State v. Henderson

309 A.3d 1208

348 Conn. 648

STATE of Connecticut

v.Lawrence Lee HENDERSON

(SC 20688)

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued October 19, 2023

Officially Released March 19, 2024

Pamela S. Nagy, supervisory assistant, public defender, for the appellant (defendant).

Rocco A. Chiarenza, senior assistant state’s attorney, with whom, on the brief, were Michael A. Gailor, state’s attorney, and Kevin M. Shay, former senior assistant state’s attorney, for the appellee (state).

Robinson, C. J., and McDonald, D’Auria, Mullins, Ecker, Alexander and Dannehy, Js.

D’AURIA, J.

[1] ₆₅₁In this direct appeal, the defendant, Lawrence Lee Henderson, asks us (1) to reexamine our decision in State v. Arroyo, 292 Conn. 558, 973 A.2d 1254 (2009), cert. denied, 559 U.S. 911, 130 S. Ct. 1296, 175 L. Ed. 2d 1086 (2010), holding that consistency in verdicts is immaterial and legally inconsistent verdicts are therefore not reviewable on appeal, and (2) to hold that the trial court abused its discretion by failing to declare a mistrial when he contracted COVID-19, which resulted in a twenty-five day interruption in jury deliberations. More specifically, the defendant first argues that we should overrule or modify Arroyo because the jury’s verdict finding him guilty of home invasion, in violation of General Statutes § 53a-100aa (a) (1), was legally inconsistent with its verdict finding him not guilty of the lesser included offense of burglary in the third degree, in violation of General Statutes § 53a-103, even though the same facts and allegations underpinned both charges.¹ ₆₅₂He also argues that the trial court abused its discretion in denying his motion for a mistrial, in which he contended that the twenty-five day pause after the jury began deliberating prejudiced him because of the risk that jurors would be exposed to improper outside influences or would forget evidence, counsel’s arguments or the trial court’s instructions. We disagree with both claims and affirm the trial court’s judgment.

₆₅₃Our consideration of the defendant’s claims is framed by the following procedural history, along with the following facts that the jury reasonably could have found. The defendant and another man referred to as "Dro" knocked on John Pillarella’s apartment door in Middle-town at about 11 p.m. on September 6, 2020, asking Pillarella if someone named Gina was there. Pillarella responded that Gina was not there and that the two men were at the wrong apartment. Pillarella’s next door neighbor was a drug dealer, and people often would mistakenly knock on Pillarella’s door at all hours of the night looking for his neighbor. Pillarella had not invited any guests to his apartment that evening, so he assumed that the defendant and Dro were looking for his neighbor. Pillarella shut his apartment door, and the defendant and Dro proceeded to kick it down. A struggle ensued between the defendant and Pillarella, who began bleeding heavily from his head. Meanwhile, Dro went through the apartment and found Pillarella’s wallet. After Pillarella refused to disclose the PIN number for his debit card, the defendant and Dro took "a few dollars" from the wallet, along with two cell phones.

After the defendant and Dro fled the scene, Pillarella asked a neighbor for help. A person at the scene found a police sergeant on patrol, who called for additional police, medical aid, and a K-9 unit. Although the K-9 unit could not find Dro, they did find the defendant hiding behind nearby bushes. Later, at the police station, the defendant admitted that he had been looking for drugs when he knocked on Pillarella’s door.

In an amended long form information, the state charged the defendant with one count each of home invasion, in violation of § 53a-100aa (a) (1), burglary in the first degree, in violation of General Statutes § 53a-101 (a) (3), robbery in the second degree, in violation of General Statutes, § 53a-135 (a) (1) (A), and assault in the second degree, in violation of General Statutes ₆₅₄§ 53a-60 (a) (7). On September 21, 2021, after eight months of pretrial incarceration, the defendant filed a speedy trial motion. The trial court granted this motion on September 29, 2021, and the case was tried to a jury in October, 2021. The court instructed the jury to return verdicts on each of the four charged counts and, if it found the defendant not guilty of any of those charges, to also return a verdict on the corresponding lesser included offense for three of the four counts. Specifically, the court charged the jury on burglary in the second degree, in violation of General Statutes § 53a-102, as a lesser included offense of home invasion; burglary in the third degree, in violation of § 53a-103, as a lesser included offense of burglary in the first degree; and assault in the third degree, in violation of General Statutes § 53a-61, as a lesser included offense of assault in the second degree in violation of § 53a-60 (a) (7). The court did not charge the jury on any lesser included offense of robbery in the second degree. Both parties agreed to the trial court’s jury instructions regarding the lesser included offenses. Neither party requested that the trial court instruct the jury about any other lesser included offenses.

