State v. Robinson
| Citation | 631 A.2d 288,227 Conn. 711 |
| Decision Date | 07 September 1993 |
| Docket Number | No. 14408,14408 |
| Court | Supreme Court of Connecticut |
| Parties | STATE of Connecticut v. Shawn L. ROBINSON. |
Neal Cone, Asst. Public Defender, for appellant (defendant).
Carolyn K. Longstreth, Asst. State's Atty., with whom, on the brief, was Patricia A. Swords, State's Atty., for appellee (state).
Before PETERS, C.J., and CALLAHAN, BORDEN, BERDON and SANTANIELLO, JJ.
This appeal concerns multiple issues arising out of the criminal trial of the defendant, Shawn Robinson. The state charged the defendant in a substitute two part information. The first part charged the defendant with two counts of assault in the first degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-59(a)(1) and (3), 1 assault in the second degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-60(a)(5), 2 rioting at a correctional institution in violation of General Statutes § 53a-179b, 3 and possession of a weapon or dangerous instrument in a correctional institution in violation of General Statutes § 53a-174a. 4 The second part charged the defendant with being a persistent serious felony offender pursuant to General Statutes § 53a-40(b). 5 He was found guilty by a jury of assault in the second degree, rioting at a correctional institution and possession of a weapon or dangerous instrument in a correctional institution. He was also convicted of being a persistent serious felony offender. He was sentenced as a persistent serious felony offender to a term of imprisonment of ten years on the assault count, twenty-five years on the rioting count, and ten years on the possession of a weapon count, all sentences to run consecutively, for a total effective sentence of forty-five years imprisonment. Thereafter, he appealed from the judgment of conviction to this court pursuant to General Statutes § 51-199(b)(3). 6 We affirm the judgment of the trial court.
A review of the transcript of the defendant's trial reveals the following. On April 19, 1990, at approximately 8:30 p.m., the defendant attended a gathering of seventy-five to one hundred inmates in the east mess hall of the Connecticut Correctional Institution at Somers in honor of the Islamic religious feast, Ramadan. The gathering turned into a riot when an inmate verbally confronted and then placed his hands on the Imam, a religious leader. Inmates began to shout, climb on tables, fight, and throw trays. Thirty-five correction officers responded in an attempt to restore order. During the incident, the defendant, while situated at the center of the group of rioting inmates, slashed correction officer David Serkosky on the right side of his neck with a sharp metal instrument. The defendant then put the instrument into a paper bag, and walked away from the crowd and toward the east wall of the mess hall.
Four correction officers gave testimony relevant to the defendant's involvement in the crimes with which he was charged. Officer Ronnie King testified that from a distance of approximately five feet he had seen the defendant walk around Serkosky and with his right hand cut Serkosky in the neck. He then saw the defendant put a shiny metal object into a paper bag and then step against a wall. King testified that the incident had occurred quickly. Serkosky testified that he had been cut while standing in the center of the group of inmates who had been involved in the disturbance. Serkosky did not see who slashed him, nor did he see the defendant at any time during the incident. Officer Christopher Conniff testified that while breaking up a fight between several inmates, he saw the defendant moving away from the group of inmates toward a wall of the mess hall. Conniff testified that from approximately forty feet away he saw the defendant holding a dark object the size of a roll of dimes in the palm of his right hand. Finally, officer John Springer, a dog handler, testified that, after Serkosky and two other officers had been injured, he had entered the mess hall with his dog. Once within the mess hall, Springer saw the defendant walking toward him in the forefront of a group of inmates. As the group approached, Springer put the dog into an attack mode. He heard the defendant and others repeatedly yelling:
On appeal, the defendant claims that the trial court improperly: (1) rejected his challenge to the jury array because he had failed to establish that the under-representation of African-Americans on the jury panel was due to systematic exclusion; (2) failed to make an adequately detailed inquiry into his complaints about his attorney; (3) admitted evidence of verbal threats made by him against correction officers as evidence of consciousness of guilt; (4) permitted the state to introduce evidence of sentences imposed on his prior convictions; (5) permitted the state to introduce a prison disciplinary ticket to establish that he had possessed a weapon on an earlier occasion; (6) instructed the jury that an assault on a correction officer could also constitute rioting; (7) refused to disclose the contents of the personnel records of the correction officers who testified against him; (8) permitted certain closing arguments of the codefendant and the state that were unduly prejudicial; and (9) committed, as a result of the cumulative effect of the above noted improprieties, harmful error. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.
