State v. Leniart

• Court: Connecticut Appellate Court
• Decided: June 23, 2020
• Docket: AC36358
• Status: Published

Opinion

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PRESCOTT, J., concurring. Although our Supreme Court unanimously agreed with our earlier conclusion that the trial court improperly excluded the videotape of the polygraph pretest interview, a majority of the justices nonetheless concluded that the defendant had failed to demonstrate that the improper exclusion of the videotape was harmful to him. See State v. Leniart, 333 Conn. 88, 127–28, 138, 215 A.3d 1104 (2019). In reaching that conclusion, the majority stated that ‘‘[o]ur impression of the videotape, and what the jury likely would have gleaned therefrom, differs from that of the Appellate Court.’’ Id., 133. As a judge on an intermediate appellate court, I am, of course, bound by the majority opinion of our Supreme Court in this matter. This obligation, in my view, includes the duty to analyze the question of whether the improper exclusion of the videotape violated the defendant’s constitutional rights by applying the descriptions and characterizations of the contents of the videotape that are set forth in Justice Mullins’ major- ity opinion; see id., 133–36; regardless of my own impression or the impression of Justice D’Auria in his dissent. See id., 169–70. In light of those characteriza- tions, I cannot conclude, under the precedent well described and aptly applied by Judge Devlin, that the improper exclusion of the videotape violated the defen- dant’s constitutional rights to present a defense or to confront the witnesses against him. Accordingly, I concur in the result.