State v. Ayala

STATE OF CONNECTICUT v. ENRIQUE AYALA

AC 35533

COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT

Argued September 23, 2014

January 13, 2015

Lavine, Prescott and Mihalakos, Js.

(Appeal from Superior Court, judicial district of New Haven, geographical area number seven, Oliver, J.)

Katherine C. Essington, assigned counsel, for the appellant (defendant).

Mitchell S. Brody, senior assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, were Michael Dearington, state's attorney, and Seth R. Garbarsky, senior assistant state's attorney, for the appellee (state).

Opinion

LAVINE, J. The defendant, Enrique Ayala, appeals from the judgment of conviction, rendered after a trial to a jury, of three counts of interfering with an officer in violation of General Statutes § 53a-167a. On appeal, the defendant claims that the trial court abused its discretion by (1) excluding from evidence a slow-motion video of events that transpired at the police station and (2) permitting the state to amend the information at the conclusion of evidence. We reverse the judgment of conviction.¹

At trial, the state presented evidence through the testimony of several Meriden police officers concerning the defendant's behavior and actions at a traffic stop and later at the police station. The defendant presented evidence to challenge the credibility of the police officers. The following evidence was before the jury.

Prior to the events that gave rise to this appeal, the defendant spent the evening with family and friends at a restaurant in Meriden. At approximately 1 a.m. on February 9, 2012, the defendant's girlfriend, Michelle Sofianos, drove him home in an Avenger motor vehicle, which was registered and insured in the defendant's name. After the defendant had reached his destination and exited the Avenger, Sofianos made an illegal U-turn near the intersection of Hanover and Orange Streets in Meriden. Officer David Buck witnessed the illegal turn and initiated a traffic stop.

The state presented evidence that before he got out of his police cruiser, Buck informed the police dispatcher of his location. He then walked to the driver's side of the Avenger and asked Sofianos for the insurance and registration cards. In the meantime, the dispatcher sent Officer Margaret Smusz to the scene. When Smusz arrived, she parked her cruiser behind Buck's and walked to the passenger's side of the Avenger. Smusz observed the defendant and used a police code to warn Buck that a man was approaching him from behind. Buck turned and saw the defendant approach him and ask with profanity why Sofianos was being detained. The defendant appeared to the officers to be intoxicated and belligerent. Buck ordered him to stand on the sidewalk, which he did, but he meandered between the sidewalk and the Avenger, swearing and yelling at the police officers about the traffic stop. The defendant was slurring his words, stumbling, and holding onto a street sign. In Smusz' view, the defendant was impeding Buck's efforts to resolve the motor vehicle stop. She instructed the defendant to be quiet and let Buck conduct his investigation. Sofianos identified the defendant, and Buck let her stand outside the Avenger so she could speak to him, but she was unable to calm him down.

Smusz again used a police code to inform Buck thatshe previously had arrested the defendant for a narcotics violation, and that the police had found an unlicensed .45 caliber gun under the seat of the vehicle that the defendant had been driving. Buck noted that the defendant was wearing a leather vest bearing the insignia of a motorcycle club. On the basis of his police training, Buck believed that members of motorcycle clubs typically carry weapons. He radioed for Officer Shane Phillips to respond as additional backup. At the time Phillips arrived, the defendant was milling around on the sidewalk.

Phillips and Smusz approached the defendant but feared for their safety. They asked the defendant if he had any weapons on his person, and he stated that he did not. Despite the defendant's response, Smusz and Phillips informed the defendant that given his police history and their safety concerns, they were going to pat him down for weapons. As Phillips began to pat down the defendant, the defendant tensed up and appeared to pull away. Phillips and Smusz each grabbed one of the defendant's arms and placed him on the hood of the Avenger. Smusz put handcuffs on the defendant and arrested him for interfering. The defendant attempted to raise himself off the Avenger, but the officers pushed him down again. The officers found no weapons as a result of the patdowns. Phillips and Smusz took the defendant to Phillips' cruiser to place him inside, but he was uncooperative and pushed himself away from the cruiser. During the encounter, the defendant bit his lip, causing the lip to bleed. Thereafter, the officers found blood on the cruiser. According to Phillips, the defendant was upset and verbally aggressive. Phillips drove the defendant to the police station on West Main Street.²

