State v. Gonzalez-Rivera

713 A.2d 847, 48 Conn. App. 784, 1998 Conn. App. LEXIS 234
CourtConnecticut Appellate Court
DecidedJune 2, 1998
DocketAC 17153
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 713 A.2d 847 (State v. Gonzalez-Rivera) 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. Gonzalez-Rivera, 713 A.2d 847, 48 Conn. App. 784, 1998 Conn. App. LEXIS 234 (Colo. Ct. App. 1998).

Opinion

[786]*786 Opinion

LAVERY, J.

The defendant, Marcus Gonzalez-Rivera, appeals from the judgment of conviction, rendered after a trial by a three judge court,1 of murder in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54a.2 On appeal, the defendant claims that the trial court improperly (1) applied the standard for extreme emotional disturbance and therefore deprived the defendant of his constitutional right to establish a defense, (2) concluded that the defendant failed to establish his defense of extreme emotional disturbance, (3) concluded that the state presented sufficient evidence to support his conviction, (4) prevented him from eliciting relevant evidence about the victim’s treatment of him and others to support his extreme emotional disturbance defense, and (5) admitted evidence of his postarrest silence and request for an attorney. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The trial court reasonably could have found the following facts. The defendant was employed as a seasonal employee of Clinton Nurseries in Clinton on April 6, 1994. On April 5,1994, the defendant had a disagreement with one of his supervisors, Andrew Grella, the victim. On April 6,1994, the defendant operated a forklift until around noon when he told the victim he did not want to work under him any longer. The defendant’s other [787]*787supervisor, Jose Konst, was called to the area to talk to the defendant, but the defendant repeated that he would no longer work for the victim. The victim told the defendant to “punch out.” The defendant went to building D on the nursery complex where a time clock was located and punched out. Because work had not ended for the other employees, the defendant went to the parking area and sat in the van that provided the employees transportation between their homes and the nursery.

After sitting in the van for approximately twenty to thirty minutes, the defendant returned to building D to get a drink of water. In building D, he spoke to two mechanics who worked there and told them, “Andy quit me,” referring to his having been told to punch out. The defendant then lingered there for approximately ten minutes when the victim entered building D to have a tire repaired. The victim asked the defendant why he was there and if he had punched out. The defendant replied that he had. The victim then entered a nearby rest room and emerged shortly thereafter. As the defendant walked past the victim to exit the building, he drew a .40 caliber semiautomatic pistol from the area of his waist, aimed at the victim’s head and fired. The victim fell to the floor, and the defendant walked up to him and fired three more shots into the victim as he lay on the floor. There were no witnesses to the shooting, but the defendant was seen fleeing building D, stuffing an object into the waist of his trousers. All four shots were potentially fatal, and it was determined that the victim died of a homicide by multiple gunshot wounds.

The defendant fled through the nursery and was tracked down approximately two hours later by a Madison police officer and his canine. He was found hiding in a marshy area across the street from the nursery. A .40 caliber semiautomatic pistol containing a magazine [788]*788with seven unfired rounds, a hat, a magazine with eleven unfired rounds, keys and a jacket worn by the defendant earlier that day were found in the immediate area. The pistol found near the defendant was the one used to shoot the victim and had been purchased in the New Haven area on September 3, 1993.

I

The defendant first claims that the trial court improperly applied the standard set forth in § 53a-54a (a) to evaluate the extreme emotional disturbance defense. We disagree.

Because the defendant failed to preserve his claim properly at trial, he seeks review under State v. Golding, 213 Conn. 233, 239-40, 567 A.2d 823 (1989), or the plain error doctrine. “Under Golding, a defendant can prevail on a claim of constitutional error not preserved at trial only if all of the following conditions are met: (1) the record is adequate to review the alleged claim of error; (2) the claim is of constitutional magnitude alleging the violation of a fundamental right; (3) the alleged constitutional violation clearly exists and clearly deprived the defendant of a fair trial; and (4) if subject to harmless error analysis, the state has failed to demonstrate harmlessness of the alleged constitutional violation beyond a reasonable doubt. . . . The first two conditions are determinations of whether a defendant’s claim will be reviewed, and the third condition involves a review of the claim itself. . . . State v. Sanders, 37 Conn. App. 219, 220, 655 A.2d 805, cert. denied, 233 Conn. 909, 658 A.2d 981 (1995); Wilson v. Cohen, 222 Conn. 591, 603, 610 A.2d 1177 (1992); State v. Graham, 33 Conn. App. 432, 442, 636 A.2d 852, cert. denied, 229 Conn. 906, 640 A.2d 117 (1994).” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Santos, 41 Conn. App. 361, 364, 675 A.2d 930, cert. denied, 237 Conn. 932, 677 A.2d 1374 (1996). As in Santos, the defendant claims that the three [789]*789judge court, by misconstruing the extreme emotional disturbance standard, denied him the constitutional due process right to establish a defense. Because the record is adequate for review and the claim is of constitutional magnitude, we will review the defendant’s claim.

Section 53a-54a (a) provides in pertinent part that “in any prosecution [for murder] under this subsection, it shall be an affirmative defense that the defendant committed the proscribed act or acts under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance for which there was a reasonable explanation or excuse, the reasonableness of which is to be determined from the viewpoint of a person in the defendant’s situation under the circumstances as the defendant believed them to be . . . .” “[T]he statute sets forth a standard that is objective in its overview, but subjective as to the defendant’s belief.” State v. Elliott, 177 Conn. 1, 7, 411 A.2d 3 (1979). Thus, “the determination of the reasonableness of the explanation or excuse for the emotional disturbance must be measured from the viewpoint of a reasonable person in the defendant’s situation under the circumstances as the defendant believed them to be.” State v. Steiger, 218 Conn. 349, 385, 590 A.2d 408 (1991).

The crux of the defendant’s claim is that because the trial court failed to articulate, in its memorandum of decision, the facts relied on in assessing the defendant’s situation under the circumstances as he believed them to be, it failed to apply the standard properly.3 The defendant concedes that the three judge court articulated the correct standard in its memorandum of decision. Specifically, the trial court stated that “we are required to measure the reasonableness of the defendant’s explanation or excuse from the viewpoint of a [790]*790reasonable person in the defendant’s situation under the circumstances as the defendant believed them to be.”

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Bluebook (online)
713 A.2d 847, 48 Conn. App. 784, 1998 Conn. App. LEXIS 234, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-gonzalez-rivera-connappct-1998.