State v. Torrence

• Decision Date: 11 June 1985
• Citation: 493 A.2d 865,196 Conn. 430
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Booker T. TORRENCE.

Page 865

493 A.2d 865

196 Conn. 430

STATE of Connecticut v. Booker T. TORRENCE.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued April 4, 1985.

Decided June 11, 1985.

Jon C. Blue, Asst. Public Defender, with whom, on the brief, was Joette Katz, Public Defender, for appellant (defendant).

John M. Massameno, Asst. State's Atty., with whom were John T. Redway, State's Atty., and Katherine J. Lambert, Simsbury, for appellee (state).

Before PETERS, C.J., and HEALEY, SHEA, SANTANIELLO and CALLAHAN, JJ.

PETERS, Chief Justice.

This is an appeal, after certification, from a judgment of the Appellate Court affirming a conviction despite an inaccurate jury instruction on the statutory defense of insanity. In the trial court, the defendant, Booker T. Torrence, was convicted of three counts of robbery in the first degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-134, one count of possession of a sawed-off shotgun in violation of General Statutes § 53a-211, one count of assault in the third degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-61, and one count of kidnapping in the second degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-94. ¹ In his appeal to the Appellate Court, the defendant raised three claims of error, none of which the Appellate Court found persuasive. We granted certification to review the judgment of the Appellate Court, 193 Conn. 805, 477 A.D.2d 659 that the trial court's instruction on insanity, although erroneous, was not so misleading as to require a reversal of the defendant's conviction. We affirm the judgment of the Appellate Court.

The decision of the Appellate Court fully describes the underlying facts. State v. Torrence, 1 Conn.App. 697, 699-700, 476 A.2d 598 (1984). The defendant was accused of participating in an armed robbery of a liquor store and of assaulting and robbing the owner of a house in which he subsequently hid. To the various charges brought against him, the defendant principally interposed the defense of insanity under General Statutes § 53a-13. ² At trial there was conflicting expert evidence about the defendant's mental health and his capacity to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law. On the issue of insanity, the trial court instructed the jury not only on the statutory definition of insanity contained in § 53a-13 but also referred to superseded common law definitions of insanity derived from the M'Naghten test; M'Naghten's Case, 8 Eng.Rep. 718, 722 (1843); and the irresistible impulse test. The defendant did not except to these instructions when they were given.

The Appellate Court determined that the trial court's instructions on insanity were properly reviewable, despite the absence of a timely objection at trial. ³ That court held that the question of the propriety of the trial court's commingling of statutory and common law definitions of insanity raised an issue of constitutional dimension permitting review under State v. Evans, 165 Conn. 61, 70, 327 A.2d 576 (1973). State v. Torrence, supra, 1 Conn.App. 702-703, 476 A.2d 598.

On the merits, the Appellate Court held that the charge given by the trial court was in error. Relying upon our decisions in State v. Jones, 193 Conn. 70, 475 A.2d 1087 (1984), State v. McCall, 187 Conn. 73, 444 A.2d 896 (1982), and State v. Toste, 178 Conn. 626, 424 A.2d 293 (1979), the Appellate Court decided that the trial court should not have injected into its charge on mental capacity elements of the M'Naghten and irresistible impulse tests, when those tests have been abolished by the governing statute. State v. Torrence, supra, 1 Conn.App. 703, 476 A.2d 598. The court went on to conclude, however, that the trial court had not committed reversible error because, in view of the factual posture of the case, it was not reasonably possible that the jury had been misled. Id., 705-707, 476 A.2d 598.

The defendant's request to this court for certification raised a single question: "In a criminal case in which the Defendant's sanity was the only contested issue, was the trial court's erroneous inclusion of legislatively abandoned common law definitions of insanity in its charge on the issue harmless beyond a reasonable doubt?" We must determine whether the Appellate Court erred in its resolution of this question.

