State v. Brown

345 Conn. 354

285 A.3d 367

STATE of Connecticut

v.Jovanne BROWN

SC 20408

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued January 12, 2022

Officially Released December 6, 2022

Jennifer B. Smith, for the appellant (defendant).

Melissa L. Streeto, senior assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, were Joseph T. Corradino, state's attorney, and C. Robert Satti, Jr., former supervisory assistant state's attorney, for the appellee (state).

Robinson, C. J., and McDonald, D'Auria, Mullins, Kahn, Ecker and Keller, Js.

MULLINS, J.

The defendant, Jovanne Brown, was convicted, following a jury trial, of felony murder in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54c, with robbery in the third degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-136 (a) as the predicate felony; intentional manslaughter in the first degree with a firearm in violation of General Statutes § 53a-55 (a) (1) ;¹ and carrying a pistol or revolver without a permit in violation of General Statutes § 29-35 (a).² The trial court vacated the manslaughter conviction on the ground that the defendant could not be convicted of multiple homicide charges for the same act but otherwise rendered judgment in accordance with the verdict.

On appeal, the defendant claims that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction of felony murder. Specifically, he contends that there was no evidence that he intended to commit a larceny, that he committed a larceny, or that he used or threatened the immediate use of physical force to effectuate a taking, as required to establish that he committed robbery in the third degree. The defendant also contends that, if this court agrees with his claim of insufficient evidence of felony murder, it cannot reinstate his vacated conviction of the intentional manslaughter in the first degree with a firearm charge because the state failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he did not shoot the victim in self-defense. Finally, the defendant claims that his conviction must be reversed because the prosecutor engaged in prosecutorial improprieties during closing argument. We reject the defendant's insufficiency claim and, therefore, need not address his claim related to the manslaughter conviction. We also reject the defendant's claims of prosecutorial impropriety and, therefore, affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The jury reasonably could have found the following facts. On the evening of February 24, 2017, the defendant received a phone call from a person known to him as "Marley," who asked the defendant whether he would be willing to assist in a deal involving the purchase and sale of three pounds of marijuana. Marley offered to pay the defendant $2000 to do so. The defendant agreed to participate in the drug deal so that he could get the money he needed to fix his car's transmission.

Shortly after speaking with Marley, the defendant went to the parking lot of the Duchess restaurant in Bridgeport, where Willard Hargrove, an individual unknown to the defendant, drove up in a white Hyundai Sonata. Hargrove told the defendant to sit in the back seat, so that the person who they were going to meet could sit in the front passenger seat and discuss the drug deal. When the defendant got into the car, Hargrove told him that there was a gun on the floor³ and that the defendant's role was to "make sure the deal went right" or to "make sure that nothing happened." He also told the defendant that he should "wipe [the gun] down."

Hargrove drove to Berkshire Avenue in Bridgeport and parked on the street. The victim, Michael Watkins, got out of a car that was parked nearby, approached Hargrove's car, and got into the front passenger seat. The defendant was sitting behind him. After discussing the drug deal with Hargrove, the victim left the car and returned to his own car. Hargrove then left the scene and drove around the block a few times.

Meanwhile, Dave Depass, the person who had provided the victim with the three pounds of marijuana to sell, was watching the transaction from the window of his third floor apartment at the corner of Berkshire Avenue and Orchard Street.⁴ When Depass saw Hargrove leave the scene and drive around the block, he suspected that something was amiss and called the victim by cell phone and warned him two or three times not to get back into Hargrove's car when he returned.

After driving around for several minutes, Hargrove parked his car on Berkshire Avenue again, at which point he exited the car and went to the victim's car to get the marijuana. Shortly thereafter, the victim got into the front passenger seat of Hargrove's car. The defendant was still sitting in the back seat. Using the gun that was on the floor of the car, the defendant shot the victim five times in his back. At some point during this shooting, the defendant received a gunshot wound to his right upper chest. The victim died from his wounds.

