State v. Medina, 14135

• Decision Date: 18 January 1994
• Docket Number: No. 14135,14135
• Citation: 228 Conn. 281,636 A.2d 351
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Angel MEDINA, Jr.

Page 351

636 A.2d 351

228 Conn. 281

STATE of Connecticut v. Angel MEDINA, Jr.

No. 14135.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Nov. 2, 1993.

Decided Jan. 18, 1994.

Lauren Weisfeld, Asst. Public Defender, with whom, on the brief, were G. Douglas Nash, Public Defender, and Suzanne Zitser, Asst. Public Defender, for appellant (defendant).

Richard F. Jacobson, Asst. State's Atty., with whom, on the brief, were Donald A. Browne, State's Atty., and C. Robert Satti, Jr., Asst. State's Atty., for appellee (State).

Before PETERS, C.J., and CALLAHAN, BORDEN, BERDON and PALMER, JJ. PALMER, Associate Justice.

A jury found the defendant, Angel Medina, Jr., guilty of the crimes of murder in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54a, ¹ possession of cocaine with intent to sell in violation of General Statutes § 21a-277(a), and possession of drug paraphernalia in a drug factory situation in violation of General Statutes § 21a-277(c). ² The defendant has appealed ³ from the judgment of the trial court sentencing him to a term of imprisonment of fifty-one years. He claims that the trial court improperly denied his motions: (1) to suppress certain incriminatory statements and for a new trial; (2) for a judgment of acquittal because the state failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he possessed the requisite intent for the crime of murder; and (3) for a judgment of acquittal because the evidence established his affirmative defense of insanity. For the reasons set forth below, we are not persuaded that the defendant's claims are meritorious, and we therefore affirm the trial court's judgment. ⁴

The jury could reasonably have found the following facts. On September 13, 1986, at approximately 11:45 a.m., the Bridgeport police responded to a telephone call from Lucy Ramirez, who had reported that her brother, the defendant, was brandishing a gun in her house. According to Ramirez, the defendant had arrived at her home acting "like a mad man." He talked about a mission he had to complete and stated that he had killed three demons. The defendant subsequently went outside to his car and returned with two guns, one tucked in his waistband and the other in his left rear pants pocket. Ramirez and her mother succeeded in distracting the defendant so that Ramirez could retrieve the gun from his waistband. She hid it and telephoned the police.

Ramirez met police officers Kevin Meizies and James Sheffield at the door to her home, and informed them that they would find the defendant in the kitchen and that he had a gun in his left rear pants pocket. Upon entering the kitchen, Meizies found the defendant standing with his hands in the air. He appeared to be upset and frightened. Meizies attempted to calm him and to distract him long enough to remove the gun. As Meizies was undertaking to disarm him, the defendant uttered "The devil made me do it," "[I] killed the devil," and "I am God." Meizies asked the defendant "if he was all right, what's the matter," and reached around him and removed the gun from the defendant's rear pants pocket. The .38 caliber weapon contained five spent cartridges.

Because the defendant continued to be upset, Meizies and Sheffield transported him, in handcuffs, to Bridgeport Hospital for observation. While en route to the hospital, the defendant continued to talk about both God and the devil and stated that "Mary gave me the drugs." The officers left the defendant at the hospital and returned to the police station.

Shortly after the defendant had departed for the hospital, Ramirez and her husband proceeded to the defendant's apartment at 605 Hallett Street. Between 12:30 and 1 p.m., the couple entered a rear bedroom and there discovered the body of the victim, Mary Beth Buckley. They summoned the police and medical personnel and met the responding officer, Alan Kohlbacker, at 1:19 p.m. Kohlbacker secured the apartment and called for additional police and emergency medical personnel, who thereafter met Kohlbacker at the scene.

In the bedroom, the police found the victim's body seated on a bar stool with the right side of her head on the bar. There were four bullet holes in the closet door behind the victim. On top of the bar were white powder and drug paraphernalia. ⁵ The police also seized two empty gun holsters and several live rounds of ammunition that were in plain view on the bedroom floor, as well as a box of .45 caliber ammunition from the kitchen table. ⁶ Officers Meizies and Sheffield subsequently returned to the hospital to place the defendant under arrest for the murder of the victim.

