State v. Armadore

338 Conn. 407
CourtSupreme Court of Connecticut
DecidedMarch 23, 2021
DocketSC20248
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 338 Conn. 407 (State v. Armadore) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Connecticut primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Armadore, 338 Conn. 407 (Colo. 2021).

Opinion

STATE OF CONNECTICUT v. DARIUS ARMADORE (SC 20248) McDonald, D’Auria, Kahn, Ecker, Keller and Vertefeuille, Js.

Syllabus

Convicted of the crime of murder in connection with the shooting death of the victim, the defendant appealed. The defendant and a friend, T, had driven to a café, where the victim was fatally shot, and subsequently drove to a nightclub about twelve miles away. Another individual, G, Page 4 CONNECTICUT LAW JOURNAL October 5, 2021

408 OCTOBER, 2021 338 Conn. 407 State v. Armadore saw T and a man who matched the defendant’s description enter the nightclub about fifteen to twenty minutes after G received a phone call informing him that the victim had been shot. The defendant claimed that he was at the nightclub at the time of the shooting. After oral argument before the Appellate Court but before that court released its decision in the present case, the United States Supreme Court decided Carpenter v. United States (138 S. Ct. 2206), in which the court held that the fourth amendment requires the government to obtain a warrant supported by probable cause before acquiring historical cell site location information (CSLI), which reveals a cell phone user’s past physical movements. The Appellate Court thereafter summarily denied the defen- dant’s motion for permission to file a supplemental brief to raise a new claim, premised on Carpenter, challenging the admission of certain CSLI records, which the police had obtained prior to the defendant’s arrest. The CSLI records of the defendant’s cell phone and the two cell phones T had with him on the night of the shooting were admitted into evidence at trial without objection. Relying on the CSLI records of T’s phones, the state’s expert testified that T’s and the defendant’s cell phones were located near the café at about the time of the shooting and near the nightclub shortly thereafter. The Appellate Court upheld the defendant’s conviction, and the defendant, on the granting of certification, appealed to this court, claiming, inter alia, that the Appellate Court improperly had denied his motion for permission to file a supplemental brief. Held: 1. The defendant could not prevail on his claim that the Appellate Court improperly denied his motion for permission to file a supplemental brief after oral argument before that court so that he could raise an unpreserved claim premised on the new constitutional rule announced in Carpenter, as his claim failed under the fourth prong of State v. Golding (213 Conn. 233) because the Appellate Court’s failure to permit the defendant to file a supplemental brief was harmless beyond a reason- able doubt: generally, an appellate court should grant a request for supplemental briefing when a party asks it to entertain an unpreserved claim premised on a newly announced constitutional rule in all but the clearest of situations in which the claim would fail under one of Golding’s four prongs, and principles of fairness and equity required the Appellate Court to exercise its discretion to grant the defendant’s motion; neverthe- less, the state sustained its burden of demonstrating that any claimed error was harmless, there having been significant evidence presented at trial that placed the defendant at the crime scene at the time of the shooting, including the historical CSLI records from T’s two cell phones, which placed T at the café around the time of the shooting, T’s testimony that he had the two cell phones throughout the night, admissions by both T and the defendant, to the police and at trial, that they were together that night, and testimony from other witnesses that they had seen a man fitting the defendant’s description flee the scene of the shooting and enter a car that matched the appearance of the car T was October 5, 2021 CONNECTICUT LAW JOURNAL Page 5

338 Conn. 407 OCTOBER, 2021 409 State v. Armadore driving, and there having been significant evidence linking the defendant to the victim’s murder, including DNA and ballistics evidence, and the defendant’s statement to his girlfriend that he had shot someone on the night of the victim’s murder; moreover, there was no merit to the defendant’s claim that this court could not consider the CSLI records of T’s cell phones in determining the strength of the state’s case, as the defendant lacked standing to challenge the admission of T’s CSLI records on the ground that such admission violated T’s fourth amendment rights. 2. The trial court properly admitted G’s testimony about a phone call that he had received from another individual informing him that the victim had been shot: the Appellate Court incorrectly determined that the defendant had not adequately preserved his claim that G’s testimony constituted inadmissible hearsay because, although defense counsel objected when the prosecutor asked G what was said to G during the phone call without clarifying that the ground for the objection was hearsay, the state and the trial court were aware of the basis of the objection, and, thus, any failure by defense counsel to clarify the ground for the objection did not deprive the state and the trial court of fair notice of the defendant’s claim; moreover, G’s testimony was properly admitted as nonhearsay, as the caller’s statements were not offered for their truth but, rather, to show their effect on G, specifically, that the phone call caused G to take certain actions that were relevant to establish the state’s time line of events; furthermore, even if G’s testimony about the call constituted inadmissible hearsay, its admission was harmless because, even if G had not been permitted to testify about what the caller told him, G’s other testimony, to which defense counsel did not object, would have led a jury reasonably to infer that the victim had been shot prior to the defendant’s and T’s arrival at the nightclub, and because there was other evidence establishing the defendant’s guilt, including the CSLI records of T’s phones, which, coupled with the defen- dant’s admission that he was with T on the night of the shooting, demon- strated that the defendant was near the café at the time of the shooting.

Argued October 20, 2020—officially released March 23, 2021*

Procedural History

Substitute information charging the defendant with the crime of murder, brought to the Superior Court in the judicial district of New London and tried to the jury before A. Hadden, J.; verdict and judgment of guilty, from which the defendant appealed to this court; there- after, the case was transferred to the Appellate Court, * March 23, 2021, the date that this decision was released as a slip opinion, is the operative date for all substantive and procedural purposes. Page 6 CONNECTICUT LAW JOURNAL October 5, 2021

410 OCTOBER, 2021 338 Conn. 407 State v. Armadore

which denied the defendant’s motions for permission to file a late motion for rectification and to file a supple- mental brief; subsequently, the Appellate Court, Lavine, Sheldon and Harper, Js., affirmed the judgment of the trial court, and the defendant, on the granting of certifi- cation, appealed to this court. Affirmed. Emily Graner Sexton, assigned counsel, with whom were Julia K. Conlin, assigned counsel, and, on the brief, Matthew C. Eagan, assigned counsel, James P. Sexton, assigned counsel, Megan L. Wade, assigned counsel, and John R. Weikart, assigned counsel, for the appellant (defendant). James A. Killen, senior assistant state’s attorney, with whom, on the brief, were Michael L. Regan, state’s attorney, and Paul J. Narducci, supervisory assistant state’s attorney, for the appellee (state). Opinion

D’AURIA, J. In this certified appeal, we are again required to examine the effect of the United States Supreme Court’s recent decision in Carpenter v. United States, U.S. , 138 S. Ct. 2206, 201 L. Ed. 2d 507 (2018), on a pending case.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
338 Conn. 407, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-armadore-conn-2021.