State v. Arthur

18 A.3d 610, 128 Conn. App. 371, 2011 Conn. App. LEXIS 219
CourtConnecticut Appellate Court
DecidedMay 3, 2011
DocketAC 32586
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 18 A.3d 610 (State v. Arthur) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Connecticut Appellate Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Arthur, 18 A.3d 610, 128 Conn. App. 371, 2011 Conn. App. LEXIS 219 (Colo. Ct. App. 2011).

Opinion

Opinion

GRUENDEL, J.

The defendant, Johnnie Arthur, appeals from the judgment of conviction, rendered after a jury trial, of criminal attempt to commit murder in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a-54a (a) and 53a-49 (a) (2), assault in the first degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-59 (a) (1), criminal possession of a firearm in violation of General Statutes § 53a-217 (a) (1) *373 and carrying a pistol or revolver without a permit in violation of General Statutes § 29-35 (a). On appeal, the defendant claims that (1) the trial court abused its discretion in denying his motion to suppress evidence of his pretrial identification, (2) the court abused its discretion in admitting into evidence a tape-recorded statement pursuant to State v. Whelan, 200 Conn. 743, 513 A.2d 86, cert. denied, 479 U.S. 994, 107 S. Ct. 597, 93 L. Ed. 2d 598 (1986), and (3) the evidence adduced at trial was insufficient to sustain the jury’s finding that he perpetrated the crimes. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

On the basis of the evidence presented at trial, the jury reasonably could have found the following facts. On the evening of September 29, 2007, the victim, Andrew Garnett, attended a party at the Sports Haven nightclub in New Haven with friends, including Dionte Dixon. 1 While there, they met Nancy Sonemaneevong, Barbara “Shanita” Green and the defendant’s girlfriend, Robin DiBenedetto. Green informed Dixon that she had a crush on his friend, Eugene Wright, and Dixon arranged for her to meet Wright later that evening. When the party ended, those individuals departed for Wright’s apartment at 30 Glade Street in West Haven. Dixon drove his own car, the victim rode in a second vehicle with other friends, and DiBenedetto drove Sonemaneevong and Green in her red Pontiac Grand Am. At that time, DiBenedetto was speaking with the defendant on her cellular telephone.

When the vehicles arrived at the parking lot at 30 Glade Street in the early morning horns of September 30, 2007, Green immediately entered Wright’s apartment. At that time, the victim and Dixon entered the Pontiac Grand Am and began flirting with DiBenedetto *374 and Sonemaneevong. When Sonemaneevong needed to use a bathroom, Dixon escorted her into Wright’s apartment. The victim remained in the vehicle with DiBenedetto, who still was on the telephone with the defendant.

A bystander in the parking lot, Jamie Henderson, observed a man he knew as “Drew” speaking to the female driver of the red Pontiac vehicle. He then witnessed a gray Ford Taurus enter the parking lot, from which a male wearing a dark colored hoodie and hat emerged looking “like he meant business.” With a hand in the hoodie, the man asked DiBenedetto to leave with him, and she refused. The victim informed the man that “ ‘[s]he good. She with us.’ ” The man then fired multiple gunshots at him from close range. As the victim crawled on the ground, the Ford Taurus and the Pontiac Grand Am fled the scene.

Officer Radames Gonce of the West Haven police department, who at the time was responding to an unrelated call nearby, heard the gunshots emanate from the Glade Street area. As Gonce drove toward Glade Street, he saw several vehicles driving away at a high rate of speed, including a gray Ford Taurus with a New York license plate. When he arrived at the parking lot outside Wright’s apartment, Gonce found the victim lying on the ground. The victim subsequently was transported by ambulance to Yale-New Haven Hospital, where he was treated for life threatening injuries that included, inter aha, a collapsed lung, three gunshot wounds to the chest and one gunshot wound to his left thigh. Following emergency surgery, the victim recuperated in the hospital for seven days.

While investigating the scene of the shooting, Detective Anthony Simone of the West Haven police department learned that the red Pontiac Grand Am had been located and asked the operator to return to the Glade *375 Street parking lot. When the vehicle arrived, the operator was identified as DiBenedetto, who then was transported to police headquarters. Simone subsequently interviewed Henderson, Sonemaneevong and Green, from which he learned that DiBenedetto’s boyfriend may have been involved in the shooting. He then interviewed DiBenedetto, who was uncooperative and identified her boyfriend only as “Johnnie.” Further investigation revealed that DiBenedetto had been talking on her cellular telephone with the defendant up to the time of the incident and that she had two cellular telephones registered in her name, both of which were used during that conversation. Telephone records, which were admitted into evidence at trial, established that DiBenedetto’s initial conversation in the early morning hours of September 30, 2007, lasted forty-one minutes and three seconds, from 3:10 a.m. to 3:51 a.m. Telephone records also established that although the signal from DiBenedetto’s other telephone was routed through a cell tower in New Haven at 3:10 a.m., it was routed through a tower on Campbell Avenue in West Haven from 3:51 a.m. to 3:56 a.m. The Campbell Avenue tower is in the vicinity of Glade Street and was used by both of DiBenedetto’s cellular telephones at that time. Additional calls between DiBenedetto’s two telephones were made at 3:52 a.m., 3:55 a.m. and 3:57 a.m. The police received a 911 call reporting the shooting at 3:57 a.m.

Simone’s investigation also revealed that DiBenedetto lived at 719 Orchard Street in New Haven with the defendant. When police arrived at that property on the day of the shooting, they found a silver Ford Taurus with a New York license plate in the backyard. Gonce arrived later and confirmed that the vehicle looked like the one he observed fleeing the Glade Street area moments after the shooting. The police seized the vehicle, and a search revealed a cellular telephone and a *376 photograph of the defendant with friends at what appeared to be the party at the Sports Haven nightclub hours earlier. The police also learned that DiBenedetto had rented the vehicle from Enterprise Rental Car from September 28, 2007, through October 1, 2007.

When Simone interviewed the defendant, he confirmed that he had attended the party at the Sports Haven nightclub a day earlier. The defendant stated that he attended with friends and that he did not drive there “because he doesn’t drive.” The defendant did not provide any further information to police at that time. Nonetheless, Brenda Ollison, DiBenedetto’s upstairs neighbor at 719 Orchard Street, testified at trial that she observed the defendant driving the Ford Taurus on the weekend in question.

As a result of their preliminary investigation, the police obtained a description of the person who had shot the victim.

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Related

Com. v. Brensinger, R.
2019 Pa. Super. 265 (Superior Court of Pennsylvania, 2019)
Arthur v. Commissioner of Correction
Connecticut Appellate Court, 2016
State v. Rodriguez
56 A.3d 980 (Connecticut Appellate Court, 2012)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
18 A.3d 610, 128 Conn. App. 371, 2011 Conn. App. LEXIS 219, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-arthur-connappct-2011.