State v. Parillo

• Decision Date: 12 July 1984
• Docket Number: No. 83-171-C,83-171-C
• Citation: 480 A.2d 1349
• Parties: STATE v. Anthony PARILLO. A.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

Page 1349

480 A.2d 1349

STATE v. Anthony PARILLO.

No. 83-171-C.A.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

July 12, 1984.

Dennis J. Roberts, II, Atty. Gen., Henry Gemma, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., for plaintiff.

Harris L. Berson, Providence, for defendant.

OPINION

MURRAY, Justice.

This is an appeal by the defendant from his conviction on two separate counts of murder. He was tried by a Superior Court jury in August 1982 pursuant to a secret two-count indictment charging him with the murders of both Ronald Leone (count 1) and Rudy Baronet (count 2) on October 3, 1977. On September 2, 1982, the defendant was found guilty of murder in the first degree on count 1 of the indictment and guilty of murder in the second degree on count 2 of the indictment.

After denying defendant's motion for a new trial, the trial justice sentenced him to life imprisonment for each murder conviction and ordered that these sentences be served consecutively.

The defendant raises four issues in support of his appeal. We find two of them to be dispositive of this case. Both involve defendant's assertion that his constitutional right of cross-examination guaranteed under the confrontation clause of the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution and under article 1, section 10, of the Rhode Island Constitution was violated by two specific rulings of the trial justice. The defendant contends that the denial by the trial justice of his motion to obtain certain medical records of the prosecution's key witness and the refusal of the trial justice to allow defense counsel to cross-examine this witness effectively on the issues of both bias and motive in testifying against defendant were both erroneous rulings that deprived him of his constitutional rights. We agree with both of these contentions and reverse defendant's conviction upon both grounds. The facts pertinent to this appeal are set out below.

At about 9:30 a.m. on October 3, 1977, Ronald Leone and Rudy Baronet left the Leone family residence in Johnston, Rhode Island, apparently to visit a friend. Neither has ever been seen or heard from since. Their disappearance was reported to the Johnston police department that same evening by Ronald's mother, Mrs. Josephine Pezzulli, ¹ but neither man has ever been found.

In testifying to the factual circumstances surrounding the disappearance of Leone and Baronet, Janice Manfredi (Mrs. Manfredi), ² the state's chief complaining witness, related the following.

In early October, 1977, Mrs. Manfredi was maintaining regular social contacts with defendant. At this time she was living at 33 Home Avenue in Providence, although she spent much of her time at defendant's apartment, which was located at 69 Mount Pleasant Avenue, Providence. ³ Sometime during the afternoon on October 2, 1977, defendant visited Mrs. Manfredi at 33 Home Avenue. He was carrying a black briefcase with him, and he requested that she keep it with her until such time as he needed it. Mrs. Manfredi agreed to take custody of the briefcase for defendant and had him place it in a closet located in the parlor of her home.

On October 2, 1977 Mrs. Manfredi spent the evening with defendant at his apartment on Mount Pleasant Avenue. She stayed there overnight with defendant, leaving her daughter with her roommate at 33 Home Avenue.

Mrs. Manfredi awoke the next morning at about eight o'clock. Before leaving for her home, defendant asked her to retrieve the black briefcase that he had delivered to her the previous day and bring it back to his apartment upon her return. Mrs. Manfredi went to her house to get her daughter ready to go to school. When she got there, she received a telephone inquiry from defendant. The purpose of defendant's phone call was to ascertain whether she had a sleeping bag at her home and, if so, to request that she bring it to him at his apartment after she had dropped her daughter off at school.

Mrs. Manfredi dropped her daughter off at school at about nine o'clock that morning. She returned to her car; but before proceeding on to defendant's apartment, she opened the briefcase that she had kept overnight for him and examined its contents. Upon looking inside, she found a silver gun and a pair of gloves. She closed the briefcase and then drove to defendant's apartment.

Mrs. Manfredi arrived at 69 Mount Pleasant Avenue a few minutes after nine o'clock. Upon her arrival, she carried the sleeping bag and the briefcase upstairs to defendant's second-floor apartment. She entered defendant's apartment and placed the briefcase and the sleeping bag in his parlor. She spoke briefly with defendant, and he instructed her to go home and then return in about an hour--defendant stated that the reason he asked her to leave for an hour was because "Ronnie Leone [was] coming to his house" and his visit related to business. Before leaving, Mrs. Manfredi observed that defendant's roommate, Dennis Roche, was also in defendant's apartment.

