State v. Payette
| Decision Date | 14 April 1989 |
| Docket Number | No. 87-547-C,87-547-C |
| Citation | 557 A.2d 72 |
| Parties | STATE v. Robert PAYETTE. A. |
| Court | Rhode Island Supreme Court |
A Superior Court jury returned a verdict of guilty with reference to charges of robbery and conspiracy to rob against Robert Payette. The trial justice set aside the conspiracy verdict. Payette now appeals his robbery conviction. This appeal is premised solely on the grounds that the jury instructions did not contain a specific instruction that the state was required to prove Payette's identity as the perpetrator of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.
At trial, corrections officers, a policeman, and a prison inmate testified to the following:
Kevin Keith was the victim of the crime. He was an inmate at the Adult Correctional Institutions (ACI) in South Station and lived in cell B-19. One day two other inmates appeared and stood in front of the door to Keith's cell. They peered in at him and made him nervous. The shorter man told the other to have the guard open up cell B-19. The taller one left, and presumably went to the control box at the end of the row of cells where the guard could switch open the door electronically. Soon the cell door opened, and the shorter man entered the cell. He told Keith to take off his sweat pants, pushed Keith back onto his bunk, and held a knife to his throat. By now the taller man had also entered. Keith was pinned down on his bunk, and the taller man removed Keith's maroon sweat pants. The two intruders left with the pants. Later that day, Keith told a guard about the robbery. Keith described the robbers and the homemade knife. Prison authorities used this information in an effort to find the perpetrators.
Two inmates fit Keith's descriptions, Robert Payette and Norman Lawrence. A guard searched Payette's cell and found a homemade knife concealed in the lining of a coat. The knife was made of two pieces of metal stuck together and shoved into a tube. It fit the description given by the victim. Lawrence's cell was also searched and the maroon sweat pants were found inside a bag sitting on a shelf. After the discovery of this incriminating evidence, those investigating the crime attempted to get a positive identification of the suspects.
A photo array is a group of individual photographs of different persons. Often the photographs used are mug shots. Photo arrays were shown to Keith. These arrays included a photograph of one of the suspects together with photographs of other persons. On two separate occasions, Keith was shown a photo array and was able to pick out Payette's picture as the man who held the knife to his throat. However, on two separate occasions Keith was unsuccessful in recognizing Lawrence's photograph from among a group. About a week after the robbery, a police officer from outside the ACI tape-recorded a formal statement by Keith. In the statement, Keith transposed the hair color of Payette and Lawrence. Keith incorrectly described Lawrence's hair as dark blonde when in fact his hair is black. Keith stated that Payette's hair was black when in fact it is dark blonde.
Payette and Lawrence were charged and tried as codefendants for robbery and conspiracy to rob under G.L.1956 (1981 Reenactment) §§ 11-39-1 and 11-1-6. At trial, Keith made an in-court identification of both Lawrence and Payette. In his closing argument, Lawrence's attorney emphasized that Keith had twice been unable to identify Lawrence from a photo array. Counsel for Lawrence also pointed to evidence presented that because the cell doors are made of bars, the inmates are able to pass things to one another from inside their cells, implying another inmate could have given Lawrence the pants. The jury acquitted Lawrence of robbery and conspiracy to rob. However, the jury returned a verdict of guilty on both charges against Payette. The trial justice then entered a judgment of acquittal on the conspiracy-to-rob count.
The issue presented by this case is whether a trial justice, when instructing a jury, must give a specific instruction that the state must prove the defendant's identity as the perpetrator of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. We hold that a trial justice is not required to give a specific instruction on identity.
Jury instructions must correctly state the law applicable to the charges upon which the jury must deliberate. State v. Andrade, 544 A.2d 1140, 1143 (R.I.1988). To determine whether the instructions state the applicable law, the inquiry is "how a jury composed of ordinarily intelligent persons listening to that instruction * * * would have appreciated the instructions as a whole." State v. Cipriano, 430 A.2d 1258, 1262 (R.I.1981). The instructions given must be taken as a whole as "this court reviews the jury charge in its entirety to determine its correctness." State v. Hadrick, 523 A.2d 441, 444 (R.I.1987).
In criminal cases, the defendant's identity as the perpetrator of the crime must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. State v. Lewis, 115 R.I. 217, 226, 341 A.2d 744, 749 (1975). A case on point in regard to jury instructions on identity is State v. Andrade, 544 A.2d 1140 (R.I.1988). In Andrade, the criminal defendant appealed his conviction. Id. at 1141. One ground upon which the defendant appealed was that the trial justice failed to instruct the jury properly about identification testimony. Id. at 1142. In reviewing the charge to the jury, we stated that it is proper for a trial justice to give a general...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
State v. Ros
...trial justice when and if the jury returns legally inconsistent verdicts and before the court enters judgment. See, e.g., State v. Payette, 557 A.2d 72, 73 (R.I.1989). defendants argue in this case that the trial justice improperly delegated the rule of consistency to the jurors by instruct......
-
State v. Allen
...285 Or. 221, 590 P.2d 1198 (1979) (suggested instruction overemphasized the issue and was a comment on the evidence); State v. Payette, 557 A.2d 72 (R.I.1989) (charge on burden of proof of identification sufficient); State v. Robinson, 274 S.C. 198, 262 S.E.2d 729 (1980) (state constitution......
-
State v. Davis
...jury instruction on identification is not mandatory and failure to give such an instruction is not reversible error." State v. Payette, 557 A.2d 72, 73 (R.I.1989).Although we have never turned away from our holdings in Andrade and Payette, we have, nevertheless, approved instructions focusi......
-
State v. Dyle
...identification issue and amounted to a comment on the evidence), rev'd on other grounds, 285 Or. 221, 590 P.2d 1198 (1979); State v. Payette, 557 A.2d 72 (R.I.1989) (holding that burden of proof instruction was sufficient); State v. Simmons, 308 S.C. 80, 417 S.E.2d 92 (1992) (holding that t......