State v. Santos

• Decision Date: 01 July 1996
• Docket Number: No. 14990,14990
• Citation: State v. Santos, 675 A.2d 930, 41 Conn.App. 361 (Conn. App. 1996)
• Court: Connecticut Court of Appeals
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Billy Joe SANTOS.

Page 930

675 A.2d 930

41 Conn.App. 361

STATE of Connecticut v. Billy Joe SANTOS.

No. 14990.

Appellate Court of Connecticut.

Argued Dec. 11, 1995.

Decided May 14, 1996.

Certification Denied July 1, 1996.

Charles L. Howard, with whom, on the brief, was Maria A. Gulluni, Hartford, for appellant (defendant).

Donald A. Browne, State's Attorney, with whom, on the brief, was Stephen J. Sedensky III, Assistant State's Attorney, for appellee (State).

Before DUPONT, C.J., and FOTI and DALY, JJ.

DALY, Judge.

The defendant, Billy Joe Santos, appeals ¹ from the judgment of conviction, rendered unanimously by a three judge panel, ² of murder in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54a(a). On appeal, the defendant claims that the trial court improperly (1) concluded that he failed to establish his defense of extreme emotional disturbance and (2) concluded that he acted with intent to cause the death of the victim. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The facts are as follows. During the late evening of November 8 or the early morning of November 9, 1992, the sixteen year old defendant was visiting 52-56 Sanford Place in Bridgeport. While there, the defendant ingested a narcotic substance and fell asleep in the rented room of Primitivo Rivera. Approximately one hour later, he was awakened by Rivera and Miriam Fernandez who were screaming that the defendant's friend, Jorge Ramos, had suffered a gunshot wound to the face. The defendant gave Ramos a towel to stop the bleeding and the two exited the house and approached a pickup truck operated by the victim, Lee Ann Strong, and occupied by a passenger, Christina Gay. Gay observed the defendant emerge from the Sanford Place residence and testified that he did not appear to be under the influence of drugs. The defendant asked the victim for assistance to take Ramos to the hospital. She refused and pulled away. The defendant then pulled a .38 caliber revolver, loaded with hollow point bullets, from his waistband, positioned himself, pointed the weapon at the rear of the departing truck, cocked the hammer and discharged a single shot that penetrated the rear window of the truck and struck the victim in the back, perforating a major blood vessel. The truck struck several automobiles parked on Sanford Place. Gay took over the operation of the truck and drove to Park City Hospital where Strong died. The defendant and Ramos continued on foot to a local bar where a call was made for an ambulance that transported Ramos to a hospital.

On November 11, 1992, the defendant went to the detective bureau of the Bridgeport police department and related several different versions of the shooting to Detective Giselle Dospoj. The last version was that when his request for a ride to the hospital was refused, he became angry, pulled out his gun and fired at the truck. A ballistics test indicated that it was the defendant's weapon that had inflicted the fatal wound.

I

The defendant first claims that the panel misconstrued the statutory standard for extreme emotional disturbance or, alternatively, that the panel's conclusion that the defendant did not prove the defense was not reasonably supported by the evidence. Because the defendant failed to preserve his claim properly at trial, he seeks review based on the authority of State v. Golding, 213 Conn. 233, 239-40, 567 A.2d 823 (1989), or the plain error doctrine. Under Golding, "a defendant can prevail on a claim of constitutional error not preserved at trial only if all of the following conditions are met: (1) the record is adequate to review the alleged claim of error; (2) the claim is of constitutional magnitude alleging the violation of a fundamental right; (3) the alleged constitutional violation clearly exists and clearly deprived the defendant of a fair trial; and (4) if subject to harmless error analysis, the state has failed to demonstrate harmlessness of the alleged constitutional violation beyond a reasonable doubt." (Emphasis in original.) Id. "The first two conditions are determinations of whether a defendant's claim will be reviewed, and the third condition involves a review of the claim itself." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Sanders, 37 Conn.App. 219, 220, 655 A.2d 805, cert. denied, 233 Conn. 909, 658 A.2d 981 (1995), Wilson v. Cohen, 222 Conn. 591, 603, 610 A.2d 1177 (1992); State v. Graham, 33 Conn.App. 432, 442, 636 A.2d 852, cert. denied, 229 Conn. 906, 640 A.2d 117 (1994). The defendant claims that the panel, by misconstruing the extreme emotional disturbance standard, denied him the constitutional due process right to establish a defense. Because "[e]xtreme emotional disturbance is a recognized legal defense to murder"; State v. Bryan, 34 Conn. App. 317, 321, 641 A.2d 443 (1994); we grant review under the third Golding prong.

