State v. Martinez

• Decision Date: 20 June 2006
• Docket Number: No. 17333.,17333.
• Citation: 278 Conn. 598,900 A.2d 485
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Enrique MARTINEZ.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

Page 485

900 A.2d 485

278 Conn. 598

STATE of Connecticut v. Enrique MARTINEZ.

No. 17333.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued March 8, 2006.

Decided June 20, 2006.

Robert E. Byron, for the appellant (defendant).

Frederick W. Fawcett, supervisory assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, were Jonathan C. Benedict, state's attorney, and Joseph T. Corradino, senior assistant state's attorney, for the appellee (state).

BORDEN, NORCOTT, KATZ, PALMER and VERTEFEUILLE, Js.

NORCOTT, J.

The sole issue in this appeal is whether the trial court improperly instructed the jury that it need not be unanimous as to whether its guilty verdict was predicated on the defendant's conduct as a coconspirator, as opposed to a principal or an accessory. The defendant, Enrique Martinez, appeals¹ from the judgment of conviction, rendered after a jury trial, of attempted murder in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a-49 (a)(2)² and 53a-54a (a),³ conspiracy to commit murder in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a-48(a)⁴ and 53a-54a (a), assault in the first degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-59 (a)(1),⁵ and kidnapping in the first degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-92(a)(2)(C).⁶ We conclude that the trial court's instructions deprived the defendant of his constitutional right to a unanimous jury verdict, and we reverse the judgment of conviction and remand the case for a new trial.

The jury reasonably could have found the following facts. In July, 2003, the Bridgeport police arrested the victim, Omar Betancourt, an admitted crack dealer, on numerous narcotics charges. At that time, the victim already had assault narcotics and trespassing charges pending against him, and he became concerned about his increased exposure to a lengthy term of incarceration as a result of the new charges.⁷ He, therefore, attempted to reduce his exposure by offering to the police the name of the defendant, a fellow merchant of narcotics from whom the victim had purchased ecstasy pills in the preceding year. In exchange for the police releasing him pursuant to a promise to appear with respect to the new narcotics charges, the victim then contacted the defendant and arranged to purchase unspecified drugs from him at the intersection of Sanford Place and Washington Avenue in Bridgeport. Thereafter, the police and the victim went to that location; when the police saw the defendant's car, a black Honda Accord, they stopped it for various traffic violations, and then arrested the defendant on various narcotics charges.

Several days later, on the afternoon of July 15, 2003, the victim went to the probation office in Bridgeport to report for an appointment with his probation officer. At the probation office, he met the defendant, who also had an appointment there. The two men spoke, and left together in the defendant's car to go "roll up a cigar" with marijuana, presumably intending to smoke it. After purchasing a cigar, they picked up the defendant's cousin, Valerie Bermudez, and went to a house located at Caroline Avenue and Barnum Avenue in Bridgeport.

Once they arrived at the house, the defendant accused the victim of setting him up with the police, and "smack[ed] [him] around" with the handle of a knife. The defendant then took the victim to a bedroom that was occupied by two pit bulls. Shortly thereafter, the victim escaped from the bedroom by jumping out a second story window, fracturing his wrist in the process. As the victim attempted to flee the area by commandeering a car on Barnum Avenue, the defendant blocked that car with his own vehicle, and took him back to the house where the defendant and two other men tied him up in the basement with ropes and shackles. Subsequently, Bermudez and another man, Alex Gonzalez, untied the victim and, holding him at gunpoint with a chrome .45 caliber semiautomatic pistol, brought him upstairs, where the defendant told him that he would bring him home.