I

Before we address this question on the merits, it is important to comment briefly on the procedural posture of this case, because it represents our first appeal from the Appellate Court. In such an appeal, the focus of our review is not the actions of the trial court, but the actions of the Appellate Court. We do not hear the appeal de novo. The only questions that we need consider are those squarely raised by the petition for certification, and we will ordinarily consider these issues in the form in which they have been framed in the Appellate Court. See Practice Book § 3154; ⁴ cf. ABA Commission on Standards of Judicial Administration, Standards Relating to Appellate Courts (approved draft 1977) § 3.14 and commentary. ⁵

These observations necessarily have implications for our review of the question presented in this case. We decline the invitation of the state to consider whether improprieties in a charge on insanity are reviewable under State v. Evans, because the state so conceded in its brief to the Appellate Court, the Appellate Court so held, and the state has not filed a preliminary statement of issues in this court to revive this issue. See Practice Book § 3012(a). ⁶ We likewise need not review the Appellate Court's determination that the charge as given was incorrect, because of the state's failure to raise this issue in a preliminary statement of issues. We address that issue only insofar as it is inescapably intertwined with the issue that is properly before us, the question of the harmfulness of the trial court's error.

II

Our analysis of the merits of the defendant's claim must begin with a discussion of the scope of the review afforded a claim made under State v. Evans. Once it has been established that the record adequately supports a claim that a defendant has clearly been deprived of a fundamental constitutional right and a fair trial; State v. Evans, supra, 165 Conn. 70, 327 A.2d 576; the merits of the claim must be determined. Relying on our observation in State v. Kurvin, 186 Conn. 555, 564-65, 442 A.2d 1327 (1982), that "[a] claimed constitutional error, raised for the first time on appeal, will be examined, if at all, not to ascertain whether the ruling or instruction was undesirable, erroneous, or even universally condemned but rather whether when reviewed in the context of the entire trial it violated some right guaranteed to the defendant by the fourteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States; Cupp v. Naughten, 414 U.S. 141, 146, 94 S.Ct. 396, 38 L.Ed.2d 368 (1973); or article first, § 8 of the constitution of Connecticut," the state contends that review of an Evans claim is narrower than that given a properly preserved fundamental constitutional claim. The state argues that the defendant's claim of error does not survive this limited review.

The state's argument mischaracterizes Evans review. Although only a very limited class of claims may be raised under Evans; see, e.g., State v. Conroy, 194 Conn. 623, 627 n. 5, 484 A.2d 448 (1984) (inadequate record); State v. Gooch, 186 Conn. 17, 18, 438 A.2d 867 (1982) (no fundamental constitutional claim); resolution of those claims is governed by general rules of appellate review. Since an Evans claim by definition alleges a fundamental constitutional error, only certain rules are called into play and they are applied in the rarified context of such an allegation. There is, however, no separate set of substantive standards that produces lowered scrutiny of unpreserved claims of fundamental constitutional deprivation. When, as here, a jury instruction is challenged as not merely erroneous but as constitutionally deficient in a fundamental respect, the challenge can succeed only if it is reasonably possible that the jury was misled by the instruction into misunderstanding an issue that has fundamental constitutional significance. See State v. Smith, 194 Conn. 213, 219-20, 479 A.2d 814 (1984); State v. Kurvin, supra, 186 Conn. 558, 565, 569, 442 A.2d 1327.

The defendant claims error in the instruction on the definition of insanity. The issue to be determined is therefore whether it is reasonably possible that the instruction undermined the jury's understanding of the statutory definition of insanity and prevented it from properly deciding that the defendant was sane at the time he committed the charged offenses. As with any challenge to a portion of a jury instruction, this analysis must be performed with reference to the instruction as a whole. "A charge to the jury is not to be 'critically dissected' nor are individual instructions to be judged in 'artificial isolation' from the overall charge. State v. Reed, 174 Conn. 287, 305, 386 A.2d 243 (1978)." State v. Derrico, 181 Conn. 151, 171, 434 A.2d 356, cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1064, 101 S.Ct. 789, 66 L.Ed.2d 607 (1980).

The overall charge on the definition of insanity was as follows. First, the trial court read the statutory definition verbatim: "In any prosecution for an offense, it shall be the [sic] defense that the defendant, at the time of the proscribed conduct, as a result of mental disease or defect lacked substantial capacity either to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law. As used in this section, the terms mental disease or defect do not include an abnormality manifested only by a [sic] repeated criminal or otherwise anti-social conduct." The court repeated the full statutory definition a second time. After explaining to the jury how to relate the medical testimony on insanity to this definition, the court then gave the instruction at issue: "The definition of insanity, or lack of capacity, would include a mind which...