State v. Lopez

CourtConnecticut Appellate Court
DecidedOctober 31, 2017
DocketAC37912
StatusPublished

This text of State v. Lopez (State v. Lopez) 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. Lopez, (Colo. Ct. App. 2017).

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. JUAN C. LOPEZ (AC 37912) Lavine, Prescott and Harper, Js.

Syllabus

Convicted of the crimes of operating a motor vehicle while under the influ- ence of alcohol in violation of statute (§ 14-227a [a] [1]) and operating a motor vehicle while his license was suspended, the defendant, who also was found guilty of being a third time offender, appealed to this court. The defendant had failed three field sobriety tests that were administered to him by a state police trooper, who had stopped the defendant’s vehicle after observing it swerve on an interstate highway and estimating that the defendant was driving above the speed limit. The defendant was charged under subdivision (1) of § 14-227a (a), the behavioral subdivision, pursuant to which blood alcohol levels are gener- ally excluded from evidence without a defendant’s consent. On direct examination, the state’s expert witness, a forensic toxicologist, testified in response to a set of hypothetical facts that an individual who per- formed in a certain way on the three sobriety tests must have had a blood alcohol concentration higher than the legal limit under § 14-227a and, thus, must have been intoxicated. On cross-examination, the defen- dant sought make the point that the expert’s opinion was based on a hypothetical, and that the expert had not and could not express an opinion on the ultimate issue of whether the defendant was intoxicated and to what extent, but the court sustained the state’s objections to those questions. On appeal, the defendant claimed, inter alia, that the trial court improperly restricted his cross-examination of the state’s expert. Held: 1. The trial court abused its discretion in sustaining the state’s objections to the defendant’s attempts on cross-examination to question the state’s expert witness regarding his lack of knowledge as to the defendant’s blood alcohol content level: that court’s ruling, which permitted the expert to testify on direct examination that an individual who performed in a certain way similar to that of the defendant on each of the field sobriety tests must have been under the influence of a central nervous system depressant such as alcohol and must have had a blood alcohol concentration higher than the legal limit, but precluded the defendant from questioning the expert to clarify that his opinion did not apply to this specific defendant, improperly allowed the state to open the door unfairly to the jury’s consideration of blood alcohol levels when the defendant was charged solely under the behavioral subdivision of § 14- 227a, without allowing the defendant an opportunity to defend against that critical evidence by explaining to the jury that the witness had not and could not express an opinion regarding the defendant’s level of intoxication or whether he was intoxicated at all, and it was clear from the context of the expert’s full testimony that the defendant did not ask him to opine on the ultimate issue of whether the defendant was intoxicated during the traffic stop; moreover, the defendant met his burden of demonstrating that the court’s undue restriction on his cross- examination of the state’s expert was harmful, as the jury may have misused the expert’s opinion testimony on the topic of blood alcohol level to find the defendant guilty of operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol when he was charged only under the behavioral subdivision of § 14-227a (a), which precluded evidence of the defendant’s blood alcohol content without his consent, of which there was no evidence in the record, and there was a substantial question regarding the scientific reliability of the expert’s opinion evidence. 2. The defendant could not prevail on his claim that the trial court abused its discretion by admitting into evidence a DVD that contained video of the traffic stop, taken from the trooper’s patrol car, which the defendant asserted was not sufficiently authenticated and was incomplete and altered: the defendant failed to preserve any claim that the admission of the DVD was improper on the ground that it was incomplete or potentially altered, and his unpreserved claim, which was evidentiary and not constitutional in nature, was not reviewable pursuant to State v. Golding (213 Conn. 233), as no due process violation resulted from the admission of the DVD because that claim was abandoned when the defendant expressly disavowed, in his reply brief to this court, any claim for failure to preserve evidence, and the defendant’s right to confrontation was not violated because he cross-examined the expert as to the segment of the video that was admitted, as well as about that portion of the traffic stop that was not captured on the DVD; moreover, the trooper’s testimony that the video was a fair and accurate representa- tion of the events was sufficient to authenticate the DVD, and the admis- sion of the DVD did not constitute plain error, as the defendant presented no evidence that the video was anything other than an exact copy of the original footage and the issue of whether the DVD depicted the entire event concerned the weight of the evidence, not its admissibility. (One judge dissenting in part and concurring in part) Argued May 31—officially released October 31, 2017

Procedural History

Two part substitute information charging the defen- dant, in the first part, with the crimes of operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor and operating a motor vehicle with a suspended license, and, in the second part, with having previously been convicted of operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor, brought to the Supe- rior Court in the judicial district of Fairfield, geographi- cal area number two, where the first part of the information was tried to the jury before Dennis, J.; verdict of guilty; thereafter, the defendant was pre- sented to the court on a plea of guilty to the second part of the information; judgment of guilty in accor- dance with the verdict and plea, from which the defen- dant appealed to this court. Reversed; new trial. James B. Streeto, senior assistant public defender, with whom, on the brief, was Ani A. Desilets, certified legal intern, for the appellant (defendant). Ronald G. Weller, senior assistant state’s attorney, with whom, on the brief, were John C. Smriga, state’s attorney, and Mark R. Durso, senior assistant state’s attorney, for the appellee (state). Opinion

PRESCOTT, J. The defendant, Juan C.

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Bluebook (online)
State v. Lopez, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-lopez-connappct-2017.