State v. Silva

• Decision Date: 26 August 1986
• Citation: 201 Conn. 244,513 A.2d 1202
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Joseph SILVA.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

Page 1202

513 A.2d 1202

201 Conn. 244

STATE of Connecticut v. Joseph SILVA.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued June 3, 1986.

Decided Aug. 26, 1986.

Sanford J. Plepler, Sp. Public Defender, with whom, on brief, was Stephen Fournier, Hartford, for appellant (defendant).

Carl Schuman, Asst. State's Atty., with whom were James Thomas, Asst. State's Atty., and, on brief, John M. Bailey, State's Atty., for appellee (State).

Before PETERS, C.J., and ARTHUR H. HEALEY, DANNEHY, SANTANIELLO and CALLAHAN, JJ.

DANNEHY, Justice.

The defendant, Joseph Silva, was charged by indictment on October 20, 1982, with murder in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54a(a) and (c). A jury found the defendant guilty as charged. After his motions for a judgment of acquittal and to arrest judgment were denied, the defendant was sentenced to imprisonment for a term of not less than twenty-five years nor more than life. On appeal, the defendant contends that the trial court erred: (1) in admitting evidence showing the defendant's prior acts of misconduct; (2) in denying the defendant's motions for the production of prior written statements made by two state's witnesses; (3) in admitting evidence that the defendant had purchased bullets similar to those removed from the murder victim; and (4) in its supplemental instructions to the jury. ¹ We find no reversible error.

On the evening of January 10, 1981, at approximately 9:45 p.m., Jeffrey Glass was shot to death outside his apartment in Glastonbury. A search of the crime scene uncovered two spent CCI .22 caliber shell casings. No weapon was found. The medical examiner, Stephen Adams, testified that the cause of death was .22 caliber bullet wounds to the victim's chest. A canvass of local ammunition dealers revealed that the defendant had recently purchased a box of CCI .22 caliber bullets from a nearby department store on December 18, 1980. It was also discovered that the victim and his wife, Joanne, had recently separated, and that Joanne and the defendant, who had known each other since childhood, had renewed their acquaintance. The defendant had been released from prison in November, 1980, and was on parole when he bought the .22 caliber bullets. The police executed a warrant to search the defendant's apartment on January 19, 1981. The defendant was present during the search. When questioned about the bullets, the defendant informed the officers that he had discarded them in a storm drain approximately 200 yards from his apartment. With the defendant's assistance, the police recovered the box of bullets from the storm drain, and found several bullets missing. The purchase of the bullets was a violation of the defendant's parole, and he was returned to prison.

While the defendant remained incarcerated for violation of parole, the police continued their investigation of the Glass homicide. In September, 1981, the state offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of Glass' murderer. A local television station added $5000 more. Thereafter, in May, 1982, Edward Vitale, then an inmate at the state correctional center in Litchfield, contacted the Glastonbury police and claimed that the defendant had confessed the crime to him while both were imprisoned at Somers. The defendant, still in prison, was arrested three months later, on August 4, 1982. One month later a second inmate, Allen Pilotte, informed police that the defendant had confessed to him as well. Both Vitale and Pilotte testified before the grand jury, which indicted the defendant for the murder of Jeffrey Glass on October 20, 1982.

At the defendant's trial, Vitale and Pilotte testified for the state. Vitale stated that he and the defendant first met in Somers prison in June or July of 1979, while the defendant was serving time for an earlier conviction. The defendant had been released on parole in November, 1980. Soon after his release the defendant renewed his acquaintance with Joanne Glass, who at the time was estranged from her husband. According to Vitale, the defendant stated that Joanne had wanted her husband dead. The defendant claimed to be in love with Joanne, and stated that the two of them had devised a plot to murder Glass. The plot allegedly consisted of Joanne's luring the victim to her apartment where the defendant would be waiting. The defendant would murder Glass, and Joanne and the defendant would then arrange the apartment to make it appear that the murder had been committed by a burglar.

