State v. Taupier

Decision Date11 September 2018
Docket NumberSC 19950
Citation330 Conn. 149,193 A.3d 1
CourtConnecticut Supreme Court
Parties STATE of Connecticut v. Edward TAUPIER

Norman A. Pattis, with whom, on the brief, was Daniel Erwin, Bethany, for the appellant (defendant).

Mitchell S. Brody, senior assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, was Peter A. McShane, state's attorney, and Brenda L. Hans, assistant state's attorney, for the appellee (state).

Palmer, McDonald, Robinson, D'Auria, Mullins, Kahn and Vertefeuille, Js.*

ROBINSON, J.

The principal issue in this appeal is whether the free speech provisions of the first amendment to the United States constitution1 and article first, §§ 4, 5 and 14, of the Connecticut constitution2 require the state to prove that a defendant has a specific intent to terrorize another person in order to sustain a conviction of threatening in the first degree under General Statutes § 53a-61aa (a) (3),3 which criminalizes threatening speech. The defendant, Edward Taupier, sent an e-mail containing threats of violence against a judge of the Superior Court, Elizabeth A. Bozzuto, to a group of acquaintances. The defendant now appeals4 from the judgment, rendered after a trial to the court, convicting him of threatening in the first degree in violation of § 53a-61aa (a) (3), two counts of disorderly conduct in violation of General Statutes § 53a-182 (a) (2),5 and breach of the peace in the second degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-181 (a) (3). On appeal, the defendant claims that (1) the trial court improperly denied his motion to dismiss the charge of threatening in the first degree under § 53a-61aa (a) (3) on the ground that the statute is unconstitutional because it did not require the state to prove that he had the specific intent to terrorize Judge Bozzuto,6 (2) the trial court improperly considered evidence of events that occurred after he sent the threatening e-mail to support its conclusion that he violated that statute, and (3) the evidence was insufficient to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that he violated §§ 53a-61aa (a) (3) and 53a-182 (a) (2). We disagree with the defendant's claims and, accordingly, affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The record reveals the following procedural history and facts that the trial court found or that are undisputed. In 2012, the defendant's wife, Tanya Taupier, initiated an action to dissolve their marriage. Among the contested issues was the custodial status of the couple's two minor children. In August, 2013, the trial court, Carbonneau, J. , ordered that the children reside with Tanya Taupier and attend school in Ellington, where she resided.

In the spring of 2014, Judge Bozzuto, who was responsible for managing the docket of the family court in Hartford, became involved in the defendant's dissolution proceeding. Judge Bozzuto assumed sole responsibility for the management of the case in order to ensure that it would be adjudicated in a timely manner.

On May 23, 2014, Judge Bozzuto ordered the Family Services Unit of the Court Support Services Division (family services unit) to conduct a comprehensive custody evaluation. Shortly thereafter, the family services unit informed Judge Bozzuto that the defendant was interfering with the evaluation by injecting his personal views and opinions concerning the family court system into the process. In response, on June 18, 2014, Judge Bozzuto conducted an in-court proceeding attended by the parties. Judge Bozzuto told the defendant that he was free to express his political beliefs and views of the family court system, but ordered him to refrain from doing so during interviews conducted by the family services unit.

On August 20, 2014, the defendant informed his wife that he had enrolled their children in school in Cromwell, where he resided, in violation of the court order that they attend school in Ellington. On August 22, 2014, counsel for Tanya Taupier sent the defendant drafts of a contempt motion and an application for an emergency ex parte order of custody that she planned to file in court. The defendant, who was representing himself in the divorce proceeding, then sought the advice of several acquaintances who had experience in family court, including Anne Stevenson and Michael Nowacki. At 11:24 p.m. that night, in response to e-mails that he had received from Stevenson, Nowacki, and Jennifer Verraneault regarding the court motions, the defendant sent an e-mail containing threatening statements toward Judge Bozzuto to Stevenson, Nowacki, Susan Skipp, Sunny Kelley, Paul Boyne, and Verraneault, all of whom had been engaged with the defendant for some time in efforts to reform the family court system. Specifically, the defendant's e-mail contained the following statements: (1) "[t]hey can steal my kids from my cold dead bleeding cordite filled fists ... as my [sixty] round [magazine] falls to the floor and [I'm] dying as I change out to the next [thirty rounds]"; (2) "[Bo]zzuto lives in [W]atertown with her boys and [n]anny ... there [are] 245 [yards] between her master bedroom and a cemetery that provides cover and concealment"; and (3) "a [.308 caliber rifle] at 250 [yards] with a double pane drops [one-half inch] per foot beyond the glass and loses [7 percent] of [foot pounds] of force [at] 250 [yards]—nonarmor piercing ball ammunition ...."7