[2] After the defendant’s exposure to and ultimate contraction of the COVID-19 virus during trial, which resulted in a twenty-five day interruption in jury deliberations, the jury found the defendant guilty of home invasion but not guilty of first degree burglary, second degree burglary, third degree burglary, second degree robbery, second degree assault, and third degree assault.² Defense ₆₅₅counsel did not object to the jury’s verdict prior to the court’s acceptance of the verdict and its discharge of the jury. The trial court sentenced the defendant to a term of fifteen years of imprisonment followed by ten years of special parole. The defendant appealed directly to this court pursuant to General Statutes § 51-199 (b) (3). We will discuss additional facts and procedural history as necessary.

I

We begin with the defendant’s claim that we should vacate his home invasion conviction because the jury’s guilty verdict on that count was legally inconsistent with its not guilty verdict on the third degree burglary count. The defendant argues that we should either vacate the home invasion conviction or grant him a new trial on that count because, as charged in this case, the jury had to find him guilty of each of the elements of third degree burglary before it could find him guilty of home invasion, yet the jury found him not guilty of third degree burglary and still found him guilty of home invasion.³ The defendant concedes that Arroyo prevents review of this claim on appeal and thus asks us to overturn or modify Arroyo. Specifically, he contends that we should overrule Arroyo and hold that inconsistent verdicts are unreliable because they reflect, mistake, confusion, jury nullification, or potential animus toward the defendant, and that upholding unreliable verdicts constitutes a miscarriage of justice.⁴ Alternatively,₆₅₆ the defendant argues that it was plain error for the trial court to render judgment in accordance with the jury’s verdict because the verdict was inconsistent on its face and resulted in manifest injustice, as the defendant stands convicted of home invasion despite the jury’s finding that the state did not meet its burden of proving the lesser included offense of third degree burglary. See Practice Book § 60-5.

The state maintains that logical and compelling reasons underlie the Arroyo rule. The state argues that reviewing inconsistent verdicts on appeal would require that appellate courts speculate about the jury’s reasoning, despite long-standing policies discouraging such conjecture. Further, the state contends that it would be improper for the trial court, sua sponte, to send the jury back to deliberate following an inconsistent verdict because of the risk that the jury may find the defendant guilty of additional charges. In the state’s view, only if the defendant had requested that the trial court decline to accept the jury’s inconsistent verdicts could the court have sent the jury back for further deliberations. Finally, the state argues that the trial court did not commit plain error by accepting the inconsistent verdicts, as this approach conforms with both Connecticut and United States Supreme Court case law.

[3] We agree with the state and adhere to our conclusion in Arroyo that there is no appellate remedy for an inconsistent verdict. If there is anything for the parties or the trial court to do to address an inconsistency in a jury’s verdict, it must be done before the jury has been discharged. It follows necessarily that the trial court did not commit plain error in accepting the verdicts in this case.

[4] At the core of both parties’ arguments on this first issue is our decision in Arroyo, in which we declared that "claims of legal inconsistency between a conviction ₆₅₇and an acquittal are not reviewable." State v. Arroyo, supra, 292 Conn. at 586, 973 A.2d 1254. Explicitly stating that we found the United States Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Powell, 469 U.S. 57, 65, 105 S. Ct. 471, 83 L. Ed. 2d 461 (1984), persuasive, we quoted Powell’s reasoning at length: "[I]nconsistent verdicts … should not necessarily be interpreted as a windfall to the [prosecution] at the defendant’s expense. It is equally possible that the jury, convinced of guilt, properly reached its conclusion on the [greater] offense, and then through mistake, compromise, or lenity, arrived at an inconsistent conclusion on the lesser offense. But in such situations the [prosecution] has no recourse if it wishes to correct the jury’s error; the [prosecution] is precluded from appealing or otherwise upsetting such an acquittal by the [c]onstitution’s [d]ouble [j]eopardy [c]lause." (Footnote omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Arroyo, supra, at 585, ...