State v. Morales
| Decision Date | 27 August 2002 |
| Docket Number | (AC 21470) |
| Citation | 804 A.2d 902,71 Conn. App. 790 |
| Court | Connecticut Court of Appeals |
| Parties | STATE OF CONNECTICUT v. WILLIAM MORALES, JR. |
Mihalakos, Dranginis and Healey, Js. Lauren Weisfeld, assistant public defender, for the appellant (defendant).
Michael E. O'Hare, assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, were John A. Connelly, state's attorney, Susan C. Marks, supervisory assistant state's attorney, and Robin Lipsky, assistant state's attorney, for the appellee (state).
The defendant, William Morales, Jr., appeals from the judgment of conviction, rendered after a jury trial, of murder in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54a.1 On appeal, the defendant contends that he is entitled to a new trial because the trial court improperly (1) permitted the state, during jury selection, to exercise its peremptory challenges in a racially discriminatory manner as to two minority venirepersons, (2) failed to dismiss the selected jurors and the remaining venire, and begin anew the jury selection process after it found a Batson2 violation as to a third minority venireperson, (3) refused to charge the jury on intoxication, (4) refused to charge the jury on "the sole theory of defense" and that, coupled with the court's "partisan bolstering of the state's case, separately and together, denied [him] a fair trial," and (5) instructed the jury on reasonable doubt. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.
The jury reasonably could have found the following facts. In 1993, the defendant's brother, Angel Resto, and the victim, Andrew J. Scott,3 were associated in a narcotics distribution business in the Waterbury area. Resto and Scott would obtain large quantities of cocaine, which they processed into crack cocaine at Scott's apartment at 224 Main Street in the Oakville section of Watertown. They then distributed the crack cocaine from the apartment to street level dealers. In 1994, the defendant, who at that time was a seventeen year old student at a Waterbury high school, became involved in the narcotics distribution business operated by Resto and Scott.
In October, 1994, the defendant and Resto heard rumors that when Scott previously had been arrested, he gave the police information concerning the drug dealers with whom he did business to receive more lenient treatment for himself. As a result, they became concerned that if Scott were arrested again, he would inform the police of their involvement in the narcotics distribution business. They decided that Scott had to be killed to prevent him from informing on them. Resto offered the defendant $10,000 "to take care of Scott. The defendant agreed and obtained a .25 caliber semiautomatic pistol and ammunition for that purpose. Thereafter, the defendant and Resto drove by Scott's apartment several times, in effect, surveilling the premises.
On October 17, 1994, Resto drove the defendant to Scott's apartment. The defendant knocked on the door, and Scott let him in. After the defendant entered the apartment, Scott spoke to his two year old daughter in another room. Scott left the child in the other room and joined the defendant in the kitchen. The defendant asked Scott if he could use the bathroom, and Scott said that he could. As the defendant left the room, Scott went to the sink to wash dishes. While Scott's back was turned, the defendant approached him and shot him in the back of his head from about six inches to two feet away. Scott fell to the floor, and the defendant proceeded to fire six more shots at him, emptying the pistol's magazine in the process. The bullet that entered Scott's head lodged beneath his skull, but did not penetrate his brain. Two of the bullets that the defendant fired at Scott as he lay on the floor, however, pierced his aorta, causing death. The defendant fled from the apartment, leaving Scott's daughter alone with her father's bleeding body.
The defendant went to a nearby convenience store and called Resto from a pay telephone, asking him to pick him up. Soon thereafter, Resto arrived at the store. The defendant entered Resto's vehicle and told him that he had killed Scott. After he returned to Waterbury, the defendant threw the pistol that he used to kill Scott in a dumpster near his home on Austin Road. On October 18, 1994, the day after the shooting, Mary Ann Kellas, the assistant director of the day care center that Scott's daughter attended, called Scott's apartment to inquire why the child had not come to the center for two days. When no one answered her call, Kellas and Elizabeth Byrd, an employee of the day care center, went to Scott's apartment to determine if there was a problem with the child. They arrived at the apartment at around noon and, as they stood at the door, they heard Scott's daughter crying inside. They called to her and asked her to open the door. When the child opened the door, she was dressed only in a dirty diaper and was covered with feces and blood. She also was crying and saying, "My daddy, my daddy." From their vantage point at the door, Kellas and Byrd could see Scott lying on his back on the kitchen floor in a pool of blood. The two women took the child out of the apartment and asked a neighbor to call the police.
