Facts
- Michael Person and Leshea Pouncey were engaged; Pouncey ended the engagement and began dating another man.
- Person went to Pouncey’s apartment to retrieve belongings and forced entry when she was not home.
- When Pouncey returned, Person was in a bedroom; Pouncey approached with mace and two knives.
- A struggle followed; Person fatally stabbed Pouncey, fled, and later surrendered to police.
- Person claimed he acted under extreme emotional disturbance (EED) arising from the breakup and Pouncey’s new relationship.
- Person testified on direct that he was “somewhat” upset, but on cross stated he was “not really” upset; the defense presented no expert evidence of an extreme psychological condition.
Issues
- Whether the evidence provided a sufficient foundation to require a jury instruction on the affirmative defense of extreme emotional disturbance in a murder prosecution.
- Whether a defendant’s equivocal or contradictory testimony about his emotional state can fail to satisfy the threshold showing needed to submit EED to the jury.
Decision
- The Connecticut Supreme Court affirmed the judgment upholding Person’s murder conviction.
- The court held the trial court properly refused to instruct the jury on EED because the record lacked sufficient evidence for a rational jury to find the defense proven.
- The court concluded Person’s own testimony did not support, and instead undermined, the claim that he was under an “extreme” emotional disturbance at the time of the killing.
- The court rejected reliance on surrounding circumstances alone as insufficient, on this record, to meet the evidentiary threshold for an EED instruction.
Legal Principles
- A defendant is entitled to a requested instruction on a recognized defense only if the record contains evidence from which a rational jury could find in the defendant’s favor on that defense; conjecture or surmise is insufficient.
- Extreme emotional disturbance is an affirmative defense that mitigates murder to manslaughter when the defendant proves (1) a subjective extreme emotional disturbance at the time of the homicide and (2) a reasonable explanation or excuse from the standpoint of a person in the defendant’s situation under the circumstances as the defendant believed them to be.
- Because EED is an affirmative defense, the defendant bears the burden of producing evidence sufficient to put the defense in issue and the burden of persuading the factfinder by a preponderance of the evidence.
- A trial court may decline to charge on EED when the defendant’s own evidence negates an element of the defense and the remaining circumstantial evidence does not supply a non-speculative basis for the required extreme emotional state.
Conclusion
The court affirmed Person’s murder conviction, holding that an EED instruction was not warranted because the evidence—particularly Person’s own testimony describing only mild or absent upset—did not provide a sufficient basis for a rational jury to find that he acted under an extreme emotional disturbance with a reasonable explanation or excuse.