State v. Vinal

• Decision Date: 18 February 1986
• Citation: 504 A.2d 1364,198 Conn. 644
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Daniel VINAL, Jr. STATE of Connecticut v. James AVIS.

Page 1364

504 A.2d 1364

198 Conn. 644

STATE of Connecticut v. Daniel VINAL, Jr.

STATE of Connecticut v. James AVIS.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Dec. 4, 1985.

Decided Feb. 18, 1986.

F. MacBuckley, Hartford, for appellant (defendant Vinal).

Temmy Ann Pieszak, Asst. Public Defender, with whom were Joette Katz, Public Defender, and, on brief, Jacob Coore and Richard Joselson, Legal Interns, for appellant (defendant Avis).

Carl Schuman, Asst. State's Atty., with whom, on brief, were Dennis A. Santore, State's Atty., and Elizabeth Fitzpatrick, Law Student Intern, for appellee (state).

PETERS, C.J., and SHEA, DANNEHY, SANTANIELLO and CALLAHAN, JJ.

PETERS, Chief Justice.

The dispositive issue in each of these appeals is whether the trial court erred in refusing to sever the joint trial of the two defendants. One defendant, Daniel Vinal, Jr., was charged with murder in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54a. ¹ The other defendant, James Avis, was charged with felony murder in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54c. ² After a joint trial, the trial court accepted jury verdicts finding both defendants guilty as charged. The defendants appeal from these judgments.

The jury could reasonably have found the following facts concerning the incident that gave rise to the charges. Early on the morning of October 8, 1978, the defendants were together in a Torrington bar where they saw the victim. At approximately 5 a.m., the victim left the bar and drove toward Litchfield. The defendants departed immediately thereafter and followed the victim in an automobile driven by Avis. In Litchfield, the defendants forced the victim to the side of the road. They stopped their car nearby, got out, and approached the victim's car. While the victim remained in the driver's seat of his car, Avis attempted to take his wallet from him. When the victim resisted, Vinal shot him. Avis then took the wallet and the defendants fled. The victim died of his gunshot wound.

Later that day, state police officers questioned Vinal and Avis about the victim's death but made no arrests. After his interview, Avis left the state. Vinal, who remained in Connecticut, was arrested on October 24, 1978, and charged with having murdered the victim. In December of 1978, Vinal, his attorney, and his investigator traveled to New Hampshire to speak with Avis whom they had located there. After several meetings, Avis prepared, in the presence of Vinal's investigator, a written confession in which he admitted that he had shot and robbed the victim and that Vinal had been unconscious during the incident. When Vinal returned to Connecticut, he submitted the confession to the Connecticut state police who immediately obtained a warrant for Avis's arrest. In June, 1980, police in Seattle, Washington, arrested Avis and returned him to Connecticut where he was then charged with felony murder. The defendants were tried together despite numerous motions by each defendant for severance.

On appeal, both defendants claim that the trial court erred in failing to sever the two cases. Avis also contends that the trial court should have suppressed his written confession. ³ Vinal claims that the trial court should have dismissed his indictment and that the state presented insufficient evidence to support his murder conviction.

I

Both Avis and Vinal argue that the trial court committed harmful error by requiring that they be tried together. We agree.

The rules that govern motions for separate trials are well established in this state. When two or more criminal defendants are scheduled to be tried together and one or more moves for severance, separate trials "will be ordered where the defenses of the accused are antagonistic, or evidence will be introduced against one which will not be admissible against others, and it clearly appears that a joint trial will probably be prejudicial to the rights of one or more of the accused. The test for the trial court is whether substantial injustice is likely to result unless a separate trial be accorded." State v. Haskins, 188 Conn. 432, 450, 450 A.2d 828 (1982); State v. DeWitt, 177 Conn. 637, 644, 419 A.2d 861 (1979); State v. Varricchio, 176 Conn. 445, 447-48, 408 A.2d 239 (1979); State v. McLucas, 172 Conn. 542, 559, 375 A.2d 1014, cert. denied, 434 U.S. 855, 98 S.Ct. 174, 54 L.Ed.2d 126 (1977); State v. Holup, 167 Conn. 240, 245, 355 A.2d 119 (1974); State v. Klein, 97 Conn. 321, 324, 116 A. 596 (1922); State v. Castelli, 92 Conn. 58, 63, 101 A. 476 (1917); State v. Brauneis, 84 Conn. 222, 226, 79 A. 70 (1911). " '[T]he phrase "prejudicial to the rights of [one or more of the accused]" means something more than that a joint trial will probably be less advantageous to the accused than separate trials.' " State v. Haskins, supra, 188 Conn. 450, 450 A.2d 828; State v. DeWitt upra, 177 Conn. 647-48, 419 A.2d 861; State v. McCarthy, 130 Conn. 101, 103, 31 A.2d 921 (1943). The trial court enjoys wide latitude in applying this standard. The joint trial of defendants who are charged with crimes that arise from a single incident often benefits the defendants as well as the judicial system. ⁴ On appeal, we will reverse a trial court's ruling on joinder only where the trial court commits an abuse of discretion that results in manifest prejudice to one or more of the defendants. See, e.g., United States v. Carpentier, 689 F.2d 21, 27-28 (2d Cir.1982), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1108, 103 S.Ct. 735, 74 L.Ed.2d 957 (1983); United States v. Werner, 620 F.2d 922, 928 (2d Cir.1980); United States v. Crawford, 581 F.2d 489 (5th Cir.1978); United States v. Robinson, 432 F.2d 1348, 1351 (D.C.Cir.1970).

