State v. Robinson, No. 32057.

• Citation: 125 Conn.App. 484,8 A.3d 1120
• Decision Date: 14 December 2010
• Docket Number: No. 32057.
• Court: Appellate Court of Connecticut
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Tyrone ROBINSON.

8 A.3d 1120

125 Conn.App. 484

STATE of Connecticut

v.Tyrone ROBINSON.

No. 32057.

Appellate Court of Connecticut.

Argued Oct. 20, 2010.

Decided Dec. 14, 2010.

Richard E. Condon, Jr., assistant public defender, for the appellant (defendant).

Rocco A. Chiarenza, special deputy assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, were Gail P. Hardy, state's attorney, and Donna Mambrino, senior assistant state's attorney, for the appellee (state).

LAVINE, ALVORD and PETERS, Js.

PER CURIAM.

"To establish a violation of [General Statutes] § 53a-54a ¹ ... the state mustprove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant, with intent to cause the death of another person ... cause[d] the death of such person.... [T]he specific intent to kill is an essential element of the crime of murder. To act intentionally, the defendant must have had the conscious objective to cause the death of the victim." (Citation omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Aviles, 107 Conn.App. 209, 217, 944 A.2d 994, cert. denied, 287 Conn. 922, 951 A.2d 570 (2008). The sole issue in this appeal from a conviction of a violation of § 53a-54a is whether the state met its burden of proving that the defendant had the requisite intent to cause the death of the victim. The defendant appeals from the judgment of the trial court accepting a jury verdictfinding him guilty as charged. We affirm the judgment of the court.

In a two count substitute information filed May 8, 2008, the state charged the defendant, Tyrone Robinson, with murder in violation of § 53a-54a and criminal possession of a firearm in violation of General Statutes § 53a-217 (a)(1).² The defendant elected to have the first count tried by a jury and the second count tried by the court. After the defendant was found guilty on both counts, the court sentenced him to a total effective term of fifty years incarceration, two years mandatory minimum. The defendant's appeal challenges only his conviction for murder.

The jury reasonably could have found the following facts. At the time that the victim, Leonard Lindsay, was shot, the defendant was living with his girlfriend, Lashonda Barno. On occasion, the defendant exhibited jealousy and controlling behavior toward Barno, particularly with regard to the victim.

Sometime in the spring of 2001, the victim, who had known Barno for fifteen years because they had gone to school together, manhandled her at a dance club. When the defendant learned about this incident, he became upset and confronted the victim. Following the incident at the dance club, rumors of a sexual relationship between Barno and the victim began to circulate in the neighborhood.

In the early morning of October 6, 2002, the victim drove into a gasoline station on Albany Avenue in Hartford and parked his car so that the driver's side window faced the street. Following a report of gunshots fired at the station, the police found the victim in his car with a gunshot wound to the head and a bullet hole inthe driver's side window of the car. The victim was transported to a hospital, where he died later that day. The defendant was not immediately identified as having committed the crime.

At trial, the state presented evidence that the defendant had admitted to four individuals that he had killed the victim. Immediately after having shot the victim, he confessed the killing to Barno and to her cousin. In September, 2004, he similarly confessed to Eric Smith, a longtime friend, who so informed the police in 2005, when Smith was incarcerated. In April, 2008, the defendant confessed to Larry Raifsnider, a fellow inmate in a federal prison in Pennsylvania. Although the defendant's earlier confessions were consistent with his claim, at trial, that he had intended only to frighten the victim, hisconfession to Raifsnider described a planned killing.

In this appeal, the defendant's only claim is that the state failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he intended to cause the death of the victim when he shot him. Our review of the defendant's claim is governed by the well established standard for appellate appraisal of claims of evidentiary insufficiency. "First, we construe the evidence in the light most favorable to sustaining the verdict. Second, we determine whether upon the facts so construed and the inferences reasonably drawn therefrom, the jury reasonably could have concluded that the cumulative force of the evidence established guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.... In evaluating evidence, the trier of fact is not required to accept as dispositive those inferences that are consistent with the defendant's innocence.... The trier may draw whatever inferences from the evidence or facts established by the evidence it deems to be reasonable and logical.... This does not require that each subordinate conclusion established by or inferred from the evidence, or even from other inferences, be provedbeyond a reasonable doubt ... because this court has held that a jury's factual inferences that support a guilty verdict need only be...