State v. Mekoshvili, AC 42144
| Decision Date | 07 January 2020 |
| Docket Number | AC 42144 |
| Citation | 195 Conn.App. 154,223 A.3d 834 |
| Court | Connecticut Court of Appeals |
| Parties | STATE of Connecticut v. Shota MEKOSHVILI |
Norman A. Pattis, Bethany, with whom, on the brief, was Kevin Smith, New Haven, for the appellant (defendant).
Ronald G. Weller, senior assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, were Richard J. Colangelo, Jr., state's attorney, and James Bernardi, supervisory assistant state's attorney, for the appellee (state).
Lavine, Devlin and Beach, Js.
The defendant, Shota Mekoshvili, appeals from the judgment of conviction, rendered on a jury verdict of murder in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54a. He claims that the trial court erred by (1) admitting testimony under the state of mind exception to the hearsay rule, (2) admitting testimony regarding the victim's habit, and (3) refusing to include in the jury instructions a unanimity charge as to whether the state had disproven an element of the defendant's self-defense claim. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.
The following facts, which the jury reasonably could have found from the evidence presented and the reasonable inferences drawn therefrom, and procedural history are relevant on appeal. The victim, Mohammed Kamal, operated a taxi with his business partner, Jean Antoine. Antoine worked the day shift, generally from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., and the victim worked the night shift, generally from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. The cab was registered with Stamford Taxi (company), and the partners paid a weekly fee totaling $475 to the company. The fee was due on Wednesdays at noon. The victim customarily placed his share of the fee in the glove compartment of the vehicle during his Tuesday night shift, and Antoine removed the money and delivered it to the company on Wednesday mornings.
On the evening of Tuesday, August 26, 2014, the victim left home for his shift in the taxi between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. At approximately 12:30 a.m. on August 27, the victim briefly returned home and told his wife that he had forgotten to take the money for his share of the fee that he needed to leave in the taxi; he said he also
planned to send some money to his family in Bangladesh. The victim's wife observed him take money out of an armoire, after which the victim returned to his shift. At approximately 3 a.m., the defendant hailed the victim's taxi and directed the victim to drive to Doolittle Road, in Stamford. While on Doolittle Road, the defendant began to stab the victim repeatedly. At some point, the defendant opened the glove compartment, stole the money that the victim had set aside for the taxi fee and for his family in Bangladesh, took the victim's credit card, and fled the scene toward the defendant's apartment.
While fleeing from the scene, the defendant called a friend, Eugene Goldshtyen, several times and offered Goldshtyen $100 to pick him up. Goldshtyen met the defendant at the defendant's apartment and asked whether the defendant received his injuries during a burglary. The defendant falsely replied "yeah" and explained that he encountered the homeowner during the burglary and started fighting with the homeowner, whom he stabbed multiple times. The defendant said that "[w]hen the homeowner ‘kept yelling’ despite the defendant's order to ‘shut up,’ the defendant ‘just kept stabbing him and stabbing him.’ " Not believing the defendant's story, Goldshtyen called the police.
Later that morning, Stamford Police located the victim's body and the taxi at 150 Doolittle Road. The victim's body was found on the ground, and an autopsy revealed that the victim had been stabbed 127 times. The taxi's glove compartment was open and no money was found inside. The victim's and the defendant's blood was found on the rear driver's side passenger seat and door. The police arrested the defendant and charged him with murder in violation of § 53a-54a. The money, which the state claimed had been stolen, was not recovered.
Prior to trial, the state filed a motion in limine seeking to introduce the testimony of two witnesses: (1) testimony from the victim's wife that when the victim returned home briefly from his shift at 12:30 a.m., she saw him retrieve money from the armoire, and the victim then told her that "he intended to use this money to pay his dispatch fees and to send money home to Bangladesh"; and (2) testimony from the victim's taxi partner, Antoine, that it "was [the victim's] habit and custom to leave his share [of the taxi fee] in the glove compartment" for Antoine to give to the company the next morning. The trial court held a hearing on the matter and subsequently admitted the testimony of both witnesses.
The jury returned a verdict finding the defendant guilty of murder in violation of § 53a-54a. Thereafter, the court imposed a total effective sentence of sixty years of incarceration. The defendant filed an appeal in our Supreme Court, and the appeal was transferred to this court on September 24, 2018.
(Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Russo , 62 Conn. App. 129, 133, 773 A.2d 965 (2001). In reviewing for an abuse of discretion, "the ultimate issue is whether the court could reasonably conclude as it did." DiPalma v. Wiesen , 163 Conn. 293, 299, 303 A.2d 709 (1972).
We first address the defendant's claim that the trial court erred in allowing testimony from the victim's wife
that the victim told her, after briefly returning home during his shift, that he was getting money to leave inside the taxi to pay his share of the taxi fee and to send to his family in Bangladesh after his shift. Specifically, the defendant claims that such statements (1) were irrelevant and (2) did not satisfy the state of mind exception to the hearsay rule because they were self-serving and backward looking. We disagree.
The following additional facts are relevant to this issue. At trial, the state called the victim's wife as a witness. She testified about statements that the victim had made to her when he briefly returned home during his night shift. She testified:
The defendant first claims that the victim's statements to his wife "had no relevant connection to a fact in issue." According to the defendant, the only facts at issue were whether the defendant had killed the victim and, if he had done so, whether he acted with criminal intent and without justification. He further asserts that "whether [the victim] had intended or planned to pay taxi related expenses the next day was simply inapposite to the matters to be decided by the jury, and to admit such evidence could only lead to confusion and speculation." We disagree.
The Connecticut Code of Evidence provides that "[a]ll relevant evidence is admissible, except as otherwise provided by the constitution of the United States,
the constitution of the state of Connecticut, the Code, the General Statutes or the common law." Conn. Code Evid. § 4-2. Relevant evidence is defined as "evidence having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is material to the determination of the proceeding more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence." Conn. Code Evid. § 4-1. "The materiality of evidence turns upon what is at issue in the case, which generally will be determined by the pleadings and the applicable substantive law." Conn. Code Evid. § 4-1, commentary. "The trial court is given broad discretion in determining the relevancy of evidence and its decision will not be disturbed absent a clear abuse of that discretion." State v. Holliman , 214 Conn. 38, 50, 570 A.2d 680 (1990).
In the state's motion in limine, the state addressed the relevancy of the statements and claimed that it sought to introduce this evidence to controvert the defendant's claim of self-defense. The state explained: The proffered statements reasonably could have tended to make it more likely that the defendant had a financial motive in killing the victim and to make it less likely that the killing was a result of self-defense.
The defendant next claims that the statements by the victim to his wife were both backward looking and self-serving and, therefore, did not satisfy the state of mind hearsay exception. The Connecticut Code of Evidence provides exceptions to the hearsay rule, among them: "A statement of the declarant's then existing mental or emotional condition, including a statement indicating a present intention to do a particular act in the immediate
future, provided that the statement is a natural expression of the condition and is not a statement of memory or belief to prove the fact remembered or believed." Conn. Code Evid. § 8-3 (4). "The hearsay statements of an unavailable declarant, made in good faith and not for...
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