State v. Rolon

• Decision Date: 14 June 2012
• Docket Number: No. 2009–193–C.A.,2009–193–C.A.
• Citation: 45 A.3d 518
• Parties: STATE v. Nelson ROLON, alias John Doe.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

45 A.3d 518

STATE

v.Nelson ROLON, alias John Doe.

No. 2009–193–C.A.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

June 14, 2012.

Christopher R. Bush, Department of Attorney General, for State.

Catherine Gibran, Office of the Public Defender, Providence, for Defendant.

Present: SUTTELL, C.J., GOLDBERG, FLAHERTY, ROBINSON, and INDEGLIA, JJ.

OPINION

Chief Justice SUTTELL, for the Court.

On August 27, 2007, an eighty-seven-year-old woman's purse was stolen in a supermarket parking lot. As a result, the defendant, Nelson Rolon, was charged with, and ultimately convicted of, first-degree robbery. He now appeals his conviction to this Court, arguing that the trial justice erred in denying his motion for a judgment of acquittal because the evidence produced at trial was legally insufficient to prove the element of force.¹ For the reasons set forth in this opinion, we affirm the judgment of the Superior Court.

IFacts and Procedural History

On September 28, 2007, a grand jury indicted defendant for the first-degree robbery of Irene Joseph, an elderly person,² in violation of G.L.1956 § 11–39–1(a).³ The defendant's trial took place in December 2008. The state did not present Ms. Joseph as a witness at the trial because, at that time, she was eighty-nine years old and confined to a nursing home. The state did, however, present six witnesses against defendant, the substance of whose testimonies we review below.

The first witness to testify was Lorraine Martin, an employee of the Stop & Shop on Smithfield Road in the Town of North Smithfield. At around one o'clock in the afternoon on August 27, 2007, Ms. Martin was eating lunch in her car in the Stop & Shop parking lot when she heard a woman yelling: “[H]elp me. He stole my pocketbook. Stop him. Somebody help me.” Ms. Martin testified that when she looked to her right, she saw a “[s]kinny, frail,” elderly woman “go [ing] after” a man who was “jumping” into a vehicle. She then witnessed the man back the vehicle out of its parking spot, such that the elderly woman “had to jump out of the way, because he would have hit her.” At that point, Ms. Martin testified, she decided that she “had to do something,” so she pulled her car out of its parking spot, started following the vehicle, and called 911. She followed the vehicle for approximately five minutes, never losing sight of it, and eventually was able to see the vehicle's license plate as it was turning around in a cul-de-sac. Ms. Martin described the vehicle as “a silver SUV” with “stuff hanging from [its] rearview mirror,” and she stated that the man driving the vehicle “had a baseball cap and sunglasses on.” Ms. Martin was able to identify that same vehicle at the police station “[a] couple of days later,” and, at trial, she identified a photograph of a silver SUV with the license plate number ZN–990 as a photograph of the vehicle that she was following on August 27, 2007.

Loida Figueroa, who identified herself as defendant's wife,⁴ also testified at his trial. She testified that “[a]t lunchtime” on August 27, 2007, defendant visited her at her place of employment—“the Wal–Mart in [the City of] Woonsocket.” Ms. Figueroa stated that she and defendant had lunch together and that defendant then left between 1 and 1:30 p.m. According to Ms. Figueroa, when defendant visited her that day, he was driving her vehicle—a Hyundai Santa Fe with the license plate number ZN–990.

Melanie Ruiz, who has a child with defendant, was the third witness to testify at his trial. Ms. Ruiz testified that at around 1:30 p.m. on August 27, 2007, defendant called her, told her that “somebody was chasing him,” and asked her to pick him up at a hotel near the Lincoln Mall in the Town of Lincoln. When Ms. Ruiz arrived at that location, she observed defendant standing behind the hotel and the vehicle that Ms. Ruiz knew defendant to drive—Ms. Figueroa's Hyundai Santa Fe—parked at a gas station next to the hotel. The defendant and Ms. Ruiz then drove in Ms. Ruiz's car to Cold Spring Park in Woonsocket, where they spent about an hour, and they then drove around the Town of Uxbridge, Massachusetts. At around six o'clock in the evening, Ms. Ruiz dropped defendant off “at the casino in Lincoln”; at around 6:45 p.m., however, defendant called her and asked her to pick him up from there. Ms. Ruiz testified that after she picked him up, defendant offered to put gas in her car, so they stopped at a Shell gas station in Lincoln. According to Ms. Ruiz, defendant paid for the gas, which cost “about $30,” with a credit card. ⁵ Ms. Ruiz then dropped defendant off at his car, which was still at the gas station next to the hotel near the Lincoln Mall.