The defendant and Gonzalez, however, brought the victim to a house on Iranistan Avenue where they put him in the garage until approximately 5 a.m., the following morning, at which point the defendant said that he would take the victim home. After they drove toward the victim's home on Chestnut Street, the defendant, the victim and Gonzalez walked into a nearby backyard where another man, who had tattoos on both forearms and had his face covered by a towel, suddenly appeared, pointed a gun at the victim, and fired. The gun, however, jammed, and all three assailants began to struggle with the victim. As the victim worked free and began to run away, he looked back and saw the defendant with a gun, which was the same chrome gun previously used by Gonzalez. The defendant then shot the victim in the leg, and joined the other two assailants in beating him while he was on the ground.⁸ One of the three men then shot the victim in the abdomen.⁹ The three assailants then fled the scene. The defendant's flight from the scene was witnessed by several neighborhood residents, including the victim's sister, who knew the defendant through his drug related activities. The police subsequently apprehended the defendant later that day following a chase that ended when the defendant drove his car into a tree.¹⁰

The state charged the defendant with one count of attempted murder in violation of §§ 53a-49 (a)(2) and 53a-54 (a), one count of conspiracy to commit murder in violation of §§ 53a-48 (a) and 53a-54a (a), one count of assault in the first degree in violation of § 53a-59 (a)(1), one count of kidnapping in the first degree in violation of § 53a-92 (a)(2)(C), one count of carrying a pistol without a permit in violation of General Statutes § 29-35(a), and one count of criminal possession of a firearm in violation of General Statutes § 53a-217 (a)(1). In the second part of the information, the state also charged the defendant with one count of commission of an offense while released on bond in violation of General Statutes § 53a-40b.¹¹ Thereafter, the case was tried to the jury, which returned a verdict of guilty on all counts except for the firearms charges, and found that the defendant had committed those offenses while out on bond in violation of § 53a-40b.¹² The trial court then sentenced the defendant to a total effective sentence of seventy-eight years imprisonment, and rendered judgment accordingly. This appeal followed.

On appeal, the defendant claims that he was denied his constitutional right to a unanimous jury verdict¹³ because the trial court did not instruct the jury that it was required to agree unanimously on whether the factual basis for a guilty verdict was as a coconspirator under the Pinkerton doctrine,¹⁴ as opposed to a principal or an accessory, and further "compounded the harm" by expressly instructing the jury that it need not be unanimous as to the theory underlying the defendant's guilt. The defendant claims that a separate unanimity instruction was required because Pinkerton liability is conceptually distinct from accessorial liability, which, under General Statutes § 53a-8 (a),¹⁵ is statutorily equivalent to principal liability, because the former calls for proof of an agreement, while the latter requires proof of a specific mental state and an act.

In response, the state contends that the trial court properly instructed the jury because not requiring unanimity as to whether Pinkerton liability has been established is a logical extension of this court's decision in State v. Correa, 241 Conn. 322, 348, 696 A.2d 944 (1997), in which we rejected a defendant's claim that the state constitution requires a jury verdict to be unanimous as to whether it is predicated on a theory of either principal or accessorial liability. The state also contends that our decision in State v. Walton, 227 Conn. 32, 45-46, 630 A.2d 990 (1993), "strongly suggests that principal, accessorial, and Pinkerton liability are not conceptually distinct from one another, but are, in fact, different ways to commit the same crime," and that "[t]he line distinguishing accessory liability and Pinkerton liability is almost nonexistent...." We agree with the defendant.

We begin with a review of the jury instructions at issue in the present case. After explaining the various bases for criminal liability, specifically principal, accessory or coconspirator liability under the Pinkerton doctrine, the trial court stated: "Principal, accessory, and coconspiratorial liability are merely different means of committing a single crime. Therefore, you need not be unanimous in your verdict as to a theory of liability. You must, however, be unanimous in your verdict that the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt or not guilty of the crime charged." (Emphasis added.) The trial court then instructed the jury in a like manner in the context of the specific offenses charged, stating, for example, in the context of the attempted murder charge: "If you find that the state has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the crime of attempt to commit murder, either as a principal or as an accessory or as a coconspirator, you should find ... the defendant guilty of attempt to commit murder. As I have said, a person is guilty of a crime either because he is a principal offender or he is an accessory or he is a coconspirator. An accessory or coconspirator is guilty just as if he were the principal offender. It is not necessary, however, that you unanimously agree whether the defendant committed the crime of attempt to commit murder either as the principal or as an accessory or as a coconspirator.

"In other words, you need not in your deliberations decide who fired the shot which injured [the victim]. Rather, the issue before you is whether the defendant is guilty of the crime of attempt to commit murder as charged either as [a] principal or as an accessory or as [a] coconspirator in accordance with these instructions. You need not be unanimous as to...