State v. Smith

• Decision Date: 30 August 2005
• Docket Number: No. 16973.,16973.
• Citation: 275 Conn. 205,881 A.2d 160
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Christopher SMITH.

881 A.2d 160

275 Conn. 205

STATE of Connecticut v.Christopher SMITH.

No. 16973.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued February 14, 2005.

Officially released August 30, 2005.

G. Douglas Nash, Special Public Defender, for the appellant(defendant).

Leon F. Dalbec, Jr., Senior Assistant State's Attorney, with whom, on the brief, were Patricia M. Froehlich, State's Attorney, Mark A. Stabile, Supervisory Assistant State's Attorney, and Vincent Dooley, Senior Assistant State's Attorney, for the appellee(state).

SULLIVAN, C. J., and BORDEN, PALMER, VERTEFEUILLE and ZARELLA, Js.

BORDEN, J.

The defendant appeals¹ from the trial court's judgment of conviction, rendered after a jury trial, of one count of murder in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54a (a), two counts of assault of a peace officer in violation of General Statutes § 53a-167c (a)(1), and one count of intimidation of a witness in violation of General Statutes § 53a-151a (a)(1).The defendant claims that the trial court improperly: (1) admitted, under the state of mind exception to the hearsay rule, several statements attributed to the victim; (2) charged the jury concerning the intent to be ascribed to a person who uses a deadly weapon on the vital part of another person; and (3) charged the jury concerning the presumption of innocence and proof beyond a reasonable doubt.We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The defendant, Christopher Smith, was charged with one count of murder in violation of § 53a-54a (a), two counts of assault of a peace officer in violation of § 53a-167c (a)(1), and one count of intimidation of a witness in violation of § 53a-151a (a)(1).The jury found the defendant guilty of all charges.The trial court rendered judgment of conviction in accordance with the verdict.This appeal followed.

The jury reasonably could have found the following facts.The defendant was romantically involved with the victim, Elizabeth Ross, during the six to seven month period prior to her death on April 8, 2001.Prior to and during that same time period, the defendant was also romantically involved with Christie Auger.Despite the defendant's denials to Auger that he was romantically involved with the victim, Auger was aware of his relationship with the victim.Auger's awareness of the defendant's relationship with the victim led to several incidents between the two women during the months leading up to the victim's death.²The last of these incidents occurred the night before the victim's death when the victim used a baseball bat to smash the glass out of a side window of Auger's car while it was parked at Joker's Cafe, a local bar in Dayville.

Although the defendant was with Auger inside the bar when this incident occurred, he had been with the victim earlier that day.At approximately 4 a.m. on April 7, 2001, the victim's mother, Patricia Ross, and her boyfriend, Peter Ouellette, were awakened by screaming and crying coming from the victim's adjacent bedroom.Upon entering the victim's bedroom, Ouellette noticed that the victim was standing by the door crying, while the defendant was kneeling by the window with his handgun nearby on the windowsill.After assuring Patricia Ross that everything was all right, the victim drove the defendant to his apartment.The defendant spent the rest of the early morning hours at his apartment with Auger.After work that day, Auger returned to her home, where she resided with her father, stepmother and sister, and called the defendant.A few minutes later, the defendant returned her call from outside her home.When the defendant got into Auger's car with her, he displayed his handgun and asked her to put it in her house, which Auger did.After eating dinner at the defendant's apartment, the two proceeded to Joker's Cafe.

Upon discovering the broken window in her car, Auger suspected the victim of having smashed it.After assuring Auger that he would take care of it, the defendant returned with Auger to her home, where she retrieved the defendant's handgun at his request.The two then proceeded to a location near the victim's neighborhood, where the defendant exited the car, taking his handgun with him.After waiting in her car for approximately thirty minutes, Auger attempted to reach the defendant on his cellular telephone before driving around to look for him.Auger located the defendant standing on the sidewalk next to the victim's house.After the two returned to the defendant's apartment, the defendant told Auger that he was going to shoot the victim in the head, smash out a window in her car or have a friend, Tyrus Hines, steal her car.Auger remained at the defendant's apartment that night.

