State v. Fields

302 Conn. 236

24 A.3d 1243

STATE of Connecticut

v.Lamont FIELDS.

No. 18457.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Jan. 10, 2011.Decided Aug. 30, 2011.

Raymond L. Durelli, special public defender, for the appellant (defendant).Toni M. Smith–Rosario, senior assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, were John A. Connelly, former state's attorney, and Eva Lenczewski, supervisory assistant state's attorney, for the appellee (state).ROGERS, C.J., and NORCOTT, PALMER, ZARELLA, McLACHLAN, EVELEIGH and VERTEFEUILLE, Js.PALMER, J.

A jury found the defendant, Lamont Fields, guilty of two counts of kidnapping in the second degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a–94, one count of assault in the first degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a–59 (a)(1), and one count of risk of injury to a child in violation of General Statutes § 53–21(a)(1). The trial court rendered judgment in accordance with the jury verdict and sentenced the defendant to a total effective sentence of fifty-three years imprisonment. ¹ On appeal,² the defendant claims that (1) he is entitled to a new trial on one of the two kidnapping counts because the trial court improperly failed to instruct the jury in accordance with State v. Salamon, 287 Conn. 509, 550, 949 A.2d 1092 (2008), which bars a jury from finding a defendant guilty of kidnapping if it finds that the restraint used in connection therewith is merely incidental to the restraint used in the commission of another offense, (2) the trial court improperly instructed the jury with respect to the crime of risk of injury, and (3) the risk of injury statute is unconstitutionally vague as applied to his conduct.³ We agree with the defendant's claim of instructional impropriety with respect to the one kidnapping count and, therefore, reverse the judgment of the trial court as to that count. We reject the defendant's remaining claims, however, and, accordingly, we affirm the trial court's judgment in all other respects.

The jury reasonably could have found the following facts. In July, 2005, Marilyn Cortes ended an abusive relationship with the defendant and moved from their shared residence to the home of her daughter, Marilyn (Mary) Razek, in the town of Naugatuck. Mary Razek's husband, Tarrik Razek,⁴ Tarrik Razek's brother, Taoufik Razek, and Taoufik Razek's one year old son, E, ⁵ also resided in the home.⁶ Shortly before ending her relationship with the defendant, Cortes and the defendant had an argument during which the defendant pushed Cortes to the floor of their apartment, choked her, stabbed the floor around her body with a knife and then dragged her up the stairs to her bedroom. Despite this violent altercation, Cortes continued to have feelings for the defendant and therefore sought to end the relationship on good terms. To that end, she allowed the defendant to keep one of her two automobiles, a Ford Contour, so that he would have transportation to look for a job. She also spoke to him on her cell phone regularly following her move to Naugatuck, and she communicated with him, as well, on his frequent trips to visit her at her place of employment. Cortes did not inform the defendant of her new home address, however, because she did not want him to know where she was living. In fact, whenever she drove to her home in Naugatuck, she kept a close eye on the rearview mirror to make sure that the defendant was not following her.

Mary and Tarrik were married on August 27, 2005, and left shortly thereafter for their honeymoon. The day after they departed, Cortes awoke from a nap to find the defendant standing in E's room. Cortes told the defendant that he was not allowed in the house and that he must leave immediately. The defendant responded that he was thinking of moving out of state and that he wanted to talk to her about that possibility. Cortes replied that she would meet the defendant later that evening for dinner and that they could speak then. In order to appease the defendant, she offered to let him take her other automobile, a Cadillac, which he did. Cortes later met the defendant for dinner as planned.

The next morning, on August 29, 2005, the defendant again appeared at Cortes' home. This time, Cortes allowed him inside, and the defendant stayed for approximately twenty minutes. Later that day, Taoufik discovered that $500 in cash was missing from the bedroom that Mary and Tarrik shared.⁷ When Taoufik informed Cortes of the missing money, she immediately called the defendant and accused him of taking it. She also demanded that he return her Cadillac and threatened to call the police if he did not.⁸ After his conversation with Cortes, the defendant called the house repeatedly throughout the afternoon and spoke to Taoufik several times. Although Taoufik did not know the defendant personally, he had seen him on a few occasions in Cortes' company. The two men got into a heated argument during one of the telephone calls, and Taoufik told the defendant that, if he did not return the money within two days, he would call the police. Although, at first, the defendant denied taking the money, he later admitted to Taoufik that he had done so.

