State v. Roseboro

• Decision Date: 17 March 1992
• Docket Number: No. 14216,14216
• Citation: 221 Conn. 430,604 A.2d 1286
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Derek ROSEBORO.

Page 1286

604 A.2d 1286

221 Conn. 430

STATE of Connecticut v. Derek ROSEBORO.

No. 14216.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Jan. 7, 1992.

Decided March 17, 1992.

Suzanne Zitser, Asst. Public Defender, with whom, on the brief, were G. Douglas Nash, Public Defender, and Kent Drager, Asst. Public Defender, for appellant (defendant).

Rita M. Shair, Asst. State's Atty., with whom were Steven M. Sellers, Asst. State's Atty., and, on the brief, Mary M. Galvin, State's Atty., for appellee (state).

Before PETERS, C.J., and CALLAHAN, GLASS, COVELLO and BORDEN, JJ.

PETERS, Chief Justice.

The principal issue in this appeal is the effect of a declarant's hospitalization and medication on the admissibility of his incriminatory statements in criminal proceedings against him. The defendant, Derek Roseboro, was charged, by a substitute information, with the crimes of capital felony in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54b(8), three counts of murder in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54a(a), and first degree burglary in violation of General Statutes § 53a-101(a)(1) and (2). ¹ A probable cause hearing determined that the state had adduced sufficient evidence to try the defendant for capital felony and murder. The defendant waived his right to a jury trial, electing instead a court trial by a three judge panel. The trial court rendered a verdict in which it concluded that the defendant was guilty as charged. In accordance with the defendant's election to have the trial court conduct the sentencing hearing, the trial court considered whether to impose the death penalty for the defendant's conviction of the capital felony. The trial court rendered a judgment sentencing the defendant to life imprisonment without the possibility of release on the conviction of capital felony; General Statutes §§ 53a-35b and 53a-46a(f); ² and to twenty years of concurrent imprisonment on his conviction of first degree burglary. ³ The defendant has appealed directly to this court in accordance with General Statutes 51-199(b). ⁴ We affirm the judgment.

The trial court, Curran, J., Mancini, J., and S. Freedman, J., made the following findings of fact in delivering its verdict. The defendant, armed with a dangerous weapon and intending to commit a larceny, unlawfully entered and remained in a house in Derby owned by Mary Ferrara. In the course of committing this crime, the defendant engaged in a struggle with Mary Ferrara and intentionally killed her. The defendant also intentionally killed her son Joseph Ferrara and her niece Nina Ferrara. Each of the victims died of stab wounds.

The trial court found the defendant guilty of capital felony and of burglary beyond a reasonable doubt. The court noted that testimony concerning the defendant's handprints and a footprint at the Ferrara house provided physical evidence linking him to the scene of the crime. The court found, furthermore, that the defendant had secreted a number of items in the nearby underbrush in an effort to hide evidence of his crimes, and that he had attempted to clean the house in an effort to eradicate evidence of what had transpired there. Thepanel relied as well on evidence of consciousness of guilt, opportunity and motive, and on incriminatory statements that the defendant made to the police.

The defendant's appeal raises two issues. He maintains that: (1) the trial court, Curran, J., Mancini, J., and S. Freedman, J., should have granted his motion for acquittal because the state produced insufficient evidence to sustain his conviction of capital felony and of burglary in the first degree; and (2) the trial court, Fuller, J., should have granted his pretrial motion to suppress, which addressed both incriminating statements made by the defendant and physical items seized by the police. We are unpersuaded by either of these claims.

I

The defendant does not challenge the standard by which this court reviews claims relating to the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain a criminal conviction. "Whether we review the findings of a trial court or the verdict of a jury, our underlying task is the same.... We first review the evidence presented at trial, construing it in the light most favorable to sustaining the facts expressly found by the trial court or impliedly found by the jury. We then decide whether, upon the facts thus established and the inferences reasonably drawn therefrom, the trial court or the jury could reasonably have concluded that the cumulative effect of the evidence established the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt." State v. Jarrett, 218 Conn. 766, 770-71, 591 A.2d 1225 (1991); State v. Steiger, 218 Conn. 349, 378, 590 A.2d 408 (1991). Applying that standard in this case, we conclude that the evidence presented by the state could reasonably have persuaded the trial court, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant had committed both a capital felony and burglary.

