State v. Gardner

859 A.2d 41, 85 Conn. App. 786, 2004 Conn. App. LEXIS 456
CourtConnecticut Appellate Court
DecidedNovember 2, 2004
DocketAC 24019
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 859 A.2d 41 (State v. Gardner) 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. Gardner, 859 A.2d 41, 85 Conn. App. 786, 2004 Conn. App. LEXIS 456 (Colo. Ct. App. 2004).

Opinion

Opinion

McLACHLAN, J.

The defendant, Troy Gardner, appeals from the judgment of conviction, rendered after a jury trial, of robbery in the first degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-134 (a) (4). On appeal, the defendant claims that the trial court improperly (1) denied his motion to suppress eyewitness identifications and (2) denied his motion for a mistrial due to prosecutorial misconduct. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.1

[788]*788The jury reasonably could have found the following facts. On the evening of January 29, 2002, Ramon Sanchez, the owner of the Orchard Variety Deli in New Haven, was robbed at gunpoint by two men while he was working behind the counter in his store. One man wore a ski mask, and the other, later identified as the defendant, wore a hooded sweatshirt that left his face uncovered. The defendant pointed the gun at Sanchez and demanded the money from the cash register. The masked man then emptied the register of its contents. During the robbery, Jerry Smart, who lived in an apartment above the store, entered. The defendant pointed the gun at Smart and ordered him not to move. Thereafter, the men left the store, and Smart observed them fleeing on foot. Less than one hour later, police found and detained the defendant when a neighbor pointed out the house she had seen the suspects enter after fleeing the store.2 The police asked Sanchez and Smart to identify the defendant, and each agreed to participate in a one-on-one show-up identification procedure. The jury convicted the defendant, in part, on the strength of those eyewitness identifications. The two identifications had the following facts in common. The police placed the witness in a squad car and drove a few blocks to where the defendant was detained. Each witness stepped out of the car, and the police brought the defendant out of another squad car. Police officers stood on either side of the defendant, shined a light on his face and asked the witness whether the defendant was the man who had not worn a mask during the robbery.

I

The defendant first claims that the court improperly denied his motion to suppress the identifications made at the one-on-one show-ups by Smart and Sanchez [789]*789because they were unnecessarily suggestive and unreliable. Because we agree with the court that the defendant waived his claim with respect to the Smart identification and that the Sanchez identification was not unnecessarily suggestive, we reject the claim. We address each identification in turn.

A

When the police shined the light on the defendant, Smart immediately and without any doubt identified the defendant as the man who had not worn a mask when robbing the store and pointing a gun at him. Although the defendant included the Smart identification in his motion to suppress, he later conceded its reliability at a hearing on that motion.3 The court did not make any findings as to the suggestiveness of the identification procedure because of that concession.

We are likewise bound by the defendant’s concession. Common sense dictates that when a defendant concedes the admissibility of evidence against him and later claims that admission of the evidence constituted error, we do not consider the merits of the claim. State v. Fisher, 57 Conn. App. 371, 376, 748 A.2d 377, cert. denied, 253 Conn. 914, 754 A.2d 163 (2000); State v. Maisonet, 16 Conn. App. 89, 97, 546 A.2d 951, cert. denied, 209 Conn. 816, 550 A.2d 1086 (1988), cert. denied, 489 U.S. 1014, 109 S. Ct. 1127, 103 L. Ed. 2d 189 (1989). A defendant who concedes the admissibility of evidence “cannot be allowed later to complain that those concessions have rendered his trial unfair.” State v. Cruz, 75 Conn. App. 500, 511, 816 A.2d 683 (2003), aff'd, 269 Conn. 97, 848 A.2d 445 (2004).

[790]*790The defendant also cannot avoid the consequences of his concession by seeking review under State v. Golding, 213 Conn. 233, 567 A.2d 823 (1989). “In the usual Golding situation, the defendant raises a claim on appeal which, while not preserved at trial, at least was not waived at trial.” State v. Cooper, 38 Conn. App. 661, 667, 664 A.2d 773, cert. denied, 235 Conn. 908, 665 A.2d 903 (1995), cert. denied, 517 U.S. 1214, 116 S. Ct. 1837, 134 L. Ed. 2d 940 (1996). Golding review is inappropriate here because a defendant who challenges the admission of evidence admitted on his concession necessarily fails to satisfy the third prong of the four-pronged Golding analysis, i.e., that “the alleged constitutional violation clearly exists and clearly deprived the defendant of a fair trial . . . .” State v. Golding, supra, 240. There can be no constitutional violation when the defendant waives his right to challenge the evidence against him. See State v. Wyatt, 80 Conn. App. 703, 708, 710, 836 A.2d 1242 (2003), cert. denied, 267 Conn. 918, 841 A.2d 1192 (2004). We therefore conclude that the court properly admitted the Smart identification into evidence.

B

Unlike Smart, Sanchez initially had difficulty identifying the defendant as one of the robbers. Sanchez told police that he thought the defendant was the man who was not wearing a mask during the robbery, but that he could not be 100 percent sure. He later testified at the suppression hearing that his uncertainty was due to the fact that the defendant was moving his face during the viewing and was wearing different clothing than he wore during the robbery. Furthermore, Sanchez testified that he was shaken up and nervous following the robbery.

Later that night at the police station, however, Sanchez told police that the man he viewed at the show-up was indeed the person who had robbed his store [791]*791earlier that night. He recognized the defendant from the neighborhood and noticed his distinctive light brown eyes and braided hair. The court concluded that despite the passage of time between the viewing and the identification, Sanchez did make a positive identification of the defendant. The defendant challenges the constitutionality of the identification.

In determining whether identification procedures violate a defendant’s due process rights, “[t]he required inquiry is made on an ad hoc basis and is two-pronged: first, it must be determined whether the identification procedure was unnecessarily suggestive; and second, if it is found to have been so, it must be determined whether the identification was nevertheless reliable based on an examination of the totality of the circumstances. ... To prevail on his claim, the defendant has the burden of showing that the trial court’s determinations of suggestiveness and reliability both were incorrect. . . .

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Bluebook (online)
859 A.2d 41, 85 Conn. App. 786, 2004 Conn. App. LEXIS 456, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-gardner-connappct-2004.