State v. Williams

• Decision Date: 04 March 1986
• Citation: 199 Conn. 30,505 A.2d 699
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Mickey WILLIAMS.

Page 699

505 A.2d 699

199 Conn. 30

STATE of Connecticut v. Mickey WILLIAMS.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Dec. 10, 1985.

Decided March 4, 1986.

Susan C. Marks, Sp. Asst. State's Atty., with whom, on brief, were John M. Massameno, Asst. State's Atty., and Richard D. Arconti, Former Asst. State's Atty., for appellee (state).

Temmy Ann Pieszak, Asst. Public Defender, with whom, on brief, was Joette Katz, Public Defender, for appellant (defendant).

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

SHEA, Associate Justice.

After a trial to a jury, the defendant, Mickey Williams, was convicted of the crimes of burglary in the third degree, in violation of General Statutes § 53a-103, ¹ and larceny in the second degree, in violation of General Statutes (Rev. to 1981) § 53a-123. ² From this judgment the defendant appeals, claiming that the trial court erred (1) in its jury instructions on the elements of burglary in the third degree in that it unconstitutionally relieved the state of its burden of proving that he acted with the requisite specific intent; (2) in its reinstruction to the jury on the issue of value; and (3) in its failure to appoint counsel to represent him at his sentencing hearing. We find error only on the last claim and remand for resentencing.

At approximately 1 a.m. on July 19, 1979, Arlene Taiyebain was sitting in front of her apartment building, located across the street from Feinson's Men's and Boy's Store in Danbury. Immediately after she heard an unusual noise, she saw a black man dressed in white clothing running through the store, grabbing merchandise off the apparel racks. Taiyebain immediately called the police. She then saw the man, whom she recognized as a person she had seen before, leave the store carrying clothing, cross the street and enter an alley. A few minutes later, the man emerged from the alley with another individual, crossed the street and re-entered Feinson's. The man Taiyebain had recognized then continued to gather clothing off the racks.

Soon thereafter an officer of the Danbury police department arrived at the scene. He observed the store's rear door shattered and a black man, wearing a white "t-shirt" and light tan pants, leaving the scene on foot carrying clothing. The officer followed the man down an alley but was unable to catch him because the alley became impassable for his cruiser. Several other police officers saw a black man in a white "t-shirt" running through alleys behind the store, and enter an alley behind a restaurant. The officers searched the alley until they noticed the defendant's foot protruding from a garbage dumpster. The officer originally on the scene immediately identified the defendant as the man he had seen in close proximity to the shattered back door at Feinson's. At the scene Taiyebain also positively identified the defendant as the man she had seen in the store and whom she had seen previously. The defendant was taken into custody and two bundles of clothing bearing Feinson's labels and price tags were subsequently found in nearby alleys. The clothes were later examined by the store's owner and manager and determined to have a market value of $1150 for one pile and $1295 for the other.

The defendant was charged in a substitute information with burglary in the third degree, General Statutes § 53a-103, and larceny in the first degree, General Statutes (Rev. to 1981) § 53a-122. The court granted the defendant's request to proceed to trial pro se, and ordered a public defender to be available in the courtroom for consultation during the proceedings as standby counsel. At trial the defendant presented a defense of alibi and misidentification. He claimed that he had been at a bar with his brother until it closed at 1 a.m. that morning and then walked home by way of the alley where he was discovered. The defendant testified that when he saw the police officers he panicked because he was on parole and jumped into the dumpster to hide. The jury found the defendant guilty of burglary in the third degree. Although he was not found guilty of larceny in the first degree, he was convicted of the lesser included offense of larceny in the second degree.

I

The defendant first claims that the trial court's instructions to the jury on the elements required for a conviction of burglary in the third degree violated his constitutional rights by relieving the state of its burden of proving the requisite specific intent in violation of Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U.S. 510, 99 S.Ct. 2450, 61 L.Ed.2d 39 (1979). Although the defendant took no exception to the instruction he now challenges, we will review his claim under the "exceptional circumstances" rule of State v. Evans, 165 Conn. 61, 70, 327 A.2d 576 (1973). See State v. Amarillo, 198 Conn. 285, 299 n. 9, 503 A.2d 146 (1986); State v. Fernandez, 198 Conn. 1, 18, 501 A.2d 1195 (1985); State v. Shine, 193 Conn. 632, 644 n. 11, 479 A.2d 218 (1984).