At about 12:45 p.m., Officer Roseanne Sabol of the Watertown police department was dispatched to the scene. When she arrived, she observed Kellas and Byrd at the apartment door trying to keep Scott's daughter, who was hysterical, from going back inside. Sabol entered the apartment, checked Scott's body and determined that he was dead. She noted that the kitchen faucet was running and that a stove burner was on and glowing red. Sabol then secured the crime scene and called the detective bureau.4
Detectives from the Connecticut state police major crime squad and the Watertown police department arrived at the scene to investigate the homicide and collect evidence. Sergeant David Wagner of the state police collected seven .25 caliber cartridge casings from the kitchen. He also discovered in the apartment a number of items that indicated that Scott was involved in narcotics distribution.5 Sergeant Ronald Blanchard of the Watertown police department found an address book that included an entry under the name "Angel." The telephone number listed by that name was for a pager owned by Resto.
The United States Customs Service provided Blanchard with information that Resto and Scott had been involved with each other in drug trafficking. With that information, Blanchard obtained a search warrant for Resto's apartment at 103 Walnut Street in Naugatuck. During his search of the apartment, Blanchard seized sixteen .25 caliber cartridges, which were subsequently matched with the cartridge casings recovered from Scott's apartment.6 After obtaining that evidence, Blanchard contacted Sergeant Neil O'Leary, a detective with the Waterbury police department, requesting his assistance in trying to locate Resto. They were unable, however, to locate Resto at that time.
In early December, 1994, the defendant made a telephone call to his friend, Mouzbon Maksuti,7 and told her that the police had searched Resto's apartment. He also told her that there was more to the story and that he wanted to speak to her about it in person. They agreed to meet that evening at a doughnut shop where Maksuti worked. That evening at the doughnut shop, the defendant made Maksuti promise that she would not tell anyone what he was about to tell her. He then told her that Resto had paid him $10,000 to kill "a Watertown guy" because he was a "snitch." The defendant also described the manner in which he committed the murder, telling Maksuti that he approached the victim from behind as he was washing dishes and shot him six or seven times. He stated that after he shot the victim, he looked into his eyes and then ran out of the apartment, went into a wooded area and vomited. The defendant also told Maksuti that he keeps seeing the victim's eyes and "all the blood" and that he could not sleep.
A few months later, the defendant met with Maksuti again and told her that if he had known how he would feel, "he would never have killed the guy." After the defendant confided in Maksuti about the killing, she wrote him several letters in which she discussed their relationship. In one of those letters, she alluded to the defendant's admission that he had killed a man in Watertown.
In 1995, O'Leary was assigned to the statewide narcotics task force, which was investigating drug trafficking in Waterbury. In December, 1995, while O'Leary was conducting the surveillance of a residence at 106 Hillhouse Road in Waterbury, he recognized Resto, who was participating in the drug trafficking at that location. On February 14, 1996, investigators from the task force executed search warrants at 106 Hillhouse Road and at Resto's residence on Mulloy Road in Waterbury. Later that day, Resto was arrested on the basis of the evidence seized during those searches.
In addition, at approximately 5:30 p.m., the defendant and some other persons suspected of trafficking narcotics were brought to the Waterbury police station for questioning. At the station, O'Leary advised the defendant of his constitutional rights and questioned him about his involvement in drug trafficking as well as the Scott homicide. The defendant consistently denied any knowledge of Scott's murder. During the questioning, however, the defendant acknowledged that he owned a .25 caliber pistol and gave the police permission to search for it in his apartment. The police subsequently searched the apartment and discovered a pistol. An examination of the firearm disclosed, however, that it was not the pistol that was used to kill Scott. The defendant left the police station at approximately midnight and returned home.
During their search of 106 Hillhouse Road, the police discovered one of letters that Maksuti had written to...
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