State v. Lebrick
| Decision Date | 16 January 2018 |
| Docket Number | AC 39980 |
| Citation | 179 Conn.App. 221,178 A.3d 1064 |
| Court | Connecticut Court of Appeals |
| Parties | STATE of Connecticut v. Horvil F. LEBRICK |
179 Conn.App. 221
178 A.3d 1064
STATE of Connecticut
v.
Horvil F. LEBRICK
AC 39980
Appellate Court of Connecticut.
Argued October 12, 2017
Officially released January 16, 2018
Raymond L. Durelli, assigned counsel, for the appellant (defendant).
Kathryn W. Bare, assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, were Gail P. Hardy, state's attorney, John F. Fahey and Robert Diaz, senior assistant state's attorneys, and Allen M. Even, certified legal intern, for the appellee (state).
Alvord, Prescott and Pellegrino, Js.
PRESCOTT, J.
The defendant, Horvil F. Lebrick, appeals from the judgment of conviction, rendered after a jury trial, of felony murder in violation of General Statutes (Rev. to 2009) § 53a–54c, home invasion in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a–100aa (a) (2) and 53a–8, conspiracy to commit home invasion in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a–100aa (a) (2) and 53a–48 (a), burglary in the first degree in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a–8 (a) and 53a–101 (a) (1), conspiracy to commit burglary in the first degree in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a–48 (a) and 53a–101 (a) (1), attempt to commit robbery in the first degree in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a–134 (a) (2) and 53a–49 (a) (2), conspiracy to commit robbery in the first degree in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a–134 (a) (2) and 53a–48 (a), and assault in the first degree in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a–59 (a) (5) and 53a–8.1
The defendant claims on appeal that the trial court improperly admitted into evidence (1) former testimony of a witness in violation of § 8–6 (1) of the Connecticut Code of Evidence and the confrontation clause of the sixth amendment to the United States constitution, and (2) testimony by the state's firearm and tool mark expert in violation of § 4–1 of the Connecticut Code of Evidence and the confrontation clause of the sixth amendment
to the United States constitution. We disagree and, accordingly, affirm the judgment of the trial court.
The jury reasonably could have found the following facts on the basis of the evidence presented at trial. On the morning of May 6, 2010, the defendant and his twin cousins, Andrew and Andraw Moses, were driven by an unidentified fourth man in a Ford Econoline van from New York to an apartment building located at 115 Nutmeg Lane in East Hartford. One of the apartments in that building was rented by Omari Barrett, a purported drug dealer, whom the defendant and the twins intended to rob. When they arrived at the apartment building, the defendant and the twins, who were dressed in workmen's clothes and hard hats, exited the van, entered the building, and knocked on the door of Barrett's third floor apartment. When no one answered after repeated knocking, the defendant kicked open the door, and he and the twins entered the apartment. All three were armed with guns.
Barrett's girlfriend, Shawna Lee Hudson, was alone in the small, two bedroom apartment at that time. She did not open the door when she heard knocking, but instead telephoned Barrett. Barrett told Hudson that he was not expecting any workers and hung up the phone. Hearing someone trying to force entry, Hudson called Barrett back, and he told her to get the .357 magnum revolver that was in the apartment. Barrett ended the call and proceeded to drive to the apartment armed with a nine millimeter revolver. Hudson called him a third time as he was driving and conveyed that the men were in the apartment and that she was hiding in the bedroom closet. As Barrett arrived, he heard on the phone someone saying, "Where's the money? Shut the fuck up," at which point the call ended.
Barrett ran into the building to the apartment, noticing as he approached that the door was open and
appeared to have been kicked in. Barrett entered the apartment and immediately encountered the twins, whom he fatally shot. Barrett then called out to Hudson, who was in the bedroom with the defendant, and asked her how many more people were in the apartment. She said that there was one more. The defendant and Barrett then engaged in a gunfight in which Barrett was shot once in the leg and once in the arm. Barrett retreated from the apartment into the hallway to an alcove by the elevators. He next heard a single gunshot and saw the defendant exit the apartment and flee in the opposite direction down the hallway. Running back into the apartment, Barrett found Hudson, who had been shot once in the chest.
Both Hudson and the twins were pronounced dead at the scene. The police collected numerous bullets and shell casings from in and around the apartment. The only firearm recovered at the scene was a .45 caliber automatic. The police also found an oil change receipt for an Econoline van. That receipt helped the police to identify the defendant as a suspect, and he subsequently was arrested and charged.
Following a jury trial, the defendant was convicted on all charges.2 He was later sentenced by the court, which imposed a total effective sentence of ninety years of incarceration. This appeal followed. Additional facts and procedural history will be set forth as necessary.
I
The defendant first claims that the court improperly admitted into evidence the former testimony of a material witness, Keisha Parks, who testified at the defendant's probable cause hearing in this matter. The defendant's arguments in support of that claim are twofold. First, he argues that Parks' former testimony was
inadmissible hearsay because it did not fall within the exception to the hearsay rule set forth in § 8–6 (1) of the Connecticut Code of Evidence in light of the state's failure to properly establish that Parks was unavailable for trial, a necessary prerequisite to the exception's applicability. Second, he argues that the admission of the former testimony violated his rights under the confrontation clause of the sixth amendment of the United States constitution, citing Crawford v. Washington , 541 U.S. 36, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004). We disagree with both arguments.
The following additional facts are relevant to our resolution of this claim. Parks was the fiancée of Andrew Moses, one of the defendant's twin cousins. She reluctantly testified at the defendant's probable cause hearing on November 10, 2010. Among other things, she testified about a conversation that she had with the defendant in the early evening of May 6, 2010, in which he implicated himself in the events that transpired that same day at the apartment in East Hartford. The defendant was represented by counsel at the probable cause hearing, and defense counsel extensively cross-examined Parks about her testimony.
On March 5, 2014, the defendant filed a motion asking the court to preclude the state from offering Parks' probable cause testimony as evidence at trial. The defendant argued that Parks' former testimony was hearsay and testimonial in nature and, thus, was admissible only if the state could show that Parks was unavailable and that the defendant had had a full and fair opportunity to cross-examine her. The defendant argued that the state had the burden of demonstrating Parks' unavailability, including
that it made a good faith effort to procure her attendance for trial.
On October 16, 2014, during the trial but outside the presence of the jury, the court heard testimony from the
following two witnesses concerning the state's effort to locate Parks for trial: Henry Hightower, a police inspector with the state's criminal justice division, and Frank Garguilo, an investigator with the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office. Hightower testified that the case file contained Parks' last known address and phone number. Hightower called the telephone numbers listed in the case file for Parks but received no answers. He also ran Parks' name and birthdate through several computer database searches. Specifically, he utilized the Hartford Police Department's in-house computer; National Crime Information Center, a national database utilized by the Connecticut State Police to run criminal background checks; and CLEAR, a database that searches publicly available data within a specified state. The CLEAR search was the only one that produced any results, listing several phone numbers and addresses in New York associated with Parks as of 2013. Hightower e-mailed the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office with the most current phone numbers and addresses he could find for Parks, and asked the office to send an investigator to check those addresses and to serve Parks with an interstate summons to appear for trial.
Garguilo testified that the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office assigned him with the task of serving the summons on Parks. He...
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