State v. Stevenson
| Decision Date | 11 February 1986 |
| Citation | 198 Conn. 560,504 A.2d 1029 |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE of Connecticut v. Donald STEVENSON. |
Steven W. Varney, Certified Legal Intern, with whom were Todd D. Fernow and, on brief, Michael R. Sheldon, Hartford, for appellant (defendant).
Richard D. Arconti, Sp. Asst. State's Atty., with whom, on brief, was John A. Connelly, State's Atty., for appellee (State).
Before ARTHUR H. HEALEY, SHEA, DANNEHY, SANTANIELLO and CALLAHAN, JJ.
The defendant, Donald Stevenson, was found guilty of the crime of murder in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54a 1 after a trial to a jury. This appeal followed.
On appeal, the defendant claims that the trial court's instructions on intoxication require that he be given a new trial. In order to place his claims in context for our disposition of the appeal, it is necessary to set out the evidentiary backdrop.
Among the facts the jury could reasonably have found are the following: On November 10, 1979, at approximately 9:15 p.m., Waterbury police officers arrived at the East Farm Street Cafe on East Farm Street, Waterbury, to investigate an apparent shooting incident. Upon their arrival at the cafe, the officers found the victim, Willard "Cowboy" Oliver, bleeding from an apparent gunshot wound on the left side of his head. Ambulance personnel were ministering to him. At that time, the cafe was crowded, containing between twenty-five and forty persons. The police officers spoke to everyone there and recorded the names of all who were present. 2
As a result of information obtained on the scene at the cafe, the police put out a general broadcast for the defendant. The defendant came to police headquarters at about 7:30 a.m. the next morning to turn himself in. He told the police that he had not meant to shoot anyone and that it was an accident. At that time, he was arrested on the charge of assault, 3 advised of his rights and questioned concerning the incident. 4
Archie Davis, who was a friend of both the defendant and the victim, testified that he had been with the defendant 5 and other companions for some hours on November 10, 1979, prior to the shooting incident. Although Davis, the defendant and other companions had consumed some rum and beer prior to going together to the East Farm Street Cafe that night, Davis felt that when they entered the cafe, the defendant, insofar as his condition of sobriety was concerned, was "in stable condition at that time." 6 Davis, who had known the defendant for about twelve to fourteen years, observed nothing unstable or erratic about the way the defendant walked from his car to the cafe, recalled nothing unusual about his speech, and noted that his words were not slurred and that he did not have any trouble forming sentences. 7
Sometime prior to the shooting incident, the victim had broken his leg and it was in a cast. The victim was sitting in a booth facing the door of the cafe and his crutch was "standing up," leaning against the booth. The defendant came over and kicked the crutch and it fell down. The victim picked it up and set it back against the booth. The defendant again kicked the crutch and the victim again picked it up. Words were exchanged between the victim and the defendant. The victim told the defendant to "cut this out or do you want to go on the outside?" The defendant then walked toward the back of the cafe and the victim sat down. Minutes later the defendant came back and stood by the booth. The victim again warned the defendant to desist.
The witnesses, Carrie Porter, Robert Carter and Thomas Newsome, were sitting in a booth with the victim when the shooting incident occurred. Porter and Carter had known both the victim and the defendant prior to November 10, 1979, and while Newsome knew the victim, he did not know the defendant. Porter did not see anything unusual about the defendant, whom she had known for about twelve years, and he did not appear to her to have been drinking heavily. In addition, she did not see him stagger or trip and he did not appear to have any difficulty in walking or talking. Carter saw the defendant walk up to the booth; the defendant said something, and then Carter saw a flash when the defendant's arm was outstretched. The victim then fell into the booth. Carter did not see anyone push the defendant nor did he see him stumble. Newsome heard a "bang" at the time the defendant's hand was at the back of the victim's neck, and then the victim "fell over." Newsome did not see anyone bump into, push or shove the defendant, and he did not see him trip or stumble in any way.
