The trial court charged the jury that in order to convict the defendant they need not agree on which of the six statutorily prohibited acts the defendant had committed, as long as they were each convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that he had committed one or another of the acts proscribed. United States v. Gipson, supra, 455-56. The court of appeals reversed the defendant's conviction on the ground that the instruction had violated his right to a unanimous jury verdict. Id., 458-59. The court reasoned that the statute prohibited six acts in two distinct conceptual categories: (1) receiving, concealing and storing; and (2) bartering, selling and disposing. The challenged charge violated the defendant's right to a unanimous jury verdict because it "authorized the jury to return a guilty verdict despite the fact that some jurors may have believed that Gipson engaged in conduct only characterizable as receiving, concealing, or storing while other jurors were convinced that he committed acts only constituting bartering, selling, or disposing." (Emphasis added.) Id., 458.

Gipson's holding is inapposite to the present case because the robbery and attempted robbery charged here, unlike the two crime groups charged in Gipson, are not mutually exclusive. Robbery differs from attempted robbery only in that the latter requires an act constituting a "substantial step" toward completion of the robbery, rather than a completed robbery. ⁵ While some jurors might have believed that the defendant attempted the robbery but did not complete it, and others might have believed that he did, in fact, complete the crime, none could have believed that the defendant completed the robbery without first undertaking a substantial step toward achieving its object. The unanimous verdict of guilty thus necessarily encompassed a unanimous finding that the defendant had at least attempted to commit robbery. Accordingly, the defendant's second claim of error must fail. ⁶ Cf. State v. Giwosky, 109 Wis.2d 446, 456, 326 N.W.2d 232 (1982) (jury need not be unanimous with respect to whether defendant committed assault by means of throwing log or striking victim); Manson v. State, 101 Wis.2d 413, 430-31, 304 N.W.2d 729 (1981) (jury need not be unanimous with respect to whether defendant committed robbery by use of force or threat of force).

III

The defendant next claims that the trial court erred in denying his motions to suppress the tangible evidence seized from his bedroom and the statements he gave to the police following his arrest. We find no error with respect to either motion.

A

The undisputed factual circumstances surrounding the seizures of physical evidence are as follows. On December 14, 1978, shortly after the commission of the offense, members of the New Haven police department received information indicating that the defendant might be involved in the crime. Two officers proceeded to the house where the defendant resided with his father, stepmother and several other family members. After obtaining the signature of Carol Jones, the defendant's stepmother, on a consent to search form, the officers searched the defendant's bedroom and seized, inter alia, several photographs of the defendant, numerous items of clothing and papers bearing names and addresses. Several hours later, after receiving a tip from an informant that the defendant had hidden the murder weapon inside a television set in his room, the police returned to the Jones home and obtained the signature of Sammie Jones, the defendant's father, on a second consent to search form. They then dismantled the television set and seized the gun which they found inside. The defendant was not present on either occasion. No warrant was issued authorizing either search.

The only serious issue with respect to the legality of either search is whether it was authorized by the valid consent of one of the defendant's parents. The state makes no claim that the searches were conducted pursuant to warrant or that they were supported by probable cause and exigent circumstances.

At the hearing on the defendant's motion to suppress tangible evidence, both Carol Jones and Sammie Jones testified that they signed the...