State v. Mekoshvili

344 Conn. 673

280 A.3d 388

STATE of Connecticut

v.Shota MEKOSHVILI

SC 20442

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued November 15, 2021

Officially released September 13, 2022

Norman A. Pattis, Bethany, for the appellant (defendant).

Ronald G. Weller, senior assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, were Paul J. Ferencek, state's attorney, and James Bernardi, 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 question presented by this appeal is whether jurors, in order to reject a criminal defendant's claim of self-defense, must unanimously agree as to which component or factor of that defense the state has disproven beyond a reasonable doubt. The Appellate Court, which affirmed the murder conviction of the defendant, Shota Mekoshvili, answered that question in the negative. State v. Mekoshvili , 195 Conn. App. 154, 164, 170, 223 A.3d 834 (2020). The Appellate Court read this court's precedents in State v. Bailey , 209 Conn. 322, 551 A.2d 1206 (1988), and State v. Diggs , 219 Conn. 295, 592 A.2d 949 (1991), to mean that, although a jury must reject a self-defense claim unanimously before it may find a defendant guilty, there is generally no requirement that jurors agree on which specific factor of Connecticut's four factor test¹ for self-defense the state has disproven. See State v. Mekoshvili , supra, at 167–70, 223 A.3d 834. We agree and, accordingly, affirm the judgment of the Appellate Court.

I

The record and the opinion of the Appellate Court set forth the relevant facts that the jury reasonably could have found. See id., at 156–57, 165–66, 223 A.3d 834. Only a brief recitation is necessary for our purposes. In 2014, the victim, Mohammed Kamal, and his business partner operated a taxicab business. The victim typically worked the night shift. "On the evening of Tuesday, August 26, 2014, the victim left home for his shift in the taxi between 9 and 10 p.m. At approximately 12:30 a.m. on August 27, the victim briefly returned home and told his wife that he had forgotten to take the money for his share of the [$475 weekly taxi company] fee that he needed to leave in the taxi; he said he also planned to send some money to his family in Bangladesh. The victim's wife observed him take money out of an armoire, after which the victim returned to his shift. At approximately 3 a.m., the defendant hailed the victim's taxi and directed the victim to drive to Doolittle Road in Stamford. While on Doolittle Road, the defendant began to stab the victim repeatedly. At some point, the defendant opened the glove compartment, stole [more than $400] that the victim had set aside for the taxi fee and for his family in Bangladesh, took the victim's credit card, and fled the scene toward the defendant's apartment." Id., at 156–57, 223 A.3d 834.

Following his confrontation with the victim, the defendant called his friend, Eugene Goldshteyn, and offered Goldshteyn $100 to come pick him up immediately. The defendant later told Goldshteyn that he had been injured and bloodied during an attempted burglary and that he had stabbed the homeowner repeatedly to silence him when the homeowner would not "shut up ...." No other local stabbings were reported that evening.

On the morning of August 27, 2014, the Stamford police found the victim's body lying on the lawn at 150 Doolittle Road in Stamford. An autopsy revealed that the victim had been stabbed 127 times. The victim's death resulted from this stabbing, which included deep stab wounds to his lung and jugular vein, and also numerous cuts to his face. The police also discovered the taxicab in a wooded area across the street. The victim's blood was on the interior of the taxicab. The glove compartment was ajar, and there was no money inside.

The defendant testified in his own defense at trial. He testified that, sometime around 3 a.m. that morning, he accepted a ride home from the victim. He admitted that, after the taxi came to a stop on Doolittle Road, he stabbed the victim repeatedly and then "left [the victim] behind at the crime scene covered in blood ...."

The defendant claimed, however, that he had acted in self-defense and without any intent to kill the victim. The Appellate Court summarized the defendant's account of the events that transpired on the night of the killing as follows. "The victim invited [the defendant] to ride along for free while he picked up another fare. The victim then instructed him to move into the front seat to allow the paying fare to ride in the back. At some point, the victim stopped the car and indicated to the defendant that he wanted to ‘have some fun.’ The victim subsequently grabbed the defendant's genitalia, and the defendant reacted by punching the victim in the face. The victim then grabbed a knife and began attacking the defendant. A struggle between them ensued, and the victim threatened to kill the defendant. The defendant managed to wrestle the knife away from the victim and stabbed him repeatedly." State v. Mekoshvili , supra, 195 Conn. App. at 165–66, 223 A.3d 834. For its part, the state presented abundant evidence from which the jurors reasonably could have concluded either that the defendant had fabricated various aspects of his story or that, even if the story were true, he had used more force than was necessary to defend himself from the victim, who was substantially smaller and older than the defendant.

