State v. Utz
| Citation | 201 Conn. 190,513 A.2d 1191 |
| Decision Date | 19 August 1986 |
| Docket Number | No. 12322,12322 |
| Court | Supreme Court of Connecticut |
| Parties | STATE of Connecticut v. Donald UTZ. |
Robin J. Hammeal-Urban, with whom were Todd D. Fernow and, on brief, Michael R. Sheldon and Diane L. Welch, Certified Legal Intern, for appellant (defendant).
Carl Schuman, Asst. State's Atty., with whom on brief, were Walter Flanagan, State's Atty., and Joseph Burns and Brian J. Kornbrath, Law Student Interns, for appellee (State).
Before HEALEY, SHEA, DANNEHY, CALLAHAN and MENT, JJ.
The defendant, Donald Utz, was found guilty after a trial to a jury of murder in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54a, attempted murder in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a-54a and 53a-49, and possession of a weapon in a motor vehicle in violation of General Statutes § 29-38. He received concurrent sentences on these counts which resulted in a total effective sentence of life imprisonment.
The defendant appealed, claiming that the trial court erred in its jury instructions: (1) on the issue of criminal responsibility, thereby depriving him of a fair trial by permitting the jury to convict him without having found beyond a reasonable doubt that he was criminally responsible at the time of the offenses charged; (2) that the jury could not find him "guilty but not criminally responsible" unless his conduct in the commission of the crimes charged was "caused by" his mental disease or defect; (3) that the defendant could be found criminally responsible if the jury found that at the time of the offenses charged he was able either to appreciate the wrongfulness of his actions or, alternatively, to conform his conduct to the requirements of law; and (4) on the issue of intoxication, thereby depriving him of a fair trial on the charges of murder and attempted murder by permitting the jury to convict him without first having found beyond a reasonable doubt that he harbored an intent to cause the death of another person despite his intoxication. We find no error.
The issues to be resolved require that we set out certain facts that the jury could reasonably have found. 1 The defendant and Karen Boyce married in 1975 and the marriage became stormy from almost the early stages. By February, 1982, the marriage had deteriorated to the point that Karen left the defendant and moved into the New Fairfield home of her brother, Robert Boyce, and his wife Pamela. She returned to the defendant for about six days but left for the final time when he threatened to kill her if she or her brother tried to contact the police. He made no attempt to contact her for about three months. Between mid-June and mid-July of 1982, the defendant made several telephone calls to Robert Boyce's residence to speak to his wife but was informed by Robert or Pamela that she was "unavailable." The tenor of his calls became such that on July 9, 1982, Robert Boyce filed a complaint against the defendant with the state police. On July 12, 1982, Karen instituted divorce proceedings. About a week later her parents, Dwight and Margaret Boyce, who were also apprehensive, communicated their concerns to the state police. On July 23, 1982, the defendant telephoned Robert Boyce from New York, stating that he wanted to bring his wife's belongings to Robert's home but he was told that he should ship the items and that there was no need for him to come. The defendant did not like that suggestion at all.
On July 24, 1982, the defendant, who had spent the previous night at the home of friends in New Milford, telephoned Robert Boyce's residence in New Fairfield a little after 5 p.m. and asked excitedly: "Please, please, can I come over." Shortly thereafter, the defendant left New Milford, taking the suitcase he had brought with him the preceding day.
Dwight and Margaret Boyce arrived at Robert's house for a visit about 7:25 p.m. Shortly thereafter, Robert saw the defendant driving up to his house. As the defendant was exiting his car, Robert Boyce told him through a window to leave, that he was not welcome. As the defendant approached the house, Robert's wife, Pamela, decided to call the police but was unable to do so because the defendant had disconnected the telephone wires. The defendant, standing on the porch and carrying a large rock, said that he wanted ten minutes with his wife and insisted on seeing her. Dwight refused and Robert told him that this "wouldn't do any good," that the police were on the way to which the defendant responded, "check your phone." The defendant then pulled a gun and from a distance of several feet, aimed the gun first at Dwight. Then, looking "very deliberate, alert, looking straight at [him]," the defendant aimed the gun at Robert saying: "Just move an inch." Robert dropped to the floor, rolled away from the door and then hurried down a hall to the bedroom to get his gun. While Robert ran back to the bedroom to get his gun, the first of two shots went off in the house. Inside the house, the defendant, about two to three feet from Dwight with his "arm ... stretched out" and "steady" and with eyes that reminded Margaret "of cold steel," fired one more shot at Dwight Boyce that lodged between his shoulder blade and chest cavity and which resulted in his death. Having obtained his gun, Robert crouched near the bedroom door and the defendant, from down the hall, fired a shot in Robert's direction.
After the shooting, the defendant left the house and "very calmly" walked towards his car. He "took his time getting into [the] car," he lit a cigarette and drove away. He returned to New Milford and showed his friends a gun and said that He left and soon thereafter he was apprehended by Brookfield police in his car on Route 25. At that time, he was observed operating his motor vehicle in a rather evasive manner to avoid apprehension. He was driving his car without impairment although the arresting officer did testify that in the police car he "smelled a strong odor of ... an alcoholic beverage" on the defendant's breath. He submitted to the arrest at which time the police frisked him and found the handgun. Tests performed upon a urine sample taken at 11:45 p.m. that night demonstrated that the defendant had a blood alcohol content of .10 percent. An extrapolation from the results of that test later indicated that his blood alcohol level would have been between .16 and .18 percent at the time of the shooting.
Two psychiatrists, who had examined the defendant, James Alexander and Paula McFadden, were called by the defense to testify at the trial. McFadden testified that it was her opinion that the defendant did not, as a result of mental disease or defect, lack substantial capacity to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law. She disagreed with Alexander's opinion that the defendant "lacked the substantial capacity to correspond his conduct to the precepts of the law, due to mental illness." McFadden also opined that "the psychiatric problem or mental disease which I believe he has did not reach the proportion so much so that he would lose the capacity to tell right from wrong, or lose the ability to conform his behavior to the law."
We will first address the defendant's claim that the trial court's charge on criminal responsibility deprived him of a fair trial by permitting the jury to convict him without having found him proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of having been criminally responsible at the time of the offenses charged. The defendant argues that erroneous instructions on the presumption of criminal responsibility gave rise to the reasonable possibility that the jury convicted him in reliance upon that presumption in derogation of his constitutional rights.
The defendant, points specifically to two portions of the charge. The first portion, which was given just after the first of two recesses 2 taken during the charge, was The second portion, which came somewhat later in the charge, was:
The defendant argues that these instructions were erroneous for two reasons: first, they "misleadingly" brought the presumption of criminal responsibility before the jury even though that presumption had lost all operative effect once substantial evidence of his claimed lack of criminal responsibility had been raised and, second, they "woefully misdescribed" the manner in which he had raised his claimed lack of criminal responsibility "to the point that the burden of proving it had become a part of the state's case." He argues that nothing in these instructions, "or in any others given," suggested an inconsistency between the state's burden of proof and the presumption that the defendant was criminally responsible and that nothing else had been said "which could have convinced a reasonable juror" that the presumption would disappear or lose its effect once evidence of his lack of criminal responsibility came in at trial. Therefore, he claims, as in State v. Rossier, 175 Conn. 204, 209, 397 A.2d 110 (1978), the failure of the trial court to "make it clear to the jury that ...
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