State v. Wright

149 Conn.App. 758

89 A.3d 458

STATE of Connecticut

v.Ryan C. WRIGHT.

No. 33894.

Appellate Court of Connecticut.

Argued Dec. 4, 2013.

Decided April 29, 2014.

Lauren Weisfeld, senior assistant public defender, for the appellant (defendant).

Paul J. Narducci, senior assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, was Michael L. Regan, state's attorney, for the appellee (state).

DiPENTIMA, C.J., and KELLER and BORDEN, Js.

DiPENTIMA, C.J.

The defendant, Ryan C. Wright, appeals from the judgment of conviction, rendered after a jury trial, of conspiracy to commit murder in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a–48 and 53a–54a. On appeal, the defendant claims that the trial court (1) improperly precluded him from presenting evidence of third party culpability by using the incorrect standard and erroneously finding that the evidence was not relevant, and (2) improperly declined to charge the jury on the quality of the police investigation. We affirm the judgment of the court.

The jury reasonably could have found the following facts. On December 9, 2008, at approximately 11:15 p.m., several guests at a hotel in Groton reported to the front desk clerk, Robert Harvey, that they heard several gunshots. Harvey noted these calls in the front desk logbook and then walked around the perimeter of the hotel. He did not see anything suspicious, but noticed a white car leaving the hotel parking lot.

The following morning, a member of the housekeeping staff alerted Harvey that there appeared to be a person lying in the doorway of room 130. Harvey went to room 130 to investigate and observed a man lying face down in the doorway. After nudging the body several times and receiving no response, he noticed bullet shell casings on the floor and called the police.

Upon arriving at the scene, police recovered two spent .40 caliber Smith & Wesson shell casings from the hallway just outside of room 130 and four additional spent shell casings from inside the room. The victim was identified as Jamel Campbell and the autopsy report indicated that he had suffered two gunshot wounds to the chest and abdomen, a gunshot wound to the neck, and several gunshot wounds to the head. Ballistic evidence indicated that the same gun fired all six bullets and discharged all six bullet shell casings.

Near the victim was a set of car keys. The police located the car associated with the keys in the hotel parking lot, and determined that the car was registered to Emily Strother, the victim's girlfriend and mother of his child. After speaking with Strother and several of the victim's friends, the police learned that the victim might have made plans to meet with Meagan Foley at the hotel the night of his death.

When police first spoke with Foley, she informed them that she had communicated with the victim only a few times on December 9, 2008, via text messaging. The victim's phone records, however, indicated more than fifty communications between the victim and Foley on the day in question, including both text messages and telephone calls. When confronted with this information during a second interview, Foley told the police that there was a “blood feud” between the victim and the defendant. Upon receiving this information, the police interviewed the defendant, and during the interview, the defendant denied any involvement in the victim's death and provided the police with two telephone numbers where the police could reach him. The police then sought, obtained, and executed a search warrant for the defendant's residence. The search, however, did not yield any relevant evidence or information.

In addition to searching the defendant's home, the police obtained search warrants for the cell phone records of Foley, the victim and the defendant. When police analyzed the text messaging records of the victim and the defendant for the twenty-four hours preceding the victim's death, the records revealed that the defendant and Foley had planned for Foley to lure the victim to the hotel so that the defendantcould kill him.¹

Foley testified at trial that she had been friends with both the defendant and the victim for approximately ten years before the victim's death and that she had corresponded regularly with both of them. She testified that the victim had become angry with the defendant in November, 2008, when he had learned that the defendant had had sexual relations with Strother while the victim was incarcerated in 2007. She further testified that the victim had told her that he and a friend, Pablo Colon, had met the defendant at a gas station in the defendant's neighborhood and had stolen the defendant's car, had removed the stereo equipment and rims, and had left the car in Hartford.²

Foley testified that the defendant also spoke to her about the altercation he had with the victim at the gas station and that the defendant became increasingly angry every time he discussed the event with her. At one point, the defendant told Foley that, on multiple occasions, he had waited outside her home when he thought the victim was visiting in order to kill him when he exited the house. Afraid that the defendant would kill the victim at her home and that her family might be harmed, Foley testified that she suggested to the defendant that he kill the victim at a hotel and that she helped the defendant plan the murder, and lure the victim to the hotel room.

Foley testified that she and the defendant had agreed that Foley would lure the victim to the hotel and that the defendant had given Foley money to rent the room. Foley stated that she had text messaged the victim and had made plans to meet the victim at the hotel that evening. Foley told the victim that she had lost her identification and would not be able to reserve the hotel room, but that she would give him the money for the room if he reserved it. ³ The victim drove to Foley's residence the evening of his death and picked up the money for the room. Foley testified that she called the victim and he told her that he had reserved room 130 at the hotel. Foley then testified that she called the defendant after speaking with the victim and told the defendant that the victim was staying in room 130.

Foley further testified that at one point, the victim text messaged her and said he was going to leave the hotel. Foley relayed this information to the defendant, and then convinced the victim to stay by telling him that she was almost at the hotel. Very shortly thereafter, Foley received a text message from the defendant saying, “Done.” Foley received no more communications from the victim.

The defendant was arrested and charged by substitute information with murder in violation of § 53a–54a (a) and conspiracy to commit murder in violation of §§ 53a–48 and 53a–54a (a). The jury found the defendant guilty of conspiracy to commit murder, but was unable to come to a unanimous decision on the murder charge. The court rendered judgment in accordance with the jury's verdict of guilty on the conspiracy to commit murder charge, and declared a mistrial as to the murder charge. On August 8, 2011, the defendant was sentenced to twenty years incarceration for conspiracy to commit murder. This appeal followed. Additional facts will be set forth as necessary.

I

The defendant claims that the court erred by improperly precluding him from presenting evidence of third party culpability. He argues that the court (1) used the improper standard to determine whether the evidence of third party culpability should have been admitted, and (2) erroneously found that the evidence was not relevant. We do not agree.

The following additional facts are necessary for our resolution of this claim. The state filed a motion in limine requesting that the court preclude evidence concerning third party culpability unless the defendant showed some evidence that directly connected a third party to the crimes with which the defendant was charged. The motion further requested that the court require the defendant to make an offer of proof prior to introducing evidence of alleged third party culpability so that the court could determine its admissibility outside of the presence of the jury. The court granted the state's motion.

The defendant sought to offer evidence of third party culpability through the testimony of Valerie Reinhart, who had been a friend of the victim for several years. During the defendant's offer of proof, Reinhart was questioned outside of the presence of the jury. She testified that she had known the victim for three years and that approximately one-half hour before the victim's murder, he had told her that someone was threatening him because he had “burnt somebody for Ecstasy pills” and had “messed with the wrong person.” Reinhart further testified that the victim did not provide the name of the person who threatened him, did not describe the person involved, did not specifically indicate when the threats occurred, and did not describe the nature of the threats.

The court found that, although the defendant had a constitutional right to present a defense, he did not have a right to present evidence that was not relevant. The court further found that Reinhart's testimony was “so nebulous and certainly not so direct in the court's mind that it would be relevant and serve any purpose with respect to a claim of third party culpability or that it was not the defendant who committed these particular crimes. Even if the jury were to hear that type of testimony, in my mind, that still does not absolve, so to speak, or even potentially absolve [the defendant] from being found to be the perpetrator of the alleged crimes that he's charged with here. So while [the defendant] certainly has the right to present a defense, he has presented witnesses with respect to his defense of not being the perpetrator, the court does not believe that the evidence that this witness would give rises to a level that it becomes relevant and/or introductory for the...