Christopher Peak Photo
Outside Congress APT clinic, where Keith Wylie was murdered.
Can a man’s online search history be threatening enough to retroactively justify his homicide?
A defense attorney tried to present that argument by showing all the online auctions for brass knuckles, stun-guns and pepper spray that a man had been trawling through before his death.
The judge decided not to let the jury hear any of it.
The lawyer, Assistant Public Defender Jeffrey LaPierre, put forward that “eBay” defense Thursday as he got a chance to present his client’s side in a murder trial taking place at the state courthouse at Church and Wall Streets.
LaPierre argued that Daniel Streit was acting in self-defense when he knifed Keith Wylie at least 16 times outside the APT Foundation’s methadone clinic on Congress Avenue in October 2017.
Wylie bled out and died within an hour. Streit now faces a first-degree manslaughter charge.
Daniel Streit.
As LaPierre called three witnesses to the stand in a fourth-floor courtroom, the primary defense seemed to be depicting Wylie as a big black man who’d freaked out his scrawny white client. One of his witnesses referred to Wylie as “Black” and Streit as “White Boy,” nicknames that even the lawyers started using.
To make Wylie into an even scarier aggressor for the six-member, all-white jury, LaPierre tried to put forward records of searches for weapons on eBay found on Wylie’s phone. He also tried to get a lookalike for Wylie to tower over Streit in the courtroom.
He suggested that a series of pixelated screen-shots might show APT Foundation clients removing additional weapons from the crime scene before the cops arrived.
Judge Elpedio Vitale didn’t let any of that evidence into the trial, saying it would be prejudicial.
“The Sixth Amendment” — the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury — “does not completely do away with the rules of evidence,” he told the lawyers at one point.
The “eBay” Defense
Cops found two cell phones inside Wylie’s blue Chrysler. Their history contained “hundreds of searches” for weapons, like Tasers and brass knuckles, LaPierre said on Thursday morning. That browsing could prove Streit thought he was protecting himself from a dangerous man, he argued.
Except Streit didn’t learn about the online shopping until recently, meaning it couldn’t explain his motivation in stabbing Wylie, objected Karen Roberg, the assistant state’s attorney prosecuting the case.
To kill someone in self-defense under Connecticut law, one must honestly think that the other person was using deadly physical force, was inflicting great bodily harm or was just about to do either. A killing isn’t justified if there’s a way to retreat in “complete safety.”
LaPierre tried to show that Streit held a reasonable belief that Wylie wanted him dead. Wylie had already knocked him out cold in an earlier fight. He’d repeatedly shouted out in front of APT Foundation patients he planned to kill Streit.
The eBay searches would simply illustrate the kind of man whom Streit encountered in front of the APT Foundation that fatal morning, LaPierre argued.
“It ties into the reasonable fear based on how he approached. For example, if he had a big smile, clearly the state would want to introduce that evidence. Or the opposite, if he was red in the face, frothing at the mouth, and eyes bulging, my client would want to. It’s his demeanor, intensity and presence,” LaPierre said. After the eBay searches, “when he approached, he meant business.”
Roberg objected that there was no way of knowing that Wylie had actually been the one using the phone, which had no passcode, and even if it had been him, no purchases were made.
Judge Vitale said he wouldn’t allow the eBay searches to be admitted because they couldn’t explain how Streit felt before he stabbed Wylie. They’d only cloud the juror’s perception of Wylie, he added.
“To follow up on your analogy, whether he was smiling or frothing at the mouth, in the example, the defendant would be aware of such things. It would affect his subjective state of mind,” Vitale said. “A prejudicial effect would be clear. [Wylie’s] intent is unknowable. There’s no connection between these searches and the defendant’s knowledge.”
Casting Call
Wylie, Perrone.
Earlier on, LaPierre also argued that jurors couldn’t conceptualize how much of a difference Wylie’s seven extra inches of height would make in a brawl with Streit. He asked Judge Vitale for permission to have someone of Wylie’s height stand next to his client for comparison.
Conveniently, La Pierre pointed out, the detective who’d elicited a confession from his client was pretty darn close to Wylie’s size, at 6’1”. He asked the judge if he could use Det. Christopher Perrone for the match-up, with a two-inch thick book to get it exactly right, at 6’3”.
In arguing for the motion, LaPierre said that he was entitled to introduce “demonstrative evidence” that could “prove a fact or illustrate those things” for his client’s defense.
But Judge Vitale said that there were limits to that constitutional right.
He referenced a Connecticut Supreme Court ruling from 1982 about another stabbing.
In that case, a man named Moses Gooch started trash-talking about Paul Fachini, another patron at the Hideaway Disco in Bristol, asking why Fachini thought he was “so bad.” After a bouncer told them to “take it outside,” Gooch pulled a knife.
A crowd circled. Someone yelled. Fachini turned back to look. Gooch slashed his face, cutting four inches from his ear to his chin.
During the trial, where Gooch put forward a similar self-defense claim, the defense attorney wanted Gooch and Fachini to stand back to back in the courtroom. But the judge ruled that the jury had already heard plenty of evidence about the men’s comparative body sizes, and they’d seen them in the courtroom at the same time.
Judge Vitale said the jurors in Streit’s case had likewise heard about Wylie’s stature multiple times.
He said he didn’t understand why jurors needed to see “Detective Peronne stand with a book on his head” to get what was a “matter of common sense.” In fact, he pointed out, they’d even seen Streit standing side-by-side with Perrone on video, as the detective asked him to act out the stabbing in an interrogation room.
The detective wasn’t a dead ringer for Wylie anyway, Vitale added.
“I don’t think he fits the bill,” he said. “With all due respect to Detective Perrone, his weight may not be consistent with the decedent.” He added, “Height has nothing to do with build.”
Vitale denied the request to use a stand-in, saying it posed a “risk of confusion to the jury.” As an alternative, he agreed to let Streit stand next to a 75-inch-high mark on a wall, measured out with a yardstick.
Spinning perceptions about the players outside the APT Foundation didn’t happen only on one side. In her cross-examinations on Thursday, Roberg conjured stereotypes as well.
Roberg made a black-skinned former opioid user out to be a coke-sniffing career criminal who didn’t even remember what his latest conviction had been for. And she made Streit’s ex-girlfriend out to be a love-sick woman who’d say anything to keep her man out of prison.
Streit, for his part, decided not to testify, telling Judge Vitale that he thought he didn’t need to.
Jurors are scheduled to hear closing arguments on Monday morning before they review the evidence to render a verdict.
Even though the defendant didn't know about the web searches, he probably knows that a much larger man who's already beaten him severely, could probably kill him with his bare hands; heck a trained person could do that with one good punch. Doesn't this, combined with prior aggression plus new aggression indicate mens rea on the part of the stabbing victim and support the self defense plea? WVM help?