State v. Lombardo

• Decision Date: 06 June 1972
• Citation: 163 Conn. 241,304 A.2d 36
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Donald LOMBARDO.

Page 36

304 A.2d 36

163 Conn. 241

STATE of Connecticut v. Donald LOMBARDO.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

June 6, 1972.

Charlotte Anne Perretta, Boston, Mass., for appellant (defendant).

Joseph F. Skelley, Jr., Asst. State's Atty., with whom, on the brief, was John D. LaBelle, State's Atty., for appellee (state).

Before HOUSE, C.J., and RYAN, SHAPIRO, LOISELLE and MacDONALD, JJ. HOUSE, Chief Justice.

On a trial to a jury, the defendant Donald Lombardo was found guilty of a violation of No. 753, § 18(a) of the 1969 Public Acts (§ 19-480 (a)) and § 19-452 of the General Statutes in selling a cannabis-type drug. The court denied his motion to set aside the verdict as contrary to law and against the evidence and the defendant has appealed from the judgment rendered on the verdict. On this appeal he has pressed two assignments of error. The first claim is that the court erred in admitting into evidence a record of telephone calls made from the home of the defendant. The second is a claim that the court erred in permitting a defendant's witness to invoke the privilege against self-incrimination.

During the trial the state introduced evidence that undercover police officers had several meetings with the defendant culminating in a rendezvous at Wickham Park in the town of Manchester on July 23, 1970, at which the defendant sold four kilos of marijuana to the officers. One of the officers testified that he had given the defendant his home telephone number and that on July 23, 1970, at about 9 a.m., the defendant telephoned him at that number and made arrangements to meet him at a designated time and place to make the sale. The officers testified that they met the defendant in accordance with the arrangements and the sale was consummated. Two officers testified that the defendant told them at the rendezvous that he had obtained the marijuana from California and had to take the runner back to the airport and put him on a plane to California. Following this testimony, a security agent for the telephone company testified that the officer's home telephone number was as stated by the witness and that the defendant's number was 647-9362. Thereupon the toll call records of the telephone company were offered in evidence. These records indicated that at 9 a.m., on July 23, 1970, a toll call had been made from 647-9362 to the telephone of the officer and that during the billing period between July 16 and July 27, 1970, there had been twenty-nine telephone calls from the residence of the defendant to California. The defendant made no objection to the portion of the offered exhibit showing the telephone call made on July 23 but objected to the full record showing the number of calls to California on the ground that that portion of the record was irrelevant. The court overruled the objection and admitted the full record into evidence and the defendant took an exception to the ruling.

The trial court has broad discretion in determining the relevancy of evidence. Johnson v. Newell, 160 Conn. 269, 276, 277, 278 A.2d 776; State v. Carnegie, 158 Conn. 264, 273, 259 A.2d 628; State v. Smith, 157 Conn. 351, 355, 254 A.2d 447; State v. Keating, 151 Conn. 592, 597, 200 A.2d 724, cert. denied, sub nom. Joseph v. State, 379 U.S. 963, 85 S.Ct. 654, 13 L.Ed.2d 557. 'Evidence is admissible when it tends to establish a fact in issue or to corroborate other direct evidence in the case. One fact is relevant to another fact whenever, according to the common course of events, the existence of the one, taken alone or in connection with other facts, renders the existence of the other either certain or more probable. Unless excluded by some rule or principle of law, any fact may be proved which logically tends to aid the trier in the determination of the issue. Evidence is admitted, not because it is shown to be competent, but because it is not shown to be incompetent. No precise and universal test of relevancy is furnished by the law, and the question must be determined in each case according to the teachings of reason and judicial experience. State v. Towles, 155 Conn. 516, 523, 235 A.2d 639; Pope Foundation, Inc. v. New York, N.H. & H.R. Co., 106 Conn. 423, 435, 138 A. 444.' Federated Department Stores, Inc. v. Board of Tax Review, 162 Conn. 77, 82, 291 A.2d 715, 718. In view of the testimony of the officers that the defendant had told them that he obtained the marijuana from California and that he had to take a runner back to the airport and put him on the plane to California and the conflict in testimony as to the extent and content of the defendant's conversation with the officers, we find no abuse of discretion in the ruling of the trial court admitting the exhibit.

In the course of the trial, the defendant cal...