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Robert COURCHESNE

 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics: Drug debt
Number of victims: 1 + 1
Date of murder: September 15, 1998
Date of birth: 1963
Victims profile: Demetris Rodgers (8 months pregnant - the baby died 42 days later)
Method of murder: Stabbing with knife
Location: Waterbury County, Connecticut, USA
Status: Sentenced to death on December 17, 2003
 
 

State of Connecticut v. Robert Courchesne

opinion SC16665
 
 

Robert Courchesne was convicted of capital felony by a three-judge panel in the Sept. 15, 1998, deaths of Demetris Rodgers and her baby. Rodgers was eight months pregnant when she was stabbed over a $410 drug debt. Her baby was delivered by emergency Caesarean section minutes after her death, but died 42 days later.

"Police said Courchesne owed Rodgers the money for crack cocaine, and he lured her to a Waterbury, Connecticut bank under the guise of getting cash. Instead, he stabbed Rodgers and left her bloody body in the middle of the street.

Courchesne read a statement in court Thursday. He spoke in a slow, staccato voice, blaming his actions on his crack cocaine habit, the Republican-American of Waterbury, Connecticut reported in Friday's editions. "When you're high it changes you into a nasty, greedy monster," Courchesne said. "Now I have to pay for being that monster."

 
 

Robert Courchesne—white, age 41

Sentenced to death in Waterbury County, Connecticut

By: A jury

Date of crime: 9/15/98

Prosecution’s case/defense response: Victim Demetris Rogers was haranguing Courchesne to pay her for crack cocaine she had supplied him earlier in the day when he stabbed her multiple times and left her to die in the street. Rogers was nine months pregnant—the baby was surgically delivered and survived for 42 days before succumbing due to lack of oxygen during the time her mother was dying. The death of the baby accounted for a second murder conviction against Courchesne. The defense did not contest guilt, but argued that Courchesne had lived a good life before he had developed his drug habit, and that the victim had in part provoked the attack through her illegal drug dealing. (Note: This is an unusual case where a white defendant received a death sentence for killing black victims.)

Prosecutor(s): John Connelly
Defense lawyer(s): Ronald Gold, Kenneth Simon

 
 

Connecticut man sentenced to death for killing pregnant woman

WATERBURY, Connecticut -- A Waterbury, Connecticut man became the eighth person on Connecticut's death row Thursday when he was sentenced to die by lethal injection for killing a pregnant woman and her baby.

Superior Court Judge Frank M. D'Addabbo, acting on a recommendation made by a jury last month, sentenced 46-year-old Robert Courchesne to death.

Courchesne was convicted of capital felony by a three-judge panel two years ago in the Sept. 15, 1998, deaths of Demetris Rodgers and her baby. Rodgers was eight months pregnant when she was stabbed over a $410 drug debt, prosecutors said. Her baby, Antonia, was delivered by emergency Caesarean section minutes after her death, but died 42 days later.

Police said Courchesne owed Rodgers the money for crack cocaine, and he lured her to a Waterbury, Connecticut bank under the guise of getting cash. Instead, he stabbed Rodgers and left her bloody body in the middle of the street.

Courchesne read a statement in court Thursday. He spoke in a slow, staccato voice, blaming his actions on his crack cocaine habit, the Republican-American of Waterbury, Connecticut reported in Friday's editions.

"When you're high it changes you into a nasty, greedy monster," Courchesne said. "Now I have to pay for being that monster."

"It was never my intention for this to happen," Courchesne said. "If I could turn back the clock or take their place, I would."

Rodgers' cousin, Beulah Gardner, spoke on the family's behalf at the sentencing hearing.

"Your death will be nothing compared to the death sentence you handed down on Demetris and Antonia," Gardner said. "Your death will be painless and short. Demetris' death was painful and long.

When Courchesne spoke, Rodgers' mother, Margie, stared at him with a seemingly impenetrable gaze as he turned to face her.

"I didn't want him looking at me," she said.

D'Addabbo set an execution date of May 14, but the sentence isn't expected to be carried out for years. Connecticut has not executed anyone since 1960, when Joseph "Mad Dog" Taborsky went to the electric chair for a murder and robbery spree.

Courchesne will be granted an automatic stay of execution when his lawyer file his mandatory appeal. The case will likely be tied up in courts for years.

Six of the state's eight death row inmates were prosecuted in Waterbury, Connecticut. The last to receive a death sentence was Ivo Colon, who brutally beat 2-year-old Keriana Tellado to death in 1998.

Before Thursday's hearing began, Public Defenders Ronald Gold and Kenneth Simon tried unsuccessfully to get Courchesne a new trial, or a life sentence. Gold and Simon filed five motions Monday in an attempt to spare Courchesne the death penalty.

Most of the motions are routine filings in a death penalty case. All of the requests were denied Thursday, but will form the basis of Courchesne's mandatory appeal.

Gold said he will file that appeal before the state Supreme Court within the next 20 days.

The attorneys first argued that D'Addabbo should set aside the jury's verdict and impose a life sentence because there was insufficient evidence of aggravating factors that led jurors to recommend death.

Citing about a dozen trial court errors, the attorneys asked that Courchesne be granted a new penalty trial.

Arguing the death penalty was being arbitrarily imposed on Courchesne, the attorneys drew on another murder case involving a pregnant woman. They cited the case of Michael Latour, a Danielson man convicted Thursday afternoon of murder in the shooting death of his pregnant ex-girlfriend, Jenny McMechen. He faces 60 years in prison.