The following morning, on August 30, 2005, the defendant called Taoufik to inform him that he had the money and that he would meet him at a coffee shop in the city of Waterbury to return it. Shortly after Taoufik left the house to meet the defendant, the defendant called Cortes to ask whether Taoufik had left, and she told him that he had. The defendant never intended to meet Taoufik but, rather, used the meeting as a pretext to lure him away from the house. Once he was sure that Taoufik was gone, the defendant drove to Cortes' house with another man identified only as Darryl.⁹ When the two men arrived at the house at approximately 10:30 a.m., Darryl dropped the defendant off in the driveway and then drove to a nearby gas station to wait for him. The defendant entered the home unannounced and quickly confronted Cortes, whom he forced at gunpoint into her bedroom. The defendant proceeded to bind Cortes' wrists and to cover her mouth with duct tape.

While the defendant was restraining her, Cortes screamed, “[t]he baby, the baby,” and pleaded with the defendant not to take her from the house because E, who was asleep in his crib at the time, would be left alone. The defendant ignored Cortes' pleas, took the keys to her Cadillac from her dresser and dragged her outside. After placing Cortes in the front passenger seat of the Cadillac, the defendant lowered the seat so that she would not be visible from the street and threatened that he would hurt her if she tried to sit up. The defendant drove the Cadillac to the gas station where Darryl was waiting, picked him up, and then drove Cortes and Darryl back to Cortes' house. The entire trip took approximately twenty-five minutes. Upon returning to the house, the defendant removed the duct tape from Cortes' mouth. Shortly thereafter, E began to cry, and the defendant removed the duct tape from Cortes' wrists so that she could attend to E. From E's bedroom, Cortes could hear the defendant and Darryl discussing their plan to confront Taoufik upon his return to the house.

When the defendant failed to show up at the coffee shop, Taoufik tried several times to reach Cortes on his cell phone. He grew concerned when she did not answer and decided to return home. As soon as Taoufik entered the house, he was confronted by the defendant, who struck him repeatedly on the head and in the face with a BB gun. The first blow broke Taoufik's nose and caused him to fall. The defendant then dragged Taoufik into a nearby bathroom and continued to assault him. While striking Taoufik, the defendant yelled, “[l]ook at me, motherfucker. I'm from the street.... You don't fuck with me or talk to me like that.” Cortes attempted to call the police, but Darryl prevented her from doing so, and when she tried to intervene to stop the assault, the defendant struck her in the face with the BB gun. At some point, Darryl told the defendant that he should stop assaulting Taoufik. By then, Taoufik had lost a significant amount of blood and was drifting in and out of consciousness. The defendant told Darryl, “close the bathroom door, because I'm about to finish this motherfucker right now.” Taoufik understood this to mean that the defendant was going to kill him, and he urged the defendant not to do it in front of his son, E, whom he believed to be nearby.

The defendant stopped the assault at this point, and either the defendant or Darryl wrapped a towel over Taoufik's head, dragged him outside, and placed him in the backseat of the Cadillac.¹⁰ At or around that time, the defendant told Cortes that he “[did not] know why [he was] doing this and [that he was] sorry.” Thereafter, the defendant got into the front passenger seat of the Cadillac and Darryl got into the driver's seat. Darryl tried to lock the doors but was unfamiliar with the controls and inadvertently lowered the car windows. Realizing that the back door was unlocked, Taoufik opened the door and escaped from the vehicle before Darryl drove away. He then ran inside the house, grabbed E and his cell phone, and retreated to the back of the house to call the police.¹¹

The defendant was arrested in the city of Hartford later that evening and was transported to the Naugatuck police department where, after being advised of his Miranda rights,¹² he confessed to assaulting Taoufik. The defendant subsequently was charged with two counts of kidnapping in the second degree,¹³ and one count each of burglary in the first degree, assault in the first degree, risk of injury to a child, larceny in the third degree and larceny in the fifth degree. The jury found the defendant guilty of the kidnapping, assault and risk of injury charges, found him not guilty of the larceny charges, and was unable to reach a verdict as to the burglary charge. Additional facts...