Vinal and Avis argue that the trial court should have granted their motions for severance because their defenses were fundamentally antagonistic. ⁵ To decide whether severance was necessary, we must scrutinize the strategies employed by each defendant at trial and determine, in light of the trial court's ongoing duty to monitor the fairness of the joint trial, whether conflict between the defendants tainted the proceeding. Such an inquiry in this case reveals that the defendants' defenses at trial were fundamentally incompatible and that the trial court abused its discretion in trying the defendants together. The state, in its bills of particulars, alleged that either Vinal or Avis had shot the victim. ⁶ At trial, Vinal claimed that Avis had killed the victim. Avis defended by blaming Vinal for the murder. Each defendant introduced evidence that incriminated the other. Each attacked evidence that tended to exonerate the other. During their closing arguments, each vigorously sought to convince the jury that the other alone had killed the victim.

Central to the conflict between the defendants was Avis's written confession in which he admitted that he had killed the victim and that Vinal had not participated in the crime. The confession was one of the few pieces of evidence at trial that directly suggested Vinal's innocence and Avis's guilt. Although it was the state that introduced the confession into evidence, Vinal adopted it as the centerpiece of his defense, claiming that it created an undeniable source of doubt about his culpability that precluded a finding of guilty. Avis, on the other hand, devoted much of his defense to challenging the credibility of the confession. His attorney claimed during final argument that Avis had falsely assumed responsibility for the murder as a ploy to extricate Vinal. Avis's attorney explained that, at the time his client confessed, Vinal had already been charged with murder and Avis believed that he could safely claim guilt because he was beyond the reach of Connecticut authorities while he was living in another state. Avis's attorney also brought to light through cross-examination dubious circumstances surrounding Avis's decision to confess, implying that Vinal and his representatives had tricked Avis into confessing to a crime that he had not committed. Avis's attorney suggested further that Avis was not the true author of the confession, claiming that Avis's vocabulary did not contain several words that appeared in the confession and that the confession was not written in the style of a man of Avis's verbal ability. Vinal's attorney did his best to refute Avis's attacks on the confession. During direct examination of his own witnesses, and even during cross-examination of the state's witnesses, Vinal's attorney continually sought to establish the credibility of the confession.

Each defendant also employed various other tactics designed to shift blame for the crime to his codefendant. For example, Vinal introduced evidence of Avis's flight from the state after the murder and of Avis's use of various names during the months following the murder, alleging that the evidence was indicative of Avis's consciousness of guilt. During final argument, Vinal's attorney suggested that Avis had had a financial motive to kill the victim and reminded the jury that Avis had known the victim and had talked with him several hours before the murder. Avis's attorney emphasized in his closing argument the existence of a long list of evidence that implicated Vinal in the murder.

In light of this record we must conclude that Avis and Vinal should have been tried separately. The trial court implied, in its memorandum of decision denying the defendants' motions to sever, that severance due to antagonistic defenses is necessary only when codefendants testify against each other at trial. Our case law supports no such proposition. See State v. Gordon, 170 Conn. 189, 365 A.2d 1056 (1976); State v. Holup, supra. The state argues that the joint trial prejudiced neither defendant because the trial court admitted no evidence that would have been inadmissible against either defendant in separate trials and because neither defendant raised arguments detrimental to his codefendant that would not have been available to the state...