State v. Zdanis
| Citation | 173 Conn. 189,377 A.2d 275 |
| Court | Supreme Court of Connecticut |
| Decision Date | 14 June 1977 |
| Parties | STATE of Connecticut v. Ronald ZDANIS. |
Maxwell Heiman, Bristol, with whom were Martin A. Clayman, Bloomfield, and, on the brief, William J. Eddy, Bristol, for appellant (defendant).
Richard E. Maloney, Asst. State's Atty., with whom, on the brief, was George D. Stoughton, State's Atty., for appellee (state).
Before HOUSE, C. J., and LOISELLE, BOGDANSKI, LONGO and SPEZIALE, JJ.
The defendant was found guilty of the murder of his stepdaughter. From the judgment rendered on the verdict he has appealed to this court.
At the trial, the state presented evidence that the defendant had pointed a shotgun at his wife, Barbara Zdanis, and wounded her with a shot in the back as she fled their apartment. More shots were subsequently heard from the direction of the apartment, and the defendant's eight-year-old stepdaughter was found dead in her bed when the police arrived. The defendant presented evidence that his wife had suicidal tendencies, that she had threatened to kill herself with the shotgun, which went off, firing toward the child's bed as he attempted to take the gun away from his wife, that his wife was running from the apartment and that he, in shock, fired toward the door for no reason. He also wounded himself.
Some testimony claimed to have been erroneously admitted was stricken by the court and some questions, after objection, were withdrawn by the prosecution. Some testimony merely restated testimony already put into evidence without exception, and other testimony was admitted without objection and exception by the defense. None of these matters will be considered as ground for reversal. State v. Grayton, 163 Conn. 104, 109, 302 A.2d 246, cert. denied, 409 U.S. 1045, 93 S.Ct. 542, 34 L.Ed.2d 495; Mei v. Alterman Transport Lines, Inc., 159 Conn. 307, 316, 268 A.2d 639.
The defendant claims that the court erred in admitting evidence of specific acts of misconduct on his part, which were irrelevant and served to prove only his bad character rather than his guilt of the crime charged. The defendant's brief included so much evidence which the state offered which he claims tended to show his bad character that it is necessary to discuss this evidence in general terms, for the most part, rather than to deal separately with each portion of the transcript printed in the defendant's brief.
The prosecution presented evidence concerning a dispute between the defendant and his wife which began on the weekend of September 21, 1974, a month prior to the homicide. The state made no claim that the defendant had any animosity toward his stepdaughter, but only that he shot her in the course of the episode in which he also shot his wife. The evidence concerning the dispute was admissible to show a motive for shooting the wife, from which the shooting of the child could have resulted. As part of the history of the dispute, testimony was admitted which showed that the defendant had been drunk, angry, abusive and threatening to his wife, 1 had locked her out of their apartment and had told her that due to his anger he had thrown away furnishings. This evidence was not introduced for the purpose of showing bad character, but was incidental to the history of the dispute. The trial court has a broad discretion in determining relevance. State v. Saia, 167 Conn. 286, 291, 355 A.2d 88. It was within the discretion of the court to determine that the probative value of the evidence outweighed its prejudicial tendency. State v. Ralls, 167 Conn. 408, 419, 356 A.2d 147. It cannot be said that the court exceeded its discretion in admitting this testimony.
On the state's initial direct examination of Barbara Zdanis, testimony was admitted that the defendant did not permit his wife to have any friends or call her family. In view of the fact that the dispute which was alleged to have terminated in the shooting began when the wife was "house-sitting" for relatives, it cannot be said that the court exceeded its discretion in admitting this testimony.
After evidence was introduced over objection, but without exception, that Barbara Zdanis was the sole support of the family and handed her paycheck over to the defendant, the state was permitted to elicit, over objection and exception by the defense, testimony that the defendant was "supposed to pay the rent." This evidence was irrelevant and should have been excluded. The dispute between the defendant and his wife was not shown to have anything to do with family finances. The testimony would have proved harmless, however, had the defense on cross-examination not brought out the fact that just before the shooting the Zdanises were being evicted, after which other testimony was admitted which tended to show that the defendant had not paid the rent. The net effect was to portray the defendant as one who had appropriated funds given him by his wife, but the defendant cannot be permitted by expanding upon an otherwise harmless error to render it a ground for reversal.
Further, on direct examination, and over timely objections of irrelevance and hearsay, the state elicited from Barbara Zdanis testimony that forty-eight hours before the shooting, the defendant said something in her presence about the pregnancy of another woman by him. 2 Although it was error to admit this evidence, it was harmless error, in view of the defendant's own testimony on direct that it was his wife's distress over this news which played a part in her threat to commit suicide. Indeed, he testified that at the time of the shooting she said that "she thought I was lying, that she believed the story about Maria (the other woman), and she said that she was going to shoot herself."
The defendant claims that in the redirect examination of the defendant's wife, the state was allowed to introduce evidence of the defendant's bad character. The evidence in question was admitted after the defendant "opened the door" by asking the wife, on cross-examination, "And do you believe that your husband would cold-bloodedly kill your daughter, Pam, based on his relationship with her and his relationship with you that spanned four years?" This question raised a defense of lack of motive for the killing, effectively introducing a claim that the relationship between the defendant and his wife, over a four-year period, was such that it would be illogical to believe that he would kill her daughter. After the relationship of the parties was thus put into issue, testimony was admitted on redirect...
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