State v. Santiago

STATE OF CONNECTICUT v. EDUARDO SANTIAGO

SC 17413

COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT

Argued April 27, 2011

Officially released June 12, 2012

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The syllabus and procedural history accompanying the opinion as it appears on the Commission on Official Legal Publications Electronic Bulletin Board Service and in the Connecticut Law Journal and bound volumes of official reports are copyrighted by the Secretary of the State, State of Connecticut, and may not be reproduced and distributed without the express written permission of the Commission on Official Legal Publications, Judicial Branch, State of Connecticut.Rogers, C. J., and Norcott, Zarella, McLachlan, Eveleigh, Harper and Vertefeuille, Js.

Mark Rademacher, assistant public defender, for the appellant (defendant).

Marjorie Allen Dauster, senior assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, were Gail P. Hardy, state's attorney, and Robert J. Scheinblum, Donna Mambrino and John F. Fahey, senior assistant state's attorneys, for the appellee (state).

Opinion

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. BACKGROUND FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY . . . . . . . . . . . 120

A. Guilt Phase . . . . . . . . . . . 120

B. Penalty Phase . . . . . . . . . . . 128

C. Outline of Claims on Appeal . . . . . . . . . . . 142

II. DID PROBABLE CAUSE EXIST FOR THE DEFENDANT'S ARREST ON CAPITAL FELONY CHARGES UNDER § 53a-54b (2)? . . . 146

III. SUPPRESSION ISSUES . . . . . . . . . . . 151

A. Additional Relevant Facts and Procedural History . . . . . . . . . . . 151

B. Should the Trial Court Have Suppressed the Defendant's Statement Made in the Police Cruiser about the Location of the Rifle? . . . . . . . . . . . 157

C. Did the Trial Court Improperly Deny the Defendant's Motion to Suppress His Statement Made at the Police Station? . . . . . 162

1. Was the Defendant's Miranda Waiver Voluntary? . . . . . . . . . . . 163

2. Did the Police Violate the Defendant's Rights under Stoddard? . . . . 167

D. Did the Police Illegally Seize the Murder Weapon during the Protective Sweep of the Defendant's Apartment? . . . . . 172

IV. JURY SELECTION CLAIMS . . . . . . . . . . . 177

V. WAS THERE SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT THE JURY'S GENERAL VERDICT FINDING THE DEFENDANT GUILTY OF CAPITAL FELONY IN VIOLATION OF § 53a-54b (2) UNDER A THEORY OF ACCESSORIAL LIABILITY PURSUANT TO § 53a-8? . . . . . . . . . 179

VI. CLAIMS ARISING FROM THE GUILT PHASE JURY INSTRUCTIONS . . . . . 189

A. Did the Trial Court Properly Instruct the Jury about the Elements of Capital Felony under §§ 53a-54b (2) and 53a-8? 191

1. Was a Separate Agreement by Tyrell to Murder the Victim for Pecuniary Gain Necessary for the Defendant to Be Held Accessorily Liable under §§ 53a-54b (2) and 53a-8? . . . . . . . . 195

2. Did the Trial Court Improperly Fail to Define the Term ''Hired'' under § 53a-54b (2)? . . . . . 196

B. Does the Concededly Improper Instruction on Conspiracy to Commit Burglary in Violation of §§ 53a-48 and 53a-101 (a) (2) Require Reversal of the Defendant's Conviction of That Charge? . . . . 199

C. Did the Trial Court Improperly Instruct the Jury that It Could Not Draw an AdverseInference from the State's Failure to Produce Certain Cell Phone Records? . . . . . . . . . . . 203

VII. DID THE TRIAL COURT IMPROPERLY REFUSE TO DISCLOSE TO THE DEFENDANT THE ENTIRE DEPARTMENT FILE PERTAINING TO HIS FAMILY? . . . . . . . . . . . 211

A. Additional Relevant Facts and Procedural History . . . . . . . . . . . 216

B. Governing Law . . . . . . . . . . . 219

1. Constitutional Bases for In Camera Review . . . . . . . . . . . 220

2. In Camera Review as Applied in Death Penalty Cases under the Due Process Clause . . . . . . . . . . . 224

3. The Import of the ABA Guidelines to In Camera Review of Privileged Records . . . . . . . . . . . 231

4. Appellate Review of the Trial Court's In Camera Determination . . . . . . . . . . . 236

VIII. WAS THE JURY'S SENTENCING VERDICT ARBITRARY, NOT SUPPORTED BY SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE OR OTHERWISE A PRODUCT OF ''PASSION, PREJUDICE OR OTHER ARBITRARY FACTOR?'' . . . . . . . . . . . 241

A. Was There Sufficient Evidence to Support Proof of the Sole Aggravating Factor? . . . . . . . . 243

B. Could the Jury Reasonably Have Found That the Sole Aggravating Factor Outweighed the Defendant's Mitigating Evidence? . . . . . . . . . . . 245