The following procedural history is relevant to the defendant's claim. The state charged the defendant with murder in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54a (a). At the conclusion of the trial, defense counsel filed a request to charge that would have required that the trial court give a specific unanimity instruction, that is, an instruction that the jurors must agree unanimously as to which factor of our state's four factor self-defense test the state had disproved. The trial court held a hearing on the matter and denied the defendant's request. Instead, the court instructed the jury as to the law of self-defense largely in accordance with our state's model jury charge.² See Connecticut Criminal Jury Instructions 2.8-1, available at https://jud.ct.gov/JI/Criminal/Criminal.pdf (last visited September 7, 2022).

After less than three days of deliberations, the jury unanimously found the defendant guilty of murder, thereby rejecting his claim of self-defense. The trial court rendered judgment in accordance with the jury's verdict and imposed a total effective sentence of sixty years of incarceration. The Appellate Court affirmed the trial court's judgment, rejecting, among other claims, the defendant's argument that the trial court had committed prejudicial error and violated his constitutional rights by failing to give the requested specific unanimity instruction on self-defense. See State v. Mekoshvili , supra, 195 Conn. App. at 164, 167–70, 223 A.3d 834. This certified appeal followed.³

II

The defendant invites us to depart from our precedents and adopt a rule whereby, even in a factually straightforward case such as this one, jurors would have to agree unanimously as to which factor of a self-defense claim the state has disproven. He contends that the complexity of Connecticut's self-defense jury instructions warrants such a novel rule. We decline the invitation.

A

The following well established principles frame our analysis. "An improper instruction on a defense, like an improper instruction on an element of an offense, is of constitutional dimension. ... [T]he standard of review to be applied to the defendant's constitutional claim is whether it is reasonably possible that the jury was misled." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Clark , 264 Conn. 723, 729, 826 A.2d 128 (2003). The constitutional requirements that inform those instructions are a matter of law that we review de novo. See, e.g., State v. David N.J. , 301 Conn. 122, 158, 19 A.3d 646 (2011).

Before a defendant may be found guilty of a criminal offense by a jury, the sixth and fourteenth amendments to the federal constitution require that the jury agree unanimously that the state has established each element of the charged crime beyond a reasonable doubt. See Ramos v. Louisiana , ––– U.S. ––––, 140 S. Ct. 1390, 1397, 206 L. Ed. 2d 583 (2020) (unanimity requirement applies to state criminal proceedings); see also In re Winship , 397 U.S. 358, 364, 90 S. Ct. 1068, 25 L. Ed. 2d 368 (1970) (state must establish each element of crime beyond reasonable doubt). However, the United States Supreme Court has never identified a constitutional requirement as to unanimity on the elements or components of a defense.⁴ See, e.g., 6 W. LaFave et al., Criminal Procedure (4th Ed. 2015) § 22.1 (e), p. 26.

Although the United States Supreme Court has not spoken on the question, we do not write on a blank slate. In State v. Bailey , supra, 209 Conn. 322, 551 A.2d 1206, and State v. Diggs , supra, 219 Conn. 295, 592 A.2d 949, this court considered whether those same constitutional principles require that a jury not only reject a self-defense claim unanimously, but also agree as to which specific component or circumstance of the defense the state has disproven beyond a reasonable doubt.

In Bailey , the defendant claimed, inter alia, that "the trial court [had] erred in ... failing to instruct the jury that it had to agree unanimously [on] which of the alternative ways the state had disproven the defendant's claim of self-defense ...." State v. Bailey , supra, 209 Conn. at 328, 551 A.2d 1206. Recognizing the "fundamental distinctions between proof of liability and disproof of self-defense"; id., at 335, 551 A.2d 1206 ; this court expressed "serious reservation[s] about the applicability of the unanimity requirement to [the components of] self-defense ...." Id., at 336, 551 A.2d 1206. This court stopped short of holding "that a specific unanimity charge would never be required...