State v. Luzzi

• Court: Supreme Court of Connecticut
• Writing for the Court: Before BALDWIN; MELLITZ
• Citation: 156 A.2d 505,147 Conn. 40
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Pasquale J. LUZZI. Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut
• Decision Date: 08 December 1959

Page 505

156 A.2d 505 147 Conn. 40 STATE of Connecticut
v.
Pasquale J. LUZZI. Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut. Dec. 8, 1959.

[147 Conn. 41] Alfonse C. Fasano, New Haven, for appellant (defendant).

Arthur T. Gorman, Asst. State's Atty., New Haven, with whom, on the brief, was Abraham S. Ullman, State's Atty., New Haven, for appellee (state).

Before [147 Conn. 40] BALDWIN, C. J., and KING, MURPHY, MELLITZ and SHEA, JJ.

[147 Conn. 41] MELLITZ, Associate Justice.

The defendant and Gerald Cretella were convicted, after a trial to the jury of conspiracy

Page 506

to commit the crime of rape. The defendant has appealed, assigning error in the denial of his motions to set aside the verdict and for a mistrial, in [147 Conn. 42] certain rulings on evidence, and in the allowance by the court of an amendment to the information.

The jury could have found the following facts: On March 11, 1958, at about 7:30 p. m., the complainant, then eighteen years old, was walking with a girl friend on Grand Avenue in New Haven when a car went by containing a group of young men, one of whom was the defendant. He was known to the complainant's friend. Shortly thereafter, the car returned. The defendant was driving and there was another man with him. The girls accepted an invitation for a ride, and the complainant entered the front seat with the defendant. The other couple took the rear seat. After driving around for a time, the two couples stopped to purchase a pint of liquor. The greater portion of the liquor was consumed by the men. The group drove to Winchester Avenue. The couples having exchanged seats, they parked for about twenty minutes, during which the defendant and the complainant engaged in amatory pursuits, and the defendant sought, unsuccessfully, to have sexual relations. At about 9:30 p. m., after the other couple had driven off in another car, the defendant went into a restaurant, leaving the complainant alone in his car for about ten minutes. When he returned, he told her he had to talk to a couple of boys. He drove to Grand Avenue. There he met two young men, with whom he conversed out of the hearing of the complainant. He drove along Grand Avenue, and when two cars, headed in the same direction and filled with young men, pulled up alongside his car, he remarked, 'Oh, my boy friends.' The three cars came to a stop and the defendant got out and talked to the occupants of the other cars. When he returned, the complainant told him she was not feeling well and asked to be [147 Conn. 43] driven home. The defendant agreed to do so, but instead he drove to an isolated area, where he stopped the car. They engaged, again, in amorous activities for five to ten minutes. A group of young men, among whom was Cretella, then arrived in two cars, came up to the defendant's car, and after addressing the defendant, dragged the complainant from the defendant's car, stripped off her clothes and tossed her into one of the other cars. She was then raped by approximately fifteen young men, including the defendant. Thereafter, with Cretella along, she was driven away in the car in which she had been assaulted and was dropped on the street in front of the home of the girl friend in whose company she had been earlier in the evening. Of the persons involved in the assault upon her, the only ones whom the complainant recognized were the defendant and Cretella. The defendant refused to give the police the names of the young men with whom he had talked on Grand Avenue earlier that evening.

Since a new trial is required for reasons hereinafter set forth, it is unnecessary to consider either the claim of the defendant that the court erred in refusing to set aside the verdict for lack of evidence of a conspiracy or his further claim that the court erred in allowing an amendment to the information after the state had completed its case in chief.

A number of rulings on evidence were assigned as error. A police officer, a witness for the state, testified to a conversation with Cretella on March 13, 1958, relative to the events of March 11. The defendant was not present during this conversation. He objected on the ground that Cretella's statements were hearsay as to him and that, since they were made after the alleged conspiracy had terminated, they were not binding on him. The court overruled [147 Conn. 44] the objection and ruled that...