Like Rodgers, McMechen died about a month shy of her due date. But McMechen's baby died in her womb. Because Antonia Rodgers was born, Waterbury, Connecticut State's Attorney John Connelly was able to charge Courchesne with capital felony murder for killing two people.

"We have two defendants who did basically the same thing," Gold said. "One is getting a death sentence and the other isn't exposed to a death sentence. I can't think of something more arbitrary than that."

Connelly called Gold's argument "absurd."

"The fact is that the reason Mr. Courchesne was charged, convicted of capital felony murder and sentenced to die this morning was because he murdered two people. He murdered Demetris Rodgers and he murdered Antonia Rodgers."

 
 

Death Row Inmate Appeals Sentence

Courchesne Convicted In Pregnant Woman's Death

WFSD.com

March 19, 2008

HARTFORD, Conn. --A man on death row for murdering a pregnant woman has brought his case to the state Supreme Court.

Robert Courchesne is appealing to the state Supreme Court a decade after the murder.

Lawyers for Courchesne claim that mistakes made at trial should force a new penalty hearing.

Courchesne was convicted of the 1998 stabbing death of Demetris Rogers. Rogers was pregnant at the time and her child was delivered prematurely. The baby died 42 days later.

Prosecutors said the killing was over a $400 drug debt.

Courchesne's attorney argued to the Supreme Court on Wednesday that the death sentence should be overturned because of errors made by prosecutors and the judge.

"We feel that there was a reasonable chance that the trial court's errors impacted the jury and this court should reverse," said defense attorney John Holdridge.

Channel 3 Eyewitness News reporter Eric Parker reported that the bulk of Wednesday's arguments centered on whether jurors were improperly affected by prosecution statements at trial, particularly that life in prison may not be a tough enough sentence.

"Court after court has held that this is improper evidence and it should not be considered during deliberations," Holdridge said.

The state argued that if any errors were made, they weren't serious enough to warrant ordering a new trial, especially in light of the crime committed.

"Not only did he intend to murder her, but he intended to inflict excruciating pain beyond that needed to kill," said Assistant State's Attorney Robert Scheinblum.

Parker reported that Wednesday marked the second time the case went before the Supreme Court. In 2003, justices upheld the lower court's guilty verdict.

 
 

STATE  v. ROBERT COURCHESNE, SC 17174

Judicial District of Waterbury

Criminal; Death Penalty; Whether Unborn Child is a "Person"; Whether Defendant Intended to Murder Unborn Child; If Common Law "Born Alive" Rule Applies, whether Child was born "Alive";  Whether Capital Punishment Scheme gives Unfettered Discretion to Prosecutors to Seek a Sentence of Death; Whether State v. Courchesne, 262 Conn. 537 (2003), was Overruled in its Entirety by General Statutes § 1-2z.

The defendant was convicted of murder and capital felony murder in connection with the stabbing of a mother and her unborn child. The mother died shortly after being stabbed.  The child was born by emergency cesarean section and placed on life support. She died forty-two days later when she was removed from life support. Prior to the defendant's penalty phase hearing, the trial court ruled that, in order for the death penalty to be imposed, the state had to prove the aggravating factor that it indicated that it would rely on - that the defendant had committed the offense in an especially heinous, cruel or depraved manner - as to the murders of both victims. In an interlocutory appeal by the state, the Supreme Court held that the state was required only to prove that the defendant killed one of the victims in an especially heinous, cruel or depraved manner. In a separate portion of its opinion, the court discussed its approach to statutory construction and stated that it would ordinarily consider all relevant sources of meaning of a statute without first having to determine whether the language at issue is ambiguous.  State v. Courchesne, 262 Conn. 537 (2003).  Subsequently, at the penalty phase hearing, a jury of twelve found that the defendant had committed the murder of the mother in an especially heinous, cruel or depraved manner.  He was thereupon sentenced to death for her murder and to life imprisonment without the possibility of release for the murder of the child. On appeal, the defendant has raised numerous issues relating to his convictions and sentence of death. Among the specific issues he has raised are: (1) Should the trial court have dismissed the counts alleging murder of an unborn child because an unborn fetus is not legally a "person" and, even if the unborn fetus was a person, the defendant lacked the requisite intent to kill her?  (2) If the trial court correctly ruled that someone who injures an unborn fetus can be prosecuted for murder if the fetus is subsequently born alive and then dies, was there sufficient evidence presented to show that the child was alive when the cesarean section was performed? (3) Should the trial court have granted the defendant's motion to impose a life sentence without release where the defendant argues that Connecticut's capital punishment scheme gives prosecutors unfettered and standardless discretion to seek a sentence of death, that such discretion is unconstitutional under both the federal and state constitutions, and that such discretion violates General Statutes § 53a-46b (b) (1), which states that a death sentence shall be affirmed unless it was "the product of passion, prejudice or any other arbitrary factor"? and (4) Should the trial court have instructed the jury that for the death penalty to be imposed for the capital felony of murder of two or more persons in the course of a single transaction and where the state has alleged the aggravating factor of the offense's being "especially heinous, cruel or depraved" under General Statutes § 53a-46a (i) (4), the state must prove that factor as to both victims?  With regard to the latter issue, the defendant claims that by enacting General Statutes § 1-2z (the "plain meaning rule"), the legislature overruled State v. Courchesne, supra, in its entirety.  He thus contends that he is entitled to a new penalty phase hearing at which the jury will be instructed that the state must prove the aggravating factor as to both victims.

 

 
 
 
 
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