The next day, April 8, 2001, after taking the defendant to the residence of Amanda Cahoon, the mother of the defendant's daughter, Auger returned to her home, where she did the defendant's laundry.Meanwhile, the defendant placed ten separate telephone calls to the victim.He placed the first telephone call at 12:38 p.m.; he placed the last telephone call at 5:42 p.m.The defendant met with the victim sometime after placing the last telephone call.

The defendant called Auger sometime between 7:30 and 8 p.m. that night to request that she pick him up on Wrights Crossing Road, near the home of a friend of hers.When Auger picked him up, the defendant instructed her to drive down Holmes Road, a dirt road that intersects Wrights Crossing Road.While driving down Holmes Road, Auger observed the victim's car on the side of the road.The defendant directed Auger to drive past the victim's car, turn around in a driveway up the road, and drive past the car a second time.Auger noticed that the headlights and interior lights in the victim's car were on, and that the driver's side window had been broken; she did not see anyone in the car.The defendant told Auger, after she had driven by the car the second time, that "it" was taken care of.

Auger then drove the defendant back to his apartment, where, upon arrival, she observed a blood spot on his shirt.The defendant removed his blue jeans, white shirt and gray boots and placed them on the kitchen floor while he showered.After he showered, he gathered the clothing from the kitchen floor and placed it in a black garbage bag.As the defendant and Auger were returning to Auger's car, the defendant also placed in the garbage bag the gray jacket that he had been wearing when Auger picked him up.

As directed by the defendant, Auger then drove to a dirt turnaround on Litchfield Avenue in Killingly.The defendant removed from the car the garbage bag containing his clothes, walked a short distance into a wooded area and set fire to the garbage bag.³Auger waited for the defendant to return to the car, then drove him to the Burger King in Dayville.The defendant remained at the Burger King, and Auger returned home.

Meanwhile, Gary Kazmer and Jennifer Simoniello were traveling on Holmes Road at approximately 8 p.m. when they noticed the victim's car on the side of the road, approximately 0.3 miles from the intersection with Wrights Crossing Road.The driver's side tires of the car were on the road, while the passenger's side tires were off the road in swamp-like water.As Kazmer and Simoniello passed the car, they saw that the headlights and interior lights were on, and that the driver's side window had been broken.They did not see anyone in the vehicle.Rather than stopping to investigate, Kazmer and Simoniello proceeded to a home on Wrights Crossing Road, where Simoniello requested to use the telephone.Simoniello placed the initial 911 call at 8:06 p.m.

The residents of the home, Jennifer Rosen and Douglas Rosen, then decided to drive to the location of the victim's car.Upon arrival at the scene, they noticed that the engine was running, the windshield wipers, headlights and interior lights were all on, the driver's side window had a hole in it and the glass was shattered, and the passenger's side door was open.They also saw the unresponsive victim seated in the driver's seat and laying over to the right in the passenger's seat.The Rosens placed a second 911 call at 8:23 p.m.

While the Rosens were still at the scene, Laurie Blanchette and Mark Racine stopped and observed the same circumstances.Blanchette and Racine donned gloves and attempted to determine if the victim was alive.After being unable to detect a pulse and noting that the victim was not breathing, Blanchette and Racine placed a third 911 call at 8:29 p.m.When Daniel Bavosi, a state police trooper, arrived at the scene at 8:34 p.m., he noted that the victim had been shot and had no pulse.

The forensic evidence revealed that the victim had sustained three gunshot wounds.She first had been shot in the right side of her face, by her nose, from a distance of two to four inches, while driving her car in an easterly direction on Holmes Road.After she had moved slightly forward and to the left, the second shot had entered the back of her head and had come to rest in her brain.Once the vehicle had rolled to a stop in the swampy water, she had fallen to her right over the center console.The shooter then had exited the passenger's side of the vehicle and had attempted to open the driver's side door, which had been locked.The third shot had been fired through the driver's side window into the victim's back, and the bullet had come to rest in the victim's chest.

At 9:28 p.m., as Richard Woods, a state police trooper, was preparing to set up a checkpoint near the intersection of Wrights Crossing Road and Holmes Road, he pursued and stopped a car occupied by Robert Thoren, Audrea Beauregard and the defendant.The defendant had met Thoren and Beauregard at the Burger King in Dayville, where Auger had left him, and had asked them for a ride.The defendant had then directed them to Wrights Crossing Road.On the way to Wrights Crossing Road, Beauregard had overheard the defendant say, "`I have to find...