Vitale further testified that the defendant had told him that on the evening of January 11, 1980, Joanne called her husband and asked him to meet her at her apartment. The defendant waited inside Joanne's apartment while Joanne drank at a nearby bar. When Glass failed to show up at the apartment, the defendant became upset and telephoned Joanne, telling her that "he wanted to get it done tonight." Joanne agreed, and drove to her apartment where she picked up the defendant. They then drove to the victim's apartment and waited outside. Soon the victim exited his apartment and began walking toward his truck. The defendant ran up to the victim, shot him several times with a .22 caliber semi-automatic rifle, and the victim collapsed in the parking lot. According to Vitale, the defendant stated that he ran home, burying the gun in the woods somewhere along the way.

Pilotte's testimony was substantially identical to that of Vitale. It is important to note only that Pilotte allegedly heard the defendant's narration of the crime on "twenty different occasions" between March and June, 1981, when he and the defendant had been "cell partners" at the Hartford correctional center, awaiting transfer to Somers. Vitale, on the other hand, claimed to have heard the defendant's confession on numerous occasions between September and November, 1981, at Somers prison. Both Vitale and Pilotte testified on direct examination, and again on cross, that they had known about the reward before they contacted the police. They also admitted that the principal motive for their testimony was the expectation of leniency from the state with regard to their then pending criminal charges, and at the parole board.

We turn first to the defendant's twofold claim that the trial court erred in admitting evidence of his prior acts of misconduct. The trial court, over the defendant's objection, allowed a police officer to testify that he had arrested the defendant in 1973. The officer never testified as to the crime for which the defendant had been arrested. The trial court also allowed Vitale and Pilotte, in the course of their testimony, to relate that the defendant had been returned to prison for violation of parole resulting from his purchase of the box of bullets in December, 1980. The defendant claims that the evidence of his prior arrest and of the fact that he was on parole when he allegedly murdered Glass, was irrelevant to the issues in the case and unnecessarily prejudiced the jury against him. We disagree.

The defendant had been arrested for violation of parole in February, 1981, shortly after he had committed Glass' murder. He was first incarcerated in the Hartford correctional center where he had related the details of the crime to Pilotte between March and June, 1981. He was later transferred to Somers where he confessed to Vitale between September and November, 1981. Thus, the jury knew that the defendant had been incarcerated since early in 1981. They also knew, however, that he had not been arrested for Glass' murder until August 4, 1982. The trial court thus allowed the evidence of the defendant's prior arrest and parole violation in order that the jury would have some understanding of how the defendant had come to meet Vitale and Pilotte, both of whom had been inmates in the state correctional system. Without this evidence, the testimony of Vitale and Pilotte could have been seriously undermined. The jury was not required to speculate as to why the defendant was incarcerated more than eighteen months before he finally was arrested for Glass' murder. The trial court did not err in allowing the testimony of the defendant's prior arrest and parole status.

The defendant also claims that the trial court erred in allowing police officers to testify that they recovered marihuana cigarettes and other contraband during the January 19, 1981 search of the defendant's apartment. After discovering the contraband, the police gave the defendant his Miranda warnings and began to question him as to the whereabouts of the box of bullets. The defendant eventually told the police that he had discarded the box of bullets in a storm drain, and later assisted the police in its recovery. The trial court apparently admitted the testimony that contraband had been found during the search to explain why the defendant had been given Miranda warnings, which in turn would support an inference that the defendant's statements concerning the bullets had been given voluntarily.

We cannot subscribe to the trial court's rationale, and conclude that it abused its discretion in allowing into evidence the testimony that contraband had been found during the search of the defendant's apartment. The defendant did not contest at trial the voluntariness or admissibility of his statements given to police during the search of his apartment. The trial court is required to balance the probative value against the prejudicial effect of evidence tending to show the defendant's commission of other crimes, and to exclude the evidence unless the former outweighs the latter. State v. Reddick, 197 Conn. 115, 129, 496 A.2d 466 (1985), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 106 S.Ct. 822, 88 L.Ed.2d 795 (1986); State v. Johnson, 190 Conn. 541, 548, 461 A.2d 981 (1983); State v. Ibraimov, 187 Conn. 348, 352, 446 A.2d 382 (1982); State v. Falby, 187 Conn. 6, 23, 444 A.2d 213 (1982). We can find little, if any, probative value in the testimony that contraband was found...