State v. Peeler

• Decision Date: 12 August 2003
• Docket Number: SC 16380.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE OF CONNECTICUT v. RUSSELL PEELER.

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STATE OF CONNECTICUT v. RUSSELL PEELER.

SC 16380.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued May 21, 2003.

Officially Released August 12, 2003.

OPINION:

KATZ, J.

The defendant, Russell Peeler, appeals, pursuant to General Statutes § 51-199 (b) (3),¹ from the judgment of conviction, following a jury trial, of attempted murder in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a-49 (a)² and 53a-54a (a),³ two counts of risk of injury to a child in violation of General Statutes (Rev. to 1997) § 53-21 (1),⁴ and murder in violation of § 53a-54a (a).⁵ In this appeal, the defendant claims that the trial court improperly: (1) granted the state's motion to disqualify the defendant's attorney from representing him in violation of his right to secure counsel of his choice under article first, § 8, of the Connecticut constitution, and the sixth amendment to the United States constitution; (2) nullified the defendant's cross-examination of the state's three main witnesses in violation of his sixth amendment right to confrontation and his due process right to a fair trial under the fourteenth amendment to the United States constitution by questioning the witnesses regarding their cooperation with the federal government on federal drug charges and making comments regarding those witnesses and their federal drug proceedings; and (3) violated the defendant's due process right to a fair trial under the fourteenth amendment to the United States constitution by improperly questioning the state's expert witness in connection with the admission of a statement by the victim and by improperly instructing the jury regarding that statement. We agree with the defendant's first claim of trial court impropriety and therefore do not address his remaining claims. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the trial court and remand the case for a new trial.

The record discloses the following undisputed facts and procedural history regarding the two cases underlying this appeal. See footnote 5 of this opinion. In the first case, the state alleged that, on September 2, 1997, in the vicinity of 500 Lindley Street in Bridgeport, the defendant had attempted to murder Rudolph Snead, Jr., his partner in a crack cocaine operation, by shooting at Snead while in his car and that the defendant thereby had committed risk of injury to the two minor children, Leroy Brown, Jr., and Tyree Snead, both seven years of age, who were in the backseat of Snead's car during the shooting. All three of the victims were identified by name in the police arrest warrant affidavit dated September 11, 1997, and in the second substitute information filed January 20, 1998. In the second case, the state alleged that on May 29, 1998, while he was free on bond following his arrest for the drive-by shooting in the first case, the defendant, who had covered his face to conceal his identity, murdered Snead at the Boston Avenue Barbershop in Bridgeport. The defendant was represented initially by Frank Riccio in connection with the first case and, thereafter, by Gary Mastronardi, who filed his appearance on July 23, 1998, in connection with both cases.

Following the consolidation of the two cases, on August 11, 1998, the state filed a motion for a protective order to preclude disclosure to the defense of the identity of certain witnesses, including the two minor victims, Brown and Tyree Snead. At the hearing on that motion, held on October 6, 1998, the trial court, Ronan, J., provided Mastronardi with two alternatives: (1) the court would order disclosure of the names and addresses of the state's witnesses to Mastronardi, but would prohibit him from disclosing that information to the defendant; or (2) the court would grant the defendant's discovery motion with the names and addresses redacted. The court assured Mastronardi that, prior to trial, he would be able to share the information with the defendant to prepare his defense. Mastronardi advised the court that he knew that there were two minors involved in the drive-by shooting and that he and the defendant already knew their names. On December 9, 1998, the court nevertheless issued an order precluding Mastronardi from disclosing to the defendant the names and addresses of any witnesses who had given statements to the police. Pursuant to that court order, on or about December 23, 1998, senior assistant state's attorney C. Robert Satti, Jr., provided Mastronardi with the statement by Brown regarding the drive-by shooting and filed with the clerk of the court notice of service of disclosure with an attached supplemental disclosure listing, inter alia, the statement given by Brown.