At the police station, the defendant got out of the cruiser in a secure garage and walked inside without resisting the officers. The officers placed the defendant against a wall with his legs in a wide stance before putting him in a holding cell. When the holding cell was ready, Buck, Phillips, Smusz, and the desk sergeant took the defendant into a cell to remove the outer layers of his clothing. According to Buck, the defendant was compliant until the officers tried to remove his vest. The defendant refused to cooperate and called the officers "pigs . . . ." Smusz removed the defendant's handcuffs to facilitate the removal of his vest. The defendant uttered profanity and stated: "[Y]ou're not taking off my . . . colors." Phillips kicked the defendant's legs out into a wide stance. According to the officers, the defendant clutched his vest in his hands and moved them forward to prevent Phillips from removing his vest. In response to the defendant's having moved his hands, Buck testified that the officers "drove [the defendant] into" the corner of the wall to contain him.

In order to put handcuffs back on the defendant,Buck, Phillips, Smusz, and the desk sergeant forced the defendant onto the floor, face down. The defendant refused to put his hands behind his back, and the officers used "pain compliance techniques" to compel the defendant to stop resisting. Smusz had her knee in the defendant's back, Buck held his legs, and the sergeant pushed his face to the floor. The defendant thrashed his legs and "donkey kicked"³ Smusz in the thigh. When the defendant failed to follow the officers' commands to stop resisting, Buck used a "dry" Taser stun⁴ on the defendant's bare inner thigh to subdue him.

As a result of having been "driven" into the wall, the defendant sustained a bump on his forehead and a swollen lip. The officers summoned medical assistance, but the defendant resisted the officers' efforts to sit him up so that the medical personnel could attend to him. The defendant swore at the medical personnel and told them to leave him alone. According to Smusz, the defendant already was in lockup and there was no need for his behavior. The defendant refused to cooperate with the booking process and suicide evaluation. The officers, therefore, cut off his clothing and placed him in a paper suit in a cell designated for suicide watch. The defendant remained handcuffed.

The defendant presented the following evidence. The defendant observed Buck stop Sofianos after she made a U-turn. He approached the Avenger to help Sofianos locate the registration and insurance cards. He and Sofianos denied that the defendant was belligerent. They also were in agreement that the defendant walked to the curb when Buck instructed him to do so. Smusz and Phillips arrived at the traffic stop in close succession, and immediately approached the defendant and put him in handcuffs. Phillips stated to the defendant that a person wearing a motorcycle club vest should not approach a police officer. When the officers placed the defendant on the hood of the Avenger for a patdown, they did so with such force that the defendant's face hit the vehicle and his teeth penetrated the skin below his lower lip. Sofianos and the defendant also agreed that the defendant was not uncooperative when Phillips and Smusz escorted him to Phillips' cruiser, and that the officers had difficulty opening the rear door.

The defendant denied that he called the police names and swore at them at the police station. He also claimed that he did not resist the removal of his vest. According to him, when the officers were attempting to remove his vest, Phillips and Buck were pulling him in opposite directions. Phillips kicked his feet apart to put the defendant in a wide stance. Due to his stance, the defendant lost his balance when the officers were removing his vest. He put his hands in front of his face to protect himself from falling against the concrete bench in front of him in the cell. When he was lying on the floor of the cell, he was not able to put his hands behind hisback because the officers were twisting his arms.

The events that transpired at the police station were recorded by a surveillance camera and shown repeatedly to the jury. Buck testified that although police cruisers are equipped with surveillance equipment, the camera in his cruiser had not been working for several months. Smusz and Phillips did not activate the surveillance cameras in their cruisers because police policy directs that the first officer on the scene is responsible for recording the incident. Smusz and Phillips were unaware that Buck's surveillance equipment was not working. Given the defendant's theory of defense that he did not interfere with Buck during the traffic stop, he cross-examined the officers extensively as to why there was no recording of the events that took place at the traffic stop. After the jury found the defendant...