In response to the defendant's e-mail, on the morning of August 23, 2014, Nowacki sent an e-mail to the defendant stating: "Ted, [t]here are disturbing comments made in this [e-mail]. You will be well served to NOT send such communications to anyone." The defendant then sent another e-mail to Nowacki and Boyne in which he again suggested that he was contemplating violence against Judge Bozzuto and her family.8 In turn, Nowacki sent the defendant an e-mail stating the following: "Violence is not a rational response to injustice. Please refrain from communicating with me if you are going to allude to violence as a response."

After reading the defendant's first e-mail on August 23, 2014, Verraneault immediately communicated her concern about it to several people. On the afternoon of August 27, 2014, Verraneault learned of an incident earlier in the day during which Tanya Taupier had gone with a police escort to the school in Cromwell in which the defendant had enrolled their children and removed them from the school. The defendant was present and recorded a video of the removal, while making a series of mocking comments to the police and Tanya Taupier. After learning of this incident, Verraneault feared that it might put the defendant "over the edge." Accordingly, despite fears that she harbored about her own safety if the defendant were to learn that she had disclosed his e-mail concerning Judge Bozzuto, on August 28, 2014, Verraneault sent a screenshot of the contents of the e-mail to an acquaintance who was an attorney, Linda Allard. After discussing the matter with Verraneault, Allard informed Judicial Branch officials and the state police about the e-mail and they, in turn, informed Judge Bozzuto.

Judge Bozzuto testified at trial that, after she learned about the e-mail, "every night when I [got] home ... as soon as ... I pull[ed] up to the driveway and pull[ed] in ... every time I [got] out of that car I look[ed] up on the hill in the back where all the brush and trees are and [thought] of only [the defendant].... [T]hose bumps in the night, it's when the dogs start[ed] barking in the middle of the night and the first thing that [came] to my mind [was the defendant]." As a result of the e-mail, she "did a massive upgrade of security at the house, installing cameras and lights." Judge Bozzuto also provided her children's school with a mug shot of the defendant and put school officials on alert. State police surveilled her house for a week or two after Judge Bozzuto learned about the e-mail, and judicial marshals escorted her from her office to her car in the evening. Judge Bozzuto also contacted a sister whose daughter was taking care of Judge Bozzuto's dogs, and told her not to let her daughter go to Judge Bozzuto's residence without a police escort.

The defendant was arrested in connection with his first e-mail and ultimately was charged with threatening in the first degree in violation of § 53a-61aa (a) (3) ; threatening in the second degree in violation of General Statutes (Rev. to 2013) § 53a-62 (a) (3); two counts of disorderly conduct in violation of § 53a-182 (a) (2), one of which alleged that he caused inconvenience, annoyance and alarm to Judge Bozzuto, and one of which alleged that he caused inconvenience, annoyance and alarm to Verraneault; and breach of the peace in violation of § 53a-181 (a) (3).9

Before trial, the defendant moved to dismiss all of the charges. With respect to the threatening charges, the defendant contended that the e-mail did not contain speech that was punishable under the first amendment because the threat was not "so unequivocal, unconditional, immediate and specific as to the person threatened, as to convey a gravity of purpose and imminent prospect of execution ...." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Krijger , 313 Conn. 434, 450, 97 A.3d 946 (2014). In addition, the defendant argued that the threatening charges "fail because the [d]efendant did not communicate the threat to the intended victim." In support of this claim, the defendant cited State v. Kenney , 53 Conn. App. 305, 323, 730 A.2d 119, cert. denied, 249 Conn. 930, 733 A.2d 851 (1999), for the proposition that "[a] threat imports the expectation of bodily harm, thereby inducing fear and apprehension in the person threatened ." (Emphasis added; internal quotation marks omitted.) The trial court, Gold, J. ,10 summarily denied the motion to dismiss, and the case was tried to the court.

After the trial, the defendant filed another motion to dismiss the charges, claiming that the threatening statutes under which he had been charged were...

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    • United States
    • Connecticut Bar Association Connecticut Bar Journal No. 92, June 2019
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