An autopsy of the victim's body revealed that she had died from two bullet wounds that had been inflicted approximately four to six hours prior to the discovery of her body. One bullet had passed through her arm and into her chest. The other bullet had entered directly into her chest and passed through her heart and lung into her spine, severing the spinal cord. This bullet had been fired from the handgun recovered from the defendant's pocket. A third bullet had caused only a superficial wound.

After the trial court, Reilly, J., had found probable cause to continue the prosecution of the defendant for the crime of murder, the defendant, on October 28, 1987, was found incompetent to stand trial by the trial court, Curran, J., and sent to Whiting Forensic Institute. Subsequently, on February 8, 1988, he was found competent to stand trial and pretrial hearings on various of the defendant's motions ensued. A jury of twelve found the defendant guilty of all charges and the trial court, W. Sullivan, J., rendered judgment of conviction sentencing him to a term of imprisonment of fifty-one years.

I

The defendant first invokes the protections of the fifth and fourteenth amendments to the constitution of the United States, and article first, § 8, of the Connecticut constitution, ⁷ and claims that the trial court improperly denied his motion to suppress the incriminatory statements that he had made to the police in the kitchen of his sister's apartment and while en route to the hospital. Specifically, the defendant claims that these statements were elicited by the police in the absence of the warnings required by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 444, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 1612, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966); State v. Falby, 187 Conn. 6, 11 and n. 1, 444 A.2d 213 (1982); and that the statements were involuntary due to his mental condition at the time he made them. We conclude that the statements were not obtained by the police in derogation of the defendant's Miranda rights, and that the defendant's mental state at the time he made those statements did not render them involuntary as a matter of law under the due process clause of the United States constitution. We also conclude that the defendant did not properly preserve his claim of involuntariness under the Connecticut constitution and that the record below is not sufficient for our review of that claim.

A

The state acknowledges that the police had not informed the defendant of his Miranda rights prior to the statements he made either in his sister's kitchen or on his way to Bridgeport Hospital. The state maintains, however, that Miranda warnings were not required because at no time was the defendant subjected to police interrogation. We agree with the state.

"Although the Miranda warnings were originally effective in state prosecutions only because they were a component of due process of law under the fourteenth amendment ... they have also come to have independent significance under our state constitution.... The warnings represent the belief, deep-seated in the Anglo-American legal tradition, that a person accused of a crime may be convicted only if exacting measures have been taken to assure that the accused has been treated with the most scrupulous fairness by agents of the government." (Citations omitted.) State v. Ferrell, 191 Conn. 37, 40-41, 463 A.2d 573 (1983); see also State v. Barrett, 205 Conn. 437, 447, 534 A.2d 219 (1987). It is well settled, however, that a defendant is entitled to such warnings only if the statements are the product of custodial interrogation. State v. Rosado, 218 Conn. 239, 252, 588 A.2d 1066 (1991), and cases cited therein.

"[T]he defendant has the initial burden of showing that he was subjected to custodial interrogation"; id.; before the state must prove that adequate warnings of the rights that inhere in the privilege against compelled self-incrimination were given to the defendant and that the defendant's waiver of his rights was constitutionally valid. State v. Rasmussen, 225 Conn. 55, 76, 621 A.2d 728 (1993); see also State v. Weidenhof, 205 Conn. 262, 267, 533 A.2d 545 (1987); State v. Gray, 200 Conn. 523, 531-33, 512 A.2d 217, cert. denied, 479 U.S. 940, 107 S.Ct. 423, 93 L.Ed.2d 373 (1986). Unless it was clearly erroneous, we will accept the trial court's factual finding that the defendant was not the subject of a custodial interrogation. We will also, however, carefully review the record to determine whether the trial court's finding is founded on substantial evidence. See State v. Rasmussen, supra, 225 Conn. at 76-77, 621 A.2d 728.

Two conditions, therefore, give rise to the requirement of advice of rights under Miranda: (1) the suspect must be in the custody of law enforcement officials; and (2) the suspect must be subjected to interrogation. State v. Vitale, 197 Conn. 396, 411, 497 A.2d 956 (1985). To determine whether a suspect is in custody so as to require Miranda warnings, we inquire whether a reasonable person, in view of all the circumstances, would have believed that he or she was not free to leave. ⁸ United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 554, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 1877, 64 L.Ed.2d 497 (1980); State v. Rasmussen, supra, 225 Conn. at 76, 621 A.2d 728; State v. Oquendo, 223 Conn. 635, 647, 613 A.2d 1300 (1992). "The term 'interrogation' under Miranda is not limited to questioning explicitly designed to...