The defendant was charged with a capital felony for having murdered two or more persons, namely Mary Ferrara, Joseph Ferrara and Nina Ferrara, in the late evening hours of August 11, 1989, at Mary Ferrara's house in Derby. As the trial court observed in rendering its verdict, various items of physical evidence could reasonably be found to have placed the defendant at the scene of the crime. His hand, distinctive in its size, exactly matched the length and the width of a bloody handprint found on wallpaper in the bathroom of the Ferrara house, where the body of Joseph Ferrara was discovered. A similar handprint was found on a pillowcase near Nina Ferrara's body in a bedroom in the Ferrara house. A bloody footprint found under Nina's body was made by a sneaker with an identifiable brand name. A bloody watch, found on the floor of the Ferrara kitchen, evidenced damage consistent with a struggle between the defendant and Mary Ferrara. The watch was linked to the defendant by the testimony of a witness and by the discovery of a hair microscopically similar to his body hair. All three victims died from multiple stab wounds that were inflicted by a knife or knife-like instrument.

A search of the underbrush near the Ferrara house uncovered further incriminating evidence. A bag was found containing, among other items, a local newspaper addressed to the defendant's house, a surgical glove, a blood-stained sneaker, a blood-stained shirt, and some pantyhose. Forensic tests revealed that the blood on the sneaker and on the shirt matched that of the defendant and one of the victims. The sneaker was similar in size to, and of the same brand name as, the sneaker that had made the bloody footprint found in the house, and showed patterns of wear identical to that on sneakers worn by the defendant. A podiatry expert testified that this unique pattern was caused by a deformity in the defendant's foot. The pantyhose contained a human hair similar to that of Mary Ferrara. An investigation at the defendant's house disclosed a number of rubber gloves similar to that found in the bag. Near a turnaround on the road on which the Ferrara house was located, the police found a teacup from the Ferrara house, as well as a trifold piece of paper commonly used to hold drugs.

The defendant's appearance and conduct corroborated his involvement in the Ferrara murders. Returning to his house two doors down from the Ferrara house, in the early morning hours of the day following the crime, the defendant was observed coming out of the woods, looking surprisingly cool and dry despite a night of heavy rain and humidity, and suspiciously devoid of curiosity about the extensive police activity at the scene. Shortly after the murders, police officers questioning the defendant at his house noticed that he had a swollen left hand and a cut on his right hand. ⁵ No money was found in the Ferrara house after the crime, contrary to Mary Ferrara's habit of keeping some $100 to $400 in cash in her house, and the defendant was seen uncharacteristically giving out money and drugs shortly after the occurrence of the murders. The defendant made statements about his whereabouts that were inconsistent with the observations of a police officer who saw the defendant entering a car with his girlfriend, Deborah Gorzelaney, and made inquiries about whether it was possible to obtain fingerprints from the inside of rubber gloves.

Much of this evidence also supported the defendant's conviction for burglary. The amended information charged that he had unlawfully entered and remained in the Ferrara house with the intent to commit larceny and, while there, armed with a dangerous instrument, had inflicted bodily injury on another person. When the defendant was apprehended, he had a knife in his possession. The trial court could have inferred that the defendant had used this knife to stab his victims, just as it could have inferred that he had taken money belonging to various members of the household when he left the scene of the crime.

The defendant's statements corroborated his guilt of both crimes. He admitted having been at the Ferrara house, having observed Mary Ferrara's body and having participated in cleaning up blood stains in the house, on his and Gorzelaney's clothing and on Gorzelaney's car. Those statements, together with the other direct and inferential evidence reasonably connecting the defendant with the crimes with which he was charged, enabled the trial court to find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The trial court was entitled to reject, as less credible, other testimony and inferences offered on behalf of the defendant. ⁶ See State v. Grant, 219 Conn. 596, 603, 594 A.2d 459 (1991); State v. Sinclair, 197 Conn. 574, 578, 500 A.2d 539 (1985).

II

The defendant's principal argument is not, however, that he is entitled to an acquittal but that he is entitled to a new trial because the trial court should have suppressed certain of his statements and one item of evidence. With respect to his statements, the...