IX. DOES THE FACT THAT THE SOLE AGGRAVATING FACTOR FOUND BY THE JURY IS IDENTICAL TO AN ELEMENT OF THE UNDERLYING CAPITAL CRIME VIOLATE THE CONNECTICUT CONSTITUTION? . . . 248

X. PENALTY PHASE INSTRUCTIONAL CLAIMS . . . . . . . . . . . 260

A. Did the Trial Court Define the Pecuniary Gain Aggravating Factor Adequately? . . . . . . . . . . . 261

B. Did the Trial Court Improperly Instruct the Jury That There Is No Time or Premeditation Requirement Attendant to the Defendant's ''Expectation of the Receipt of Anything of Pecuniary Value?'' . . . . . . . . . . 266

C. Did the Trial Court Improperly Instruct the Jury That the Defendant Bore the Burden of Proving the Mitigating Factor of ''Lingering Doubt?'' . . . 268

D. Did the Trial Court Improperly Instruct the Jury That It Was Not Required to Consider the Cumulative Effect of All the Mitigating Evidence . . . . . . . . . . . 277

E. Did the Trial Court's Instructions Improperly Limit the Jury's Consideration of Mitigating Factors to ThoseThat Are "Unique?" . . . . . . . . 280

F. Did the Trial Court Improperly Fail to Instruct the Jury, Sua Sponte, to Consider the Statutory Mitigating Factor of Minor Involvement under § 53a-46a (h) (3)? . . . . . . . . . . . 282

G. Did the Jury Instructions at the Guilt and Penalty Phases Collectively Reduce the Jury's Sense of Responsibility for the Imposition of the Death Penalty and Effectively Direct a State's Verdict on the Sole Claimed Aggravating Factor? . . . . . . . . 288

XI. MISCELLANEOUS CLAIMS . . . . . . . . 293

A. Is § 53a-46a (d) Unconstitutional Because It Requires the Defendant to Prove by a Preponderance of the Evidence That the Proposed Mitigating Factors Are ''Mitigating in Nature, Considering All the Facts and Circumstances of the Case?'' . . . . . . . . 294

1. Is the ''Facts and Circumstances'' Language of § 53a-46a (d) Unconstitutional under the United States Supreme Court's Decision in Tennard? . . . . . . . . 295

2. Is It Constitutional to Allocate to the Defendant the Burden of Proving Mitigation? . . . . . . . . 302

B. Other Constitutional Challenges to the ''Facts and Circumstances'' Language of § 53a-46a (d) . . . . . . . . . . . 305

C. Does § 53a-46a Unconstitutionally Create a Presumption in Favor of Death or Mandate a Death Sentence without Individualized Determinations? . . . . . . . . 306

D. Is the Death Penalty Per Se Unconstitutional under the Connecticut Constitution? . . . . . . . . 306

NORCOTT, J. The jury in this case found that, for the price of a snowmobile, Marc Pascual hired the defendant, Eduardo Santiago, to murder the victim, Joseph Niwinski, and that the defendant then acted in concert with Matthew Tyrell to break into the victim's home and fatally shoot him in the head while he lay sleeping. The jury then returned a verdict finding the defendant guilty of all of the charged offenses in the ten count information, including: capital felony in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a-54b (2)¹ and 53a-8;² two counts of burglary in the first degree in violation of General Statutes (Rev. to 1999) § 53a-101 (a) (1) and (2)³ and General Statutes § 53a-8; conspiracy to commit murder in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a-48 (a)⁴and 53a-54a (a);⁵ and two counts of conspiracy to commit burglary in the first degree in violation of §§ 53a-48 (a) and 53a-101 (a) (1) and (2).⁶ Following a penalty phase hearing held pursuant to General Statutes (Rev.to 1999) § 53a-46a,⁷ the jury returned a verdict finding that death was the appropriate punishment in this case. The trial court, Lavine, J.,⁸ rendered a judgment of conviction and, in accordance with the jury's verdict, sentenced the defendant to a total effective sentence of death by lethal injection plus imprisonment for forty-five years and ninety days. The defendant now appeals⁹ from the judgment of conviction, raising a multitude of claims arising from both the guilt and penalty phases of the trial.

Although we will outline fully the defendant's twenty-seven appellate claims in part I C of this opinion, we describe at the outset those that present questions of greater legal significance. In addition to claiming that the trial court, Solomon, J., improperly found probable cause that the defendant had committed capital felony by murder for hire, and that the trial court, Lavine, J., improperly denied the defendant's motions to suppress his statement made at the police station, and should also have suppressed evidence of the murder weapon itself, the defendant also contends, through sufficiency of the evidence and instructional claims, that he could not and should not have been convicted as an accessory to capital felony by murder for hire under §§ 53a-54b (2) and 53a-8, in the absence of evidence of a hiring agreement between the principal, Tyrell, and Pascual. Guided by State v. McGann, 199...