Argued
October 17, 2019
Substitute information charging the defendant with the crime
of murder, brought to the Superior Court in the judicial
district of Hartford and tried to the jury before Crawford,
J.; thereafter, the court denied the defendant's motion
for a judgment of acquittal; verdict and judgment of guilty,
from which the defendant appealed.
COUNSEL:
Conrad
Ost Seifert, assigned counsel, for the appellant(defendant).
Denise
B. Smoker, senior assistant state's attorney, with whom,
on the brief, were Gail P. Hardy, state's attorney, and
Donna Mambrino, senior assistant state's attorney, for
the appellee (state).
Judges: Prescott, Bright and Sheldon, Js. BRIGHT, J. In this
opinion the other judges concurred.
OPINION
Page 405
[195
Conn.App. 114] BRIGHT, J.
The
defendant, Maurice Francis, appeals from the judgment of
conviction rendered by the trial court of one count of murder
in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54a. On appeal, the
defendant claims that the court improperly denied his motion
for a judgment of acquittal [1] because there was
insufficient evidence to [195 Conn.App. 115] establish that
he caused the death of the victim [2] or
Page 406
that he had the specific intent to cause the death of the
victim. In the alternative, the defendant requests that we
change our long-standing standard of review with respect to
insufficiency of evidence claims, so that we review the
evidence under a much more rigorous standard to determine if
there is a reasonable view of the evidence that would support
a hypothesis of innocence. We affirm the judgment of the
trial court.
The
following evidence, which was admitted at trial, and relevant
procedural history inform our review. The victim and the
defendant lived together in an apartment building located at
47 Berkeley Drive in Hartford. The victim was employed as a
school bus monitor with Specialty Transportation (Specialty),
which was previously known as Logisticare. She had worked in
that position for approximately four or five years. Her
supervisor was Timothy Gamble. Gamble described the victim as
" happy, always smiling, [and] coming to work on time
every day . . . ." Gamble stated that when the victim
began dating the defendant, however, she changed. The victim
then began to come to work with cuts, bruises, and other
injuries to her body. Her disposition changed. On more than
one occasion, she arrived at work with a bloodied shirt and
injuries. On one specific occasion, she arrived at work
wearing dark glasses in an attempt to hide her blackened eye.
As time went on, Gamble became so concerned for the victim
that he invited her to move in with him and his wife, an
offer [195 Conn.App. 116] which the victim declined. He also
suggested that she go to a women's shelter, which she
also declined.
On the
morning of Saturday, November 1, 2008, at approximately 8:30
a.m., Beverly Copeland, who lived across the street from the
defendant and the victim, left her apartment. As Copeland
went to get into her vehicle, which was parked in front of
her building, she saw a black male standing, looking down at
the grass in front of his apartment building. At first,
Copeland thought the man was looking at a pile of clothing in
the grass. When the man bent down to pick up what was in the
grass, Copeland realized that it was not a pile of clothing,
but, rather, it was the body of a woman, who had braids in
her hair. Copeland then saw the man put the woman's body
over his shoulders. After taking a couple of steps, the man
put down the woman and then began to drag her by the hands
and arms across the street, as her back dragged along the
ground. The woman, herself, did not move. After the man got
to a silver Volvo station wagon that was parked across the
road, he put the woman's body into the front
passenger's seat. Still, the woman did not move. The man
then got into the driver's seat of the silver Volvo
station wagon and began to drive away; Copeland wrote down
the license plate number, which was 110-XDZ.[3]
The
defendant drove the silver 1998 Volvo station wagon (1998
Volvo), with the woman's body in the passenger's
seat, to Sparks Motor Sales in Hartford (Sparks). When he
arrived at approximately 9 a.m., he telephoned Garth Wallen,
the owner of Sparks, who was still at home. The defendant had
purchased his 1998 Volvo from Sparks the previous month, and
he ...