Section 53a-54a(a) provides in pertinent part that "it shall be an affirmative defense [to the crime of murder] that the defendant committed the proscribed act or acts under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance for which there was a reasonable explanation or excuse, the reasonableness of which is to be determined from the viewpoint of a person in the defendant's situation under the circumstances as the defendant believed them to be...." "Extreme emotional disturbance 'is a mitigating circumstance which will reduce the crime of murder to manslaughter.' " State v. Raguseo, 225 Conn. 114, 122, 622 A.2d 519 (1993), quoting State v. Asherman, 193 Conn. 695, 731, 478 A.2d 227 (1984), cert. denied, 470 U.S. 1050, 105 S.Ct. 1749, 84 L.Ed.2d 814 (1985). General Statutes § 53a-12(b) provides: "When a defense declared to be an affirmative defense is raised at a trial, the defendant shall have the burden of establishing such defense by a preponderance of the evidence."

A

The defendant first contends that the three judge panel applied an incorrect standard in evaluating his affirmative defense. As the defendant concedes, the panel's verdict first set forth the correct standard for evaluating an extreme emotional disturbance defense as found in § 53a-54a(a). Then, in rejecting the defendant's extreme emotional disturbance defense, the panel concluded that "the victim's refusal to agree to the defendant's request to take Ramos to the hospital when considered from the viewpoint of a person in the defendant's situation under the circumstances as the defendant believed them to be did not provide a reasonable explanation for the defendant's act of shooting at and killing the victim." The defendant asserts that the panel misconstrued the statutory standard because it concluded that there was not a reasonable explanation for his act. He claims instead that the statute requires a trial court to determine whether there was a reasonable explanation for his emotional disturbance. We disagree.

Our Supreme Court has stated that, in enacting the defense in § 53a-54a(a), "the legislature intended to establish a standard that is objective in its overview, but subjective as to the defendant's belief...." (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Raguseo, supra, 225 Conn. at 127, 622 A.2d 519, quoting State v. Elliott, 177 Conn. 1, 7, 411 A.2d 3 (1979). Thus, in applying the reasonable person yardstick, the trier of fact must examine the "reasonableness of the explanation or excuse of the action of the defendant from the viewpoint of a person in the defendant's situation under the circumstances as the defendant believed them to be." (Emphasis added; internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Raguseo, supra, at 127, 622 A.2d 519. In a later case, the court asserted that it was "unpersuaded that the above statements in Elliott ... are inconsistent with the proper construction of § 53a-54a(a)." State v. Ortiz, 217 Conn. 648, 653-54, 588 A.2d 127 (1991). Applications of this standard consistently have been upheld. For instance, in State v. Steiger, 218 Conn. 349, 384, 590 A.2d 408 (1991), the court affirmed a three judge panel's rejection of an extreme emotional disturbance defense since "there was no reasonable explanation for the defendant's actions ...." (Emphasis added.) Also, the court in State v. D'Antuono, 186 Conn. 414, 422, 441 A.2d 846 (1982), stated that a panel "was not bound to conclude that [the defendant's testimony] provided 'a reasonable explanation or excuse' for his actions." (Emphasis added.) Finally, in State v. Raguseo, supra, at 127, 622 A.2d 519, the court reaffirmed its standard for interpreting § 53a-54a(a).

In the present case, the panel's conclusion precisely tracks the standard for interpreting § 53a-54a(a) as established by our Supreme Court in Elliott. The court moreover has not wavered in applying this standard. Therefore, the panel correctly applied the proper standard in concluding that the defendant had not met his burden of proving that he acted under the influence of an extreme emotional disturbance. We conclude that the defendant has failed to demonstrate that a constitutional violation exists that clearly deprived the defendant of a fair trial.

B

The defendant also argues that the panel improperly found that he had failed to prove the affirmative defense of extreme emotional disturbance by a fair preponderance of the evidence. Our Supreme Court has stated that "in determining whether the defendant has proven the affirmative defense of extreme emotional disturbance ... the [trier of fact] must find that; (a) the emotional disturbance is not a mental disease or defect that rises to the level of insanity as defined by the Penal Code; (b) the defendant was exposed to an extremely unusual and overwhelming state, that is, not mere annoyance or unhappiness; and (c) the defendant had an extreme emotional reaction to it, as a result of which there was a loss of self-control, and reason was overborne by extreme intense feelings, such as passion, anger, distress, grief, excessive agitation or other similar emotions." State v. Elliott, sup...