Mrs. Manfredi departed from defendant's apartment between 9:15 a.m. and 9:20 a.m. She went home, took a shower, and spoke with her roommate. She then left her Home-Avenue address and proceeded to a restaurant on Manton Avenue to pick up some donuts and coffee. She apparently ordered both items to go and immediately departed for 69 Mount Pleasant Avenue.

Mrs. Manfredi arrived back at 69 Mount Pleasant Avenue slightly more than an hour after her previous departure. She passed through the downstairs doorway through an unlocked door and proceeded upstairs to defendant's apartment. After she arrived at the second floor landing, she entered defendant's apartment, letting herself in through an unlocked parlor door. When she entered the parlor, Mrs. Manfredi did not see anyone. She began to walk towards the kitchen of the apartment, but halted at the threshold. From this vantage point, she could see both defendant and Dennis Roche in the kitchen and two bodies on the kitchen floor. She recognized one of the bodies as that of Ronald Leone (someone she had known for some five or six months prior to this incident) but did not recognize the other one. She did, however, describe the second body as that of a young, teenage male.

Mrs. Manfredi described the face of Ronald Leone and that of the teenage boy as full of blood and stated that they both appeared to be dead. She observed that defendant was zippering up a sleeping bag with Ronald Leone inside and Dennis Roche was apparently pursuing a similar course of action with the body of the unknown teenager. She further noticed that the same silver gun and black briefcase that she had delivered to defendant earlier that morning were on the kitchen table and that the entire kitchen was "scattered with blood."

While she was standing at the threshold to the kitchen observing these events, defendant made the following remarks to her. Initially, defendant stated to her that he hoped she had "a strong stomach." Shortly thereafter, he further commented that what had happened "had to be done."

Dennis Roche and defendant subsequently removed the bodies from the Mount Pleasant Avenue apartment in Mrs. Manfredi's presence. They also placed the silver gun inside the black briefcase and removed it from their apartment. Before leaving their apartment, defendant had an additional request to make of Mrs. Manfredi. He asked her if she would stay and clean up the kitchen. This she agreed to do and therefore she remained in the apartment for one to one and one-half hours, scrubbing nearly the entire kitchen to remove the blood splattered all over it before defendant's return. Upon his return, Mrs. Manfredi questioned defendant about his disposition of the bodies. The defendant instructed her not "to worry about it--[t]hey're gone and [you should] forget it."

On December 4, 1981 Dennis Roche, defendant's roommate, was killed, thereby leaving Mrs. Manfredi the only remaining person who knew of the events that allegedly occurred at 69 Mount Pleasant Avenue on October 3, 1977.

When she learned that Dennis Roche was dead, Mrs. Manfredi became quite scared and eventually went to the Providence police. On December 28, 1981, Mrs. Manfredi relayed the preceding scenario to Major Leyden, Captain Wilson, and Detective Giblin of the Providence police.

On March 9, 1982, a secret indictment was handed down by the Grand Jury of the State of Rhode Island charging defendant with the murders of both Ronald Leone and Rudy Baronet. On that same day, a warrant was issued for his arrest. The defendant was subsequently tried and convicted of both murders. The testimony of Mrs. Manfredi recounted above was successfully employed by the state in obtaining defendant's convictions on both murder counts.

The record indicates that defendant did testify at a suppression hearing which was held to determine the admissibility of a statement that he had made to the Providence police. The defendant elected not to take the stand, however, as is his right, at trial.

I

At trial, defendant attempted to introduce certain medical records of the state's chief complaining witness, Mrs. Manfredi. This attempt was made to establish that when Mrs. Manfredi allegedly saw the dead bodies of Ronald Leone and Rudy Baronet at 69 Mount Pleasant Avenue, she was a drug addict, who was undergoing detoxification for drug addiction and was therefore incapable of accurately perceiving, remembering, and communicating what she claims she saw. On a voir dire examination, defendant called Mrs. Mary Davies, assistant director of the medical records department at Roger Williams General Hospital, and requested that she reveal certain information contained in the medical records of Mrs. Manfredi. Defense counsel apparently sought this revelation because he believed it would demonstrate that Mrs. Manfredi was "confined in the drug unit" at Roger Williams at the time she claims she witnessed these murders. The state objected to this line of questioning, and the trial justice...