Ms. Ruiz also testified that at some point while she was with defendant on August 27, 2007, he gave her a plastic bag and “told [her] to hold it for him for a day or two” and not to “leave it in the car.” Ms. Ruiz kept the bag in a closet in her house, but she gave it to the police the next day. She testified that she did not add or remove anything from the bag while it was in her possession, and that she believed it to contain “a hat, sunglasses, and a shirt.” The bag was admitted into evidence as a full exhibit; when asked by the state to look at the contents of the bag, Ms. Ruiz did so, noting that the bag contained a hat, sunglasses, a shirt, and a knife.

Finally, Ms. Ruiz testified that when the police questioned her on August 28, 2007, concerning the previous day's events, she initially lied and told them that she was with defendant “for the whole day.” According to Ms. Ruiz, she did this because defendant had “told [her] to tell [the police] that he was with [her] the whole day.” She further testified, however, that she eventually told the police the truth—that the first time she saw defendant on August 27, 2007, was after he telephoned her at 1:30 p.m. and asked her to pick him up.

Russell Amato, a patrolman in the North Smithfield Police Department, testified that by the time he arrived at work for his 4 p.m.-to-midnight shift on August 27, 2007, a search already was underway for “a silver Hyundai with Rhode Island registration ZN–990.” Patrolman Amato stated that “an address in Woonsocket belonging to that registration was checked, and officers did head out to that location” and asked the tenant to contact them, should the vehicle arrive there. Later during his shift, Ptlm. Amato received a telephone call informing him that the silver Hyundai at issue had arrived at that Woonsocket address. Patrolman Amato headed to that location and spoke to Ms. Figueroa, who identified herself as the owner of the vehicle, as well as to defendant. According to Ptlm. Amato, both Ms. Figueroa and defendant told him that defendant had been driving the vehicle earlier that day.

Patrolman Amato further testified that when he asked defendant to accompany him “voluntarily, on his own free will,” to the police station and answer some questions about “his whereabouts for that day,” defendant said that he was “more than happy” to do so. At the police station, defendant signed a rights form and answered Ptlm. Amato's questions. Specifically, Ptlm. Amato testified, defendant told him that he met up with Ms. Ruiz between 10:15 and 10:30 a.m. at a gas station in Lincoln, that he left the Hyundai that he had been driving there, and that he and Ms. Ruiz then drove in Ms. Ruiz's car “to a mall in Massachusetts.” According to Ptlm. Amato, defendant also told him that he locked his vehicle and took the only set of keys to the vehicle with him. Finally, Ptlm. Amato stated, defendant said that he returned to his vehicle at around three o'clock in the afternoon.

Glenn Lamoureux, a sergeant in the North Smithfield Police Department, ⁶ testified next at defendant's trial. He testified that on August 27, 2007, he responded to the Stop & Shop on Smithfield Road after receiving “a call from dispatch to respond to that location for a robbery that had just taken place.” Upon arrival, Sgt. Lamoureux learned that a “purse snatching” had occurred in the parking lot. He then took photographs of the “immediate area” where the snatching occurred and “attempted to locate some evidence.” Sergeant Lamoureux located a piece of a “black leather strap” that “[a]ppeared to be from a purse” in the same area of the parking lot; he also retrieved another piece of a purse strap that, he testified, Ms. Joseph had been “clutch [ing] in her hand.” Both strap pieces were entered into evidence as full exhibits. According to Sgt. Lamoureux, when he spoke to Ms. Joseph, “[s]he was visibly shaken,” and he “could tell she was nervous because of what had taken place.”

Sergeant Lamoureux further testified that the next day, August 28, 2007, he contacted Ms. Figueroa to obtain her consent to search her Hyundai, which, by that point, already had been impounded by the police. Ms. Figueroa agreed to come to the police station to speak with Sgt. Lamoureux; while there, according to Sgt. Lamoureux, she told him that she had lunch with defendant between noon and 1 p.m. the previous day. Sergeant Lamoureux noted that this conflicted with defendant's story that he had been with Ms. Ruiz “between 10:30 [a.m.] and 3:30 p.m.” As a result, he contacted Ms. Ruiz for a statement. Sergeant Lamoureux testified that Ms. Ruiz's story also conflicted with what Ms. Figueroa had told him, and that when he confronted Ms. Ruiz with this inconsistency, “[s]he became nervous, and she said that [defendant] had told her to lie about the times that they were together on [August 27, 2007].” According to Sgt. Lamoureux, Ms. Ruiz eventually told him that she saw defendant “a little after 1:30” p.m. on August 27, 2007, and that when he called her that day, “he seemed panicked” and had “claimed that somebody was chasing or following him.”

Finally, Sgt. Lamoureux testified that later in the day on August 28, 2007, he called defendant and asked him to come to the police station “for an additional statement.” At the...