State v. Dukes

700 A.2d 119, 46 Conn. App. 684, 1997 Conn. App. LEXIS 460
CourtConnecticut Appellate Court
DecidedSeptember 16, 1997
DocketAC 15478
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 700 A.2d 119 (State v. Dukes) 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. Dukes, 700 A.2d 119, 46 Conn. App. 684, 1997 Conn. App. LEXIS 460 (Colo. Ct. App. 1997).

Opinion

Opinion

DOWNEY, J.

The defendant appeals from the judgment of conviction, rendered after a jury trial, of attempted murder in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a-49 and 53a-54a (a), assault in the first degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-59 (a) (1), attempted robbery in the first degree in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a-49 and 53a-134 (a) (1) and conspiracy to commit robbery in the first degree in violation of General Statutes § § 53a-48 and 53a-134. On appeal the defendant claims that (1) the trial court improperly failed to instruct the juiy on inconsistency of intents, and (2) the evidence was insufficient to sustain the convictions. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The jury could reasonably have found the following facts. On February 27, 1993, between the hours of 12 noon and 3 p.m., the victim, Monroe Hall, was in the municipal bus terminal in Bridgeport waiting to board a bus. During that period, several persons, including the defendant, entered the terminal. Shortly thereafter, the victim proceeded to the rear of the terminal, intending to make a telephone call. As the victim approached the area, he was grabbed from behind, pushed against a wall and turned around. He found himself facing the defendant, Reginald Reese and [686]*686another male in close proximity to him. The defendant pointed a handgun at the victim’s face. The victim understood that he was being robbed, and as he attempted to reach for his belongings, he shifted to give himself some room. At that point, he was shot in the face by the defendant.1 The trio then fled the terminal. The victim sustained massive head trauma, lost the sight in his right eye and underwent extensive surgery.

I

The defendant first claims that the jury verdict resulting in his conviction of attempted murder and assault in the first degree was “legally inconsistent” and that the trial court’s failure to so instruct the jury resulted in the deprivation of his federal and state constitutional rights to due process of law. As part of this argument, the defendant urges that in this case, due to the brevity of the incident, it is highly unlikely that he could have intended to cause serious physical injury to the victim while at the same time intending to cause the victim’s death. The defendant neither filed a request to charge raising this issue nor noted an exception to the instructions as given, and, therefore, this claim is [687]*687unpreserved.2 The defendant requests, however, review of this claim pursuant to State v. Golding, 213 Conn. 233, 239-40, 567 A.2d 823 (1989),3 arguing that this claim implicates his due process rights to an adequately instructed jury.

This claim is reviewable under Golding. State v. Jones, 44 Conn. App. 476, 488, 691 A.2d 14, cert. denied, 241 Conn. 901, 693 A.2d 304 (1997). We reject the defendant’s claim, however, on the basis of our Supreme Court’s holding in State v. Williams, 237 Conn. 748, 679 A.2d 920 (1996).

In State v. Williams, supra, 237 Conn. 748, the Supreme Court held that the intent to cause death and the intent to cause serious physical injuiy are not mutually exclusive as a matter of law. In Williams, as in the present case, the defendant claimed that the trial court’s instruction improperly permitted the jury to render an inconsistent guilty verdict on the counts of attempted murder and assault in the first degree. The court rejected that argument, stating that “[t]he defendant’s argument founders on the mistaken presumption that one who intends to kill a person may not also intend to cause serious physical injury to that person. We can [688]*688perceive no logical reason to preclude, as a matter of law, the simultaneous possession of these intents by a defendant toward the same victim. It is entirely consistent and reasonable, under the facts of a particular case, for a jury to find that a defendant intended to inflict serious wounds upon a victim while also intending to cause that victim’s death.” Id., 754-55; see also State v. Hinton, 227 Conn. 301, 318, 630 A.2d 593 (1993) (“[i]t is clear that an assault in violation of § 53a-59 [a] [1] and [2] would be consistent with an attempted murder count in violation of § § 53a-49 and 53a-54a if [the victim] were the defendant’s intended victim, because those statutory sections require intentional conduct”).

The defendant argues, however, that under the facts of this case, it was unreasonable for the jury to find that he simultaneously possessed the intent to cause serious physical injury to the victim and the intent to cause the victim’s death. The defendant argues that this was an extremely brief incident and that the surrounding circumstances do not lend themselves to a conclusion that there could have been more than one criminal intent.

The defendant, in asking this court to find the jury’s verdict unreasonable, is asking us to find that it was impossibile for the defendant to possess the two intents simultaneously when so acting. This we decline to do. We conclude that, in the circumstances of this case, the jury reasonably could have inferred from the defendant’s conduct that he possessed, at the same time and by the same act, the intent to cause the victim serious physical injury while he was attempting to kill the victim. See State v. Williams, supra, 237 Conn. 757. “Intent is a question of fact, the determination of which should stand unless the conclusion drawn by the trier is an unreasonable one.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Id.; State v. DeJesus, 236 Conn. 189, 197, 672 A.2d 488 [689]*689(1996); State v. Patterson, 229 Conn. 328, 333, 641 A.2d 123 (1994).

We conclude that a charge to the jury instructing that the intents at issue were mutually exclusive would have been incorrect.4

II

We next address the defendant’s claim that the evidence was insufficient to support any of his four convictions. The defendant would be entitled to an acquittal of a charge on which he claims insufficient evidence if he prevails on his claim. A defendant has a fundamental right, protected by the due process clause of the federal and state constitutions, to be acquitted unless proven guilty of each element of the charged offense beyond a reasonable doubt. In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S. Ct. 1068, 25 L. Ed. 2d 368 (1970).

In reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence, we apply the two part test delineated in State v. Traficonda, 223 Conn. 273, 278, 612 A.2d 45 (1992): “ ‘First, we construe the evidence in the light most favorable to sustaining the verdict.

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941 A.2d 378 (Connecticut Appellate Court, 2008)
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1998 Conn. Super. Ct. 9780 (Connecticut Superior Court, 1998)
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Bluebook (online)
700 A.2d 119, 46 Conn. App. 684, 1997 Conn. App. LEXIS 460, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-dukes-connappct-1997.