Joseph Cerri, the only bartender on duty in the cafe that night, knew both the victim and the defendant and had seen them both there at the same time on many occasions. Cerri had not served the defendant that night and he also opined that the defendant "looked sober" to him and that "he looked all right." In addition, when he observed what seemed "like a small derringer" make "a noise," "a bang," the defendant's arm was "out at arm's length." Moreover, at that time, Cerri saw no one else in the defendant's immediate area. No one pushed, shoved or bumped into the defendant and Cerri did not see him trip or stumble. After this "noise," the victim fell to the floor and the defendant walked out of the cafe.
In contrast to that evidence, the jury had before it the defendant's conflicting testimony concerning his alcoholic intake on November 10, 1979. He said that he, Archie Davis and two other persons had been sitting around and drinking for "about five, six hours" from about 3:00 p.m. One of the others had a quart of rum and they had some ale. In his statement to the police, he said that he and Davis drank (Emphasis added.) He testified that he had some rum and at least two cans of ale. The defendant testified that around 4:30 p.m. on November 10, 1979, he had had supper at a restaurant where he drank soda with his meal. He testified that he arrived at the East Farm Street Cafe around 8:45 p.m. or 9 p.m. that night and that he had no trouble driving his car there. His recollection of the "crutch" encounter with the victim and of what happened inside the East Farm Street Cafe thereafter, including the shooting, was vague and, in some instances during his testimony, nonexistent. He said that he did not recall what he said to the victim. He did recall that when he entered the cafe he was "pretty high" and "feeling pretty nice." He also said he was not "falling down drunk" or "staggering drunk" or slurring his words. He testified that he could not recall very much about the shooting itself although he did remember seeing the victim and saying something to him. The defendant did, however, 8 After the shooting, he left the cafe and drove out of Waterbury on route I-84. Originally intending to seek out a state police officer in Southbury whom he knew, he decided not to do so. He did, however, take the Southbury exit off I-84 and threw his gun out of the car. The next day he accompanied Waterbury police officers to Southbury to look for his gun. They recovered his gun on the shoulder of the road about "fifteen feet, maybe" from where he told them to stop their car.
On appeal, the defendant claims that the trial court's instructions on the effect of his intoxication deprived him of a fair trial on the charge of murder by permitting the jury to convict him without first finding beyond a reasonable doubt that he had the intent to cause death in spite of his intoxication. He includes here the claim that the instructions require reversal because they gave rise to a reasonable possibility that the jury convicted him without first finding each essential element of the crime charged proven beyond a reasonable doubt. He also contends that intoxication at the time of the offense "may logically support an inference that [he] lacked an intent to kill even if it does not rise to the level of negating his capacity to form any rational intent." He also faults the instructions because, as he correctly points out, where a defendant charged with murder introduces evidence that he was intoxicated at the time of the crime, the state must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that in spite of his intoxication he intended to cause the death. He claims that reversible error was committed because the instructions complained of shifted to him the burden of establishing that at the time of the crime he was so intoxicated that he could not possibly have had the specific intent required for murder.
There emerges from the defendant's claims the argument that the instructions created an unlawful threshold for the jury's consideration of his intoxication so that, in following those instructions, the jury could convict him of murder without considering whether his intoxication negated the element of specific intent required for murder. Evidence of that intoxication, if considered and credited, would, he claimed, have reduced the crime to manslaughter. He argues that giving instructions "which permit the jury to ignore evidence" which, if credited, might raise a reasonable doubt as to the existence of the specific intent required for murder, "unconstitutionally relieves the state of its burden to negate every reasonable hypothesis consistent with innocence and inconsistent with guilt."
At the trial, the defendant neither filed a request to charge on the issue of intoxication nor did he except to the trial court's instructions on that matter. 9 Ordinarily, the defendant's failure to take an exception to the jury instructions would preclude review of such a claim upon appeal. Practice Book §§ 854, 3063; see also State v. Hinckley, 198 Conn. 77, 81, 502 A.2d 388 ...
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