The defendant levels his constitutional attack on the following language in the court's instruction on the specific intent necessary for the crime of burglary: "Burglary is an intrusionary crime. In other words, regardless of the nature of the intrusion it must be proven that the defendant has entered the building unlawfully and ... that he did so with the intention of committing a crime therein. Intent is used and [sic] established if at all by circumstantial evidence. In addition in this case if you find the evidence in accordance with what the state offered you must find the intent would infer from conduct. And that of course [is] a question of fact." ³ (Emphasis added.)

The due process clause of the fourteenth amendment to the United States constitution "protects the accused against conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged." In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 364, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 1072, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970). On the basis of this principle, a trial court is prohibited from incorporating evidentiary presumptions in its jury instructions that have the effect of relieving the state of its burden of proving every essential element of the crime. Francis v. Franklin, --- U.S. ----, 105 S.Ct. 1965, 1970, 85 L.Ed.2d 344 (1985); Sandstrom v. Montana, supra, 442 U.S. 520-24, 99 S.Ct. at 2457-59; Patterson v. New York, 432 U.S. 197, 210, 97 S.Ct. 2319, 2327, 53 L.Ed.2d 281 (1977). In Sandstrom v. Montana, supra, 442 U.S. at 517, 99 S.Ct. at 2455, the United States Supreme Court held that a jury instruction that "the law presumes that a person intends the ordinary consequences of his voluntary acts" violated the defendant's due process rights because a reasonable juror could have interpreted it as a conclusive or burden- shifting presumption and thus relieved the state of its burden of proving the critical element of intent. See United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 438 U.S. 422, 98 S.Ct. 2864, 57 L.Ed.2d 854 (1978); Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U.S. 684, 95 S.Ct. 1881, 44 L.Ed.2d 508 (1975). The defendant here claims that the jury instructions had the effect of relieving the state of its burden of persuasion on the issue of intent by creating a mandatory conclusive presumption of intent upon proof by the state of the physical acts constituting the burglary. ⁴

"The threshold inquiry in ascertaining the constitutional analysis applicable to this kind of jury instruction is to determine the nature of the presumption it describes. See Ulster County Court v. Allen, [442 U.S. 140, 157-63, 99 S.Ct. 2213, 2224-27, 60 L.Ed.2d 777 (1979) ]. That determination requires careful attention to the words actually spoken to the jury, see [id.], at 157-159 [99 S.Ct. at 2224-26], n. 16, for whether a defendant has been accorded his constitutional rights depends upon the way in which a reasonable juror could have interpreted the instruction." Sandstrom v. Montana, supra, 442 U.S. at 514, 99 S.Ct. at 2454; see State v. Vasquez, 182 Conn. 242, 247, 438 A.2d 424 (1980). Sandstrom does not invalidate, for example, the use of an "entirely permissive inference or presumption, which allows--but does not require--the trier of fact to infer the elemental fact from proof by the prosecutor of the basic one and that places no burden of any kind on the defendant." Ulster County Court v. Allen, supra, 442 U.S. at 157, 99 S.Ct. at 2224; State v. Arroyo, 180 Conn. 171, 175, 429 A.2d 457 (1980). We must, therefore, determine whether the challenged portion of the instruction here creates a mandatory presumption of intent or merely a permissive inference. See Sandstrom v. Montana, supra, 442 U.S. at 520-24, 99 S.Ct. at 2457-59. "A mandatory presumption instructs the jury that it must infer the presumed fact if the State proves certain predicate facts. A permissive inference suggests to the jury a possible conclusion to be drawn if the State proves predicate facts, but does not require the jury to draw that conclusion." Francis v. Franklin, supra, 105 S.Ct. at 1971. A mandatory presumption violates the due process clause if it relieves the state of the burden of proving an essential element of the offense; Patterson v. New York, supra, 432 U.S. 215, 97 S.Ct. at 2329; while a permissive inference violates the strictures of due process only if the suggested conclusion is not justified by common sense in light of the facts proven. Ulster County Court v. Allen, supra, 442 U.S. at 157-63, 99 S.Ct. at 2224-27.

The challenged sentence in this case was clearly cast in mandatory language. It instructed the jurors that they "must find the intent would infer from conduct," if they found "evidence in accordance with what the state offered...." (Emphasis added.) Although these words are garbled, the defendant claims that they convey precisely the same message as the language held unconstitutional in Sandstrom v. Montana. A reasonable juror could easily have viewed such language as mandatory, requiring...