State v. Bryan

193 Conn. App. 285
CourtConnecticut Appellate Court
DecidedOctober 1, 2019
DocketAC40848
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 193 Conn. App. 285 (State v. Bryan) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Connecticut Appellate Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Bryan, 193 Conn. App. 285 (Colo. Ct. App. 2019).

Opinion

*********************************************** The “officially released” date that appears near the be- ginning of each opinion is the date the opinion will be pub- lished in the Connecticut Law Journal or the date it was released as a slip opinion. The operative date for the be- ginning of all time periods for filing postopinion motions and petitions for certification is the “officially released” date appearing in the opinion.

All opinions are subject to modification and technical correction prior to official publication in the Connecticut Reports and Connecticut Appellate Reports. In the event of discrepancies between the advance release version of an opinion and the latest version appearing in the Connecticut Law Journal and subsequently in the Connecticut Reports or Connecticut Appellate Reports, the latest version is to be considered authoritative.

The syllabus and procedural history accompanying the opinion as it appears in the Connecticut Law Journal and bound volumes of official reports are copyrighted by the Secretary of the State, State of Connecticut, and may not be reproduced and distributed without the express written permission of the Commission on Official Legal Publica- tions, Judicial Branch, State of Connecticut. *********************************************** STATE OF CONNECTICUT v. CARLTON BRYAN (AC 40848) Keller, Prescott and Moll, Js.

Syllabus

Convicted of the crimes of murder and conspiracy to commit murder in connection with the shooting death of the victim, who was pregnant with his child, the defendant appealed. The defendant had plotted with a friend, H, to kill the victim after she refused the defendant’s requests to have an abortion. The victim and the defendant had driven to a location where the defendant purportedly intended to collect money from someone. H, who had driven the defendant’s car to the area and parked nearby, thereafter approached the victim’s parked car, in which she and the defendant were sitting, and fatally shot the victim. The defendant later told a police detective, E, that an unknown individual had attempted to rob them and shot the victim as she tried to drive away. H thereafter told a friend, M, that he had killed the victim at the defendant’s behest, after which H and M robbed a store using the gun that H had used to shoot the victim, which they then hid in a park. The defendant subsequently told E that H and M had robbed the store, after which M turned himself in to the police and helped them retrieve the gun. At trial, after H invoked his privilege against self-incrimination and declined to testify, M testified about the gun and what H had told him concerning the victim’s murder. On appeal, the defendant claimed, inter alia, that the trial court improperly admitted into evidence H’s statements to M as dual inculpatory statements pursuant to the applicable provision (§ 8-6 [4]) of the Connecticut Code of Evidence. Held: 1. The trial court did not abuse its discretion by admitting H’s statements to M about the victim’s murder as dual inculpatory statements under § 8-6 (4), as H’s statements were sufficiently trustworthy and against his penal interest: a. The defendant’s claim that H’s statements to M were inadmissible as dual inculpatory statements because they sought to shift the blame for the victim’s murder to the defendant was unavailing, as the statements were squarely against H’s penal interest; H had unequivocally admitted to killing the victim as part of a scheme he and the defendant concocted, the statements implicated H and the defendant equally, and even if H’s statements suggested that he was trying to minimize his involvement in the scheme or to explain his reasons for killing the victim, they exposed him to potential liability for the same crimes with which the defendant was charged, for which H was convicted in a separate trial. b. The trial court correctly concluded that H’s statements to M were sufficiently trustworthy, as H, who sometimes stayed at M’s home, made the statements less than two weeks after the victim’s murder, and H and M, who robbed the store together, trusted one another, shared a friendship and had known each other for about ten years at the time H made the statements; moreover, the truthfulness of H’s statements was corroborated by evidence that included an attempt by H and M to repair the gun before the victim’s murder, and testimony from W that, less than two hours before the murder, the defendant, who was accompa- nied by H, told W that he wanted to kill the victim and asked W to act as a lookout and to provide a false statement to the police. 2. The defendant could not prevail on his unpreserved claim that the state failed to disclose to him certain police internal affairs records, in viola- tion of Brady v. Maryland (373 U.S. 83), that concerned allegations of prior misconduct by E, as those records were not material to the outcome of the defendant’s trial; moreover, even if the records could have been used to impeach E’s credibility, there was overwhelming evidence to support the defendant’s conviction, the impeachment of E with the records would not have raised doubts about the reliability of the testi- mony of W and M, as M’s testimony directly implicated the defendant in the victim’s murder, and the impeachment of E with the records in order to call into question W’s credibility would have been cumulative, as the defendant argued to the jury, concerning the circumstances sur- rounding a written statement that W had given to the police, that the evidence suggested that W had been coerced by the police, and there was no indication that W’s testimony was tainted as a result of his interactions with the police. Argued April 16—officially released October 1, 2019

Procedural History

Substitute information charging the defendant with the crimes of murder and conspiracy to commit murder, brought to the Superior Court in the judicial district of Hartford and tried to the jury before Bentivegna, J.; verdict and judgment of guilty, from which the defen- dant appealed; thereafter, the court, Bentivegna, J., denied in part the defendant’s motions for augmentation and rectification of the record. Affirmed. Erica A. Barber, assigned counsel, for the appel- lant (defendant). Timothy J. Sugrue, assistant state’s attorney, with whom, on the brief, were Gail P. Hardy, state’s attor- ney, and Robert J. Scheinblum and Donna Mambrino, senior assistant state’s attorneys, for the appellee (state). Opinion

MOLL, J. The defendant, Carlton Bryan, appeals from the judgment of conviction,1 rendered after a jury trial, of murder in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a-54a (a)2 and 53a-8,3 and conspiracy to commit murder in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a-48 (a)4 and 53a-54a (a). On appeal, the defendant claims that (1) the trial court erroneously concluded that an unavailable declar- ant’s hearsay statements were admissible as dual incul- patory statements pursuant to § 8-6 (4) of the Connecti- cut Code of Evidence, and (2) the state, in violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 87, 83 S. Ct. 1194, 10 L. Ed. 2d 215 (1963), failed to disclose to him certain internal affairs records relating to Reginald Early, a police sergeant whom the state called as a witness at trial. We affirm the judgment of the trial court. On the basis of the evidence adduced at trial, the jury reasonably could have found the following facts. In April, 2013, the victim, Shamari Jenkins, was four months pregnant with the defendant’s child. At that time, the defendant had a minor child with another woman, Iesha Wimbush, with whom the defendant had an ‘‘off and on’’ relationship. On several occasions after learning of the victim’s pregnancy, the defendant encouraged the victim to have an abortion.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Williams v. Commissioner of Correction
221 Conn. App. 294 (Connecticut Appellate Court, 2023)
Donald v. Commissioner of Correction
216 Conn. App. 63 (Connecticut Appellate Court, 2022)
State v. Graham
344 Conn. 825 (Supreme Court of Connecticut, 2022)
State v. Gray
Connecticut Appellate Court, 2022
Jones v. Commissioner of Correction
212 Conn. App. 117 (Connecticut Appellate Court, 2022)
State v. Patel
342 Conn. 445 (Supreme Court of Connecticut, 2022)
State v. Andres C.
208 Conn. App. 825 (Connecticut Appellate Court, 2021)
State v. Cowen
Connecticut Appellate Court, 2021
State v. Rosa
196 Conn. App. 490 (Connecticut Appellate Court, 2020)
State v. Michael T.
194 Conn. App. 598 (Connecticut Appellate Court, 2019)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
193 Conn. App. 285, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-bryan-connappct-2019.