State v. Douglas C.

195 Conn. App. 728
CourtConnecticut Appellate Court
DecidedFebruary 11, 2020
DocketAC41245
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 195 Conn. App. 728 (State v. Douglas C.) 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. Douglas C., 195 Conn. App. 728 (Colo. Ct. App. 2020).

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. DOUGLAS C., JR.* (AC 41245) Alvord, Prescott and Sullivan, Js.

Syllabus

Convicted, after a jury trial, of five counts of the crime of risk of injury to a child, the defendant appealed to this court. The defendant’s conviction stemmed from his alleged sexual abuse of five female victims, including C, on various dates while they were under the age of sixteen. The minor victims were often in the presence of the defendant in his home, where the defendant had contact with their intimate parts on multiple occa- sions. Specifically, the defendant grabbed C’s breasts over her shirt on multiple occasions from September, 2005 to September, 2006. After the close of the state’s case, the defendant moved for a judgment of acquittal, which the trial court granted as to a count alleging sexual assault in the second degree but denied as to the five remaining counts that charged the defendant with the crime of risk of injury to a child. Subsequently, the defendant requested that the court provide a specific unanimity instruction to the jury on the remaining five counts, which the court granted only as to one of those counts. On appeal, the defendant claimed, inter alia, that the court improperly denied his motion for a judgment of acquittal because there was insufficient evidence for the jury to convict him on the count involving C, as the three factor test used by our Supreme Court in State v. Stephen J. R. (309 Conn. 586) to determine whether a child victim’s general or nonspecific testimony is sufficient to sustain a conviction in a sexual abuse case was inapplicable to the present case because C was not a very young child at the time she was abused by the defendant and when she testified at trial. Held: 1. The defendant’s claim that the trial court improperly denied his motion for a judgment of acquittal was unavailing: a. The defendant could not prevail on his claim that the test used by our Supreme Court in Stephen J. R. was inapplicable to the present case because the leniency with respect to proof that has been formulated to apply in such cases involving very young children should not be applied with equal force in the present case: although C was older than the child victim in Stephen J. R. when she was sexually abused by the defendant and when she testified at trial, the test articulated by our Supreme Court in Stephen J. R. was not dependent on the child’s age and was applicable to the present case to assess whether C’s testimony was sufficient to sustain the defendant’s conviction because, according to C’s testimony at trial, the defendant had access to her on multiple occasions at his home between September, 2005, and her sixteenth birthday in September, 2006, and the test used in Stephen J. R. applies to cases, such as the present case, where an alleged abuser has ongoing access to the child victim and, as a result, the victim testifies to repeated acts of abuse occurring over a period of time but, lacking any meaningful point of reference, is unable to furnish many specific details, dates or distinguishing characteristics as to individual acts or assaults; moreover, the exact number of times that the defendant had contact with C’s breasts and the specific dates on which these acts occurred are not elements of committing the offense of risk of injury to a child, and the state was only required to prove that the defendant had contact with C’s intimate parts on one occasion before her sixteenth birthday. b. The defendant could not prevail on his claim that, even if the three factor test articulated in Stephen J. R. applied to the present case, there was insufficient evidence to convict him on the count involving C because C’s testimony failed to satisfy the second and third factors of the test and, thus, that it was unreasonable for the jury to conclude from the evidence presented and the inferences drawn therefrom that the defendant had contact with C’s intimate parts before she was sixteen years old: the defendant could not prevail on his claim with respect to the second factor of the test, that C’s testimony failed to establish sufficiently the number of times that the defendant had contact with her intimate parts because her testimony was inconsistent, as that claim merely attacked the credibility of C’s testimony and did not undermine the sufficiency of the evidence on which the jury based its guilty verdict, and C satisfied the second factor by testifying with sufficient specificity that the defendant, who was charged with one count of risk of injury to a child for having contact with C’s intimate parts in a sexual and indecent manner, touched her breasts at least once; moreover, with respect to the third factor of the test, which requires a child victim to describe the general time period in which the illegal acts occurred to assure that those acts were committed within the applicable limitation period, the state did not need to prove the time period during which each incident occurred because the defendant failed to claim that any of the conduct for which he was charged occurred outside the limitation period and, although the third factor was, nevertheless, applicable to the present case because the state was obligated to prove that the defendant had contact with C’s intimate parts on one or more occasions before her sixteenth birthday, C’s testimony was sufficient in this regard because it tended to demonstrate that the defendant’s conduct occurred after he moved to Connecticut in September, 2005, but before she turned sixteen years old in September, 2006, and the jury could have reasonably found that C’s testimony regarding the general time period during which the defendant had contact with her intimate parts was corroborated by other testimony at trial, including the testimony of the defendant’s wife, who testified that C was in the defendant’s home on multiple occasions before her sixteenth birthday. 2.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
195 Conn. App. 728, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-douglas-c-connappct-2020.