Tragically, on January 7, 1999, Brown and his mother, Karen Clarke, were brutally murdered in their apartment on Earl Avenue in Bridgeport, where they recently had moved. The state thereafter charged the defendant and his brother, Adrian Peeler in a third case with those murders, and John Walkley filed an appearance as a special public defender for the defendant in connection with the Brown and Clarke murders.⁶

On June 9, 1999, the state moved to disqualify Mastronardi from representing the defendant in the two cases involving Snead on the ground that the state intended to call Mastronardi as a witness in the defendant's capital felony case for the murder of Brown and Clarke. Specifically, the motion provided that "it is expected that Attorney Mastronardi will be called as a witness in the [capital felony case] regarding any knowledge on his part regarding the address and location of Karen Clarke and Leroy Brown, Jr. Attorney Mastronardi has spoken to the press and to Judge Ronan regarding a state's objection to disclosure of the above [witnesses'] address and statements claiming that he or his client had knowledge of their address before the state's motion [for a protective order]."

On June 30, 1999, the trial court, Thim, J., held a hearing regarding the state's motion to disqualify Mastronardi. Responding to the motion, Mastronardi contended that the state lacked any ground on which to disqualify him. He advised the court that "Mr. Satti, who is the prosecutor who's handling [the capital felony] case, knows full well that I never had the Earl Avenue address. And I assume that he's told this to [state's attorney Jonathan Benedict]. I've said it ad nauseam since the day this happened. I never had the Earl Avenue address. I never knew where these two people lived. And Mr. Satti's words to me in court one day were: In light of all this, aren't you glad that the state never gave you the Earl Avenue address? Now I don't understand why Mr. Benedict would get up and even suggest something like that in open court on the record when he knows that that's not true. His office never gave the Earl Avenue address to me and I never had it. I never knew that these people lived on Earl Avenue until I read it in the newspaper and that is an established fact. That's not—Mr. Satti could be called as a witness to establish that. Do we disqualify the state's attorney's office in this case?"

Rather than pursue the claim in its motion that Mastronardi had given the defendant the victims' Earl Avenue address, at the hearing the state contended: "So it's not so much evidence that the state would seek to offer as to the defendant's knowing where they live, but rather what is necessary and most relevant in the double homicide trial is the confirmation that Leroy Brown would indeed be a witness. That in fact is the focal point of the state's evidence as to motive in the double homicide. I'd submit that the argument that the December [1998] disclosure triggered the January [1999] murders is most compelling and that therefore Mr. Mastronardi's testimony in the trial of the double homicide will be most necessary and will not be uncontested."

Mastronardi made several points in response. First, in light of the fact that the state was seeking to deprive the defendant of his constitutional right to counsel of his choice, Mastronardi contended that the state was required to provide him with specific questions it intended to ask and then to establish that it could not get the information it sought from any other source. Second, Mastronardi disputed the claim that the state needed his testimony to establish the fact that Brown's statement had been disclosed to him pursuant to the December 9, 1998 discovery order. Indeed, Mastronardi pointed out that it was undisputed and a matter of public record that a copy of Brown's statement had been turned over to him on December 22, 1998, pursuant to the discovery order. Finally, Mastronardi cautioned that when and how the defendant had gained certain information would, in all likelihood, be privileged and therefore outside the reach of the state's questions in any event.

Finally, in response the state contended that Mastronardi "suggests that . . . perhaps the state can develop the information it wants to develop through some other avenue. That may well be. I don't know that it is in fact true at this time. But that does not mean the state would then be restricted and deprived of giving Mr. Mastronardi's evidence as well. I think [what] the state seeks to produce with Mr. Mastronardi is already fairly clear from my opening remarks and they all relate, essentially, to what happened in December [of 1998] with notification that . . . Brown was in fact to be a witness." The trial court then granted the state's motion to disqualify Mastronardi, concluding that "one of the core issues in the case is . . . [what] knowledge [the defendant] had about Brown's potential testimony and when and how he obtained that knowledge."

Shortly thereafter, the defendant, through his newly appointed special public defender, Robert Sullivan, filed an opposition to the state's request for a protective order to contest the state's further attempts to withhold witness identities and statements. In support of his motion, the defendant referenced statements made by...