State v. Christopher S.

338 Conn. 255
CourtSupreme Court of Connecticut
DecidedMarch 10, 2021
DocketSC20247
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 338 Conn. 255 (State v. Christopher S.) 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. Christopher S., 338 Conn. 255 (Colo. 2021).

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. CHRISTOPHER S.* (SC 20247) McDonald, D’Auria, Mullins, Kahn, Ecker and Vertefeuille, Js.

Syllabus

Pursuant to statute (§ 54-1o (b)), a ‘‘written . . . statement of a person under investigation for or accused of’’ certain crimes ‘‘made as a result of a custodial interrogation at a place of detention shall be presumed to be inadmissible as evidence against the person in any criminal pro- ceeding unless . . . [a]n electronic recording is made of the custodial interrogation . . . .’’ Pursuant further to statute (§ 54-1o (h)), the presumption of inadmissibility under § 54-1o (b) may be overcome when the state proves, by a prepon- derance of the evidence, that ‘‘the statement was voluntarily given and is reliable, based on the totality of the circumstances.’’ Convicted of the crimes of strangulation in the second degree and assault in the third degree, the defendant appealed to the Appellate Court. The defendant and the victim had a physical altercation in the early morning, and the police arrested the defendant. The arresting officer, C, read the defendant his rights under Miranda v. Arizona (384 U.S. 436), both at the time he was arrested and later that morning at the police station. Thereafter, less than six hours after the defendant’s second Miranda warning, the defendant was questioned by a detective, M, but the interro- gation was not video recorded. M did not readvise the defendant of his Miranda rights but did confirm with the defendant that he had been previously advised of his rights and that he was willing to speak with M. M then wrote out a narrative of the incident, and the defendant, after making several changes, signed and initialed the statement. Before trial, the state filed a motion seeking permission to introduce the defendant’s signed statement into evidence. Although the state acknowledged that, because the interrogation was not recorded, the defendant’s statement was presumptively inadmissible pursuant to § 54-1o (b), it requested a hearing to establish that the defendant’s statement was admissible pursuant to § 54-1o (h). After the hearing, the trial court determined that the state could introduce the defendant’s statement, reasoning that the state had met its burden under § 54-1o (h) of proving that the defendant’s statement was voluntarily given and reliable under the total- ity of the circumstances. At trial, the state offered the defendant’s state- ment into evidence. The Appellate Court concluded, inter alia, that the defendant’s statement was properly admitted and affirmed the judgment of conviction. On the granting of certification, the defendant appealed to this court. Held: 1. The defendant could not prevail on his claim that the Appellate Court improperly upheld the trial court’s decision to admit his unrecorded, written statement into evidence on the ground that the state had failed to meet its burden of proving, in accordance with § 54-1o (h), that the statement was voluntarily given and reliable under the totality of the circumstances: a. This court concluded that the defendant’s claim regarding § 54-1o (h) was constitutional with respect to the voluntariness inquiry but eviden- tiary with respect to the reliability inquiry; it was significant that the legislature chose to use the word ‘‘voluntar[y]’’ in a statute dealing with the admission of statements made by criminal defendants subject to custodial interrogation in places of detention because ‘‘voluntary’’ was a constitutional term of art in this context, and voluntary in the constitu- tional sense was the meaning that the statute’s intended audience of criminal lawyers, judges, and law enforcement personnel would assume. b. The defendant could not prevail on his claim that the state had failed to meet its burden of proving that his unrecorded statement was voluntarily given, as the record supported the trial court’s determination that there was no Miranda violation and that that defendant’s statement was volun- tary under the totality of the circumstances: the defendant received a valid Miranda warning at the police station, and there was no merit to the defendant’s claim that M should have readvised him of his rights before beginning the interrogation, as less than six hours had passed between the defendant’s Miranda warning at the station and the interro- gation, M reminded the defendant of his rights by expressly confirming with him that he had been advised of those rights earlier that day, the interview concerned the same incident for which the defendant had been arrested and advised of his rights, and the trial court found that the defendant understood the warnings he received and that he was not intoxicated or otherwise mentally incapacitated; moreover, the defen- dant, having received and understood valid Miranda warnings and volun- tarily participated in the interrogation, implicitly gave a knowing, voluntary waiver of his Miranda rights; furthermore, the totality of the circumstances surrounding the defendant’s interrogation supported the trial court’s determination that the defendant voluntarily gave his state- ment to M, as the defendant was thirty-eight years old and was not intoxicated or impaired, the interrogation lasted only one hour, there was no evidence that M used any potentially coercive methods during the interrogation, and the defendant did not explain how the specific circumstances, including M’s failure to record the interrogation, could have served to overbear his will and to elicit an involuntary confession. c. The defendant failed to establish that the trial court had incorrectly determined that his unrecorded statement was reliable because, even if this court were to require independent, corroborating evidence to prove the reliability of his statement, the totality of the circumstances in this case, including instances of corroboration, demonstrated that the trial court correctly concluded that the state had met its burden. 2.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
338 Conn. 255, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-christopher-s-conn-2021.