After shooting the victim, the defendant crawled over him and exited the car through the front driver side door because the childproof safety locks on the back doors of the Hyundai Sonata were activated. At that point, Hargrove returned to the car carrying a bag of marijuana,⁵ and the defendant told him that he had been shot. Hargrove got into the driver's seat, put the bag in the back seat and pushed the victim out of the car. The defendant then stepped over the victim and got into the front passenger seat. Hargrove drove the defendant to St. Vincent's Medical Center, a hospital in Bridgeport, helped him inside and immediately drove away.

The gun that the defendant used to shoot the victim, a .32 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, was later found in an abandoned car in Bridgeport. When the police searched the crime scene after the removal of the victim's body, the only items of evidence they found were a blood-like substance on the ground and the victim's cell phone. During a subsequent investigation, the police were able to determine that Hargrove possessed a white Hyundai Sonata, but they never found the car.

At about 12:50 a.m. on the morning after the shooting, February 25, 2017, Christopher Lamaine, a lieutenant with the Bridgeport Police Department, went to St. Vincent's Medical Center to interview the defendant. Brian Fitzgerald, a captain with the police department, and Vincent Larrichia, a detective, were there when Lamaine arrived. Before interviewing the defendant, Lamaine viewed a surveillance video recording taken from a house on Brooks Street, adjacent to the scene of the shooting. The video recording, which was of poor quality and repeatedly skipped, showed a white car turning onto Berkshire Avenue and parking at approximately 9:34 p.m. on February 24, 2017. Several minutes later, an individual exited the driver's door and walked in the direction of the victim's car. A few seconds after that, the victim approached the back of the white car and attempted unsuccessfully to open the back door on the passenger side.

After that unsuccessful attempt to enter the rear of the car, the victim, at approximately 9:38 p.m., opened the door to the front passenger seat and got in. Shortly thereafter, the driver's door opened, and an individual, later identified as the defendant, got out. The video then skipped several seconds, after which the defendant could be seen following the car as it moved slowly down the street.⁶ As the defendant approached the front driver side door, the car stopped, and the door opened. The defendant then ran around the front of the car. At that point, the front passenger side door was opened from the inside, and a body emerged from the door and fell to the ground. The defendant stepped over the body, which appeared to be moving, and got into the front passenger seat. The car then left the scene.

During the interview with Lamaine, the defendant stated that, earlier in the evening, he had left his home on Glenwood Avenue in Bridgeport, on the city's east side, to walk several miles to the west side of the city to buy $10 worth of marijuana from an acquaintance. While he was walking, a car pulled up beside him, and a passenger in the car shot him. After he was shot, a white car pulled up beside him, and an individual whom he did not know asked him if he was alright. The defendant said that he was not and got into the car, at which point the individual drove him to the hospital.

Lamaine, who suspected that the white car in which the defendant had been driven to the hospital⁷ was the same white car that was shown on the surveillance video of the crime scene, told the defendant that he had viewed the surveillance video.

Lamaine also told the defendant that the victim was dead and asked the defendant if he knew what happened to the victim. The defendant denied knowing anything about the victim's death. Lamaine also asked the defendant whether, if the police found the white car in which the defendant had arrived at the hospital, they would find his blood in the back seat. The defendant stated that he had initially gotten into the back seat of the car that picked him up and then climbed into the front seat.

In the afternoon of February 25, 2017, Fitzgerald and Larrichia went to the defendant's home on Glenwood Avenue in Bridgeport to interview him again. At that interview, the defendant's parents, his sister and a cousin who identified himself as a correction officer were present. The defendant admitted, at that point, that he had shot the victim with a revolver. The defendant also told Fitzgerald and Larrichia that the victim shot him after he made a noise that startled the victim. The defendant stated that he had agreed to be paid $2000 to "make sure that nothing happened" during the drug deal because he wanted the money to fix his car. When Fitzgerald asked the defendant if "the intent was to rob" the victim of the marijuana, the defendant said, "I guess so."

Shortly after the interview, the police arrested the defendant. The police subsequently charged the defendant with murder, felony murder with the...