The defendant first claims that the trial court improperly rejected his challenge to the jury array because he had failed to establish that the underrepresentation of African-Americans on the jury panel was due to systematic exclusion. Consequently, the defendant argues that he was deprived of his constitutional right to have a jury drawn and selected from a fair cross section of the community as guaranteed by article first, §§ 8 and 19, of the Connecticut constitution. 7
"The American tradition of trial by jury ... necessarily contemplates an impartial jury drawn from a cross-section of the community." Thiel v. Southern Pacific Co., 328 U.S. 217, 220, 66 S.Ct. 984, 985, 90 L.Ed. 1181 (1946); Holland v. Illinois, 493 U.S. 474, 480, 110 S.Ct. 803, 807, 107 L.Ed.2d 905 (1990); Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, 527, 95 S.Ct. 692, 696, 42 L.Ed.2d 690 (1975); State v. Tillman, 220 Conn. 487, 492, 600 A.2d 738 (1991), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 3000, 120 L.Ed.2d 876 (1992). This fair cross section requirement mandates that the jury wheels, pools of names, the panels and venires from which juries are drawn must not systematically exclude distinctive groups in the community. Taylor v. Louisiana, supra, 419 U.S. at 530, 95 S.Ct. at 698.
At trial, the defendant relied on the sixth amendment and the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment to the federal constitution. Under federal constitutional law, the leading basis for a constitutional challenge under the sixth amendment to the composition of a jury array is that set forth in Duren v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 357, 364, 99 S.Ct. 664, 668, 58 L.Ed.2d 579 (1979), wherein the United States Supreme Court stated: "In order to establish a prima facie violation of the fair-cross-section requirement, the defendant must show (1) that the group alleged to be excluded is a 'distinctive' group in the community; (2) that the representation of this group in venires from which juries are selected is not fair and reasonable in relation to the number of such persons in the community; and (3) that this underrepresentation is due to systematic exclusion of the group in the jury-selection process." See also State v. Tillman, supra; State v. McCarthy, 197 Conn. 247, 250, 496 A.2d 513 (1985); State v. Castonguay, 194 Conn. 416, 421-22, 481 A.2d 56 (1984). Under the Duren test, "[o]nce the defendant has established this prima facie case, the burden then shifts to the state to prove that the selection system resulting in a nonrepresentative array furthers a significant state interest." State v. Castonguay, supra, 194 Conn. at 422, 481 A.2d 56. 8
At trial, during the first day of jury selection, David Kritzman, counsel for the codefendant, 9 joined by counsel for the defendant, moved to dismiss the first panel of twelve prospective jurors, arguing that the absence of any African-Americans on the panel denied the defendants their rights under the sixth amendment and fourteenth amendment to have a jury composed of a fair cross section of the Tolland County community. It was represented to the trial court that the 1990 census indicated that out of a total population of 128,699 persons in Tolland county, 2625 or approximately 2 percent were African-American. The state argued that under our decision in State v. Castonguay, supra, the defendant had the burden of demonstrating that African-Americans had been systematically excluded from the jury panel. The state maintained that the defendant had failed to do so because he had not presented statistics indicative of the exclusion of African-Americans over a substantial period of time. 10 The court denied the defendant's motion.
After another venire panel without an African-American had been brought into the courtroom, the defendant renewed his motion to dismiss. He argued that the burden at this point should shift to the state to explain the lack of a single African-American on the two panels that had been drawn. The court responded to the defendant's concerns by noting that, because there was a very small minority population in Tolland County, the fact that none of the twenty-four venirepersons was black did not indicate that African-Americans had been systematically excluded from the jury array. Consequently, the trial court concluded that the burden had not yet shifted to the state to show that there was not systematic exclusion.
Two days later, after another panel had been drawn and a total of...
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