State v. McCarthy

210 Conn. App. 1
CourtConnecticut Appellate Court
DecidedJanuary 18, 2022
DocketAC43785
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 210 Conn. App. 1 (State v. McCarthy) 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. McCarthy, 210 Conn. App. 1 (Colo. Ct. App. 2022).

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. LAMAR MCCARTHY (AC 43785) Bright, C. J., and Prescott and Vertefeuille, Js.

Syllabus

Convicted of three counts of kidnapping in the second degree and one count each of conspiracy to commit robbery in the second degree and larceny in the second degree, the defendant appealed to this court. The defendant drove R, an individual who sought to purchase heroin from him and who owed him money, to a bank. Unbeknownst to the defendant, who had remained in his vehicle during the incident, R robbed the bank. Although the defendant was unaware of R’s wrongdoing, as he drove away from the scene, he noticed a police cruiser following him and began to drive very erratically and at high speeds. After his motor vehicle became disabled, the defendant stopped in front of a gas station. The defendant and R exited the vehicle, ran toward a Jeep that was parked at a gas pump, and demanded that W, the driver of the Jeep, get out of the vehicle. When W responded that his family was inside, the defendant ran to the passenger side of the vehicle, climbed over M, W’s wife, and got into the driver’s seat. R attempted to enter the backseat of the Jeep but was unsuccessful, as M and W’s grandchildren were strapped into booster seats in the backseat. The defendant promptly exited the gas station at a high rate of speed with M and her grandchildren still inside the vehicle. The defendant took M’s cell phone from her and entered the highway, continuing to drive erratically and at a high rate of speed. Approximately ten minutes after gaining control of the Jeep, the defen- dant pulled over to the side of the highway to let M and her grandchildren exit the vehicle. The defendant then immediately drove away, without returning M’s cell phone, and M had to flag down a passerby for assis- tance. The defendant was not charged with any crimes relating to the robbery of the bank, rather, the charges against him stemmed solely from his taking of the Jeep. Held: 1. The defendant could not prevail on his claim that he was entitled to a new trial on the kidnapping charges because the trial court improperly failed to provide an incidental restraint instruction to the jury in accor- dance with State v. Salamon (287 Conn. 509), the state having persuaded this court beyond a reasonable doubt that the error was harmless: the trial court’s failure to instruct the jury on an essential element of the offense was a constitutional error, requiring the state to prove that the failure was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt; moreover, when evaluated in accordance with the relevant factors set forth in Salamon, there was no reasonable possibility that a properly instructed jury would have reached a different result concerning whether the defendant’s restraint of M and her grandchildren was incidental to or necessary for him to complete the larceny, as, even though the defendant took possession of the Jeep at approximately the same time that he first restrained the victims and he restrained them only for approximately ten minutes, the defendant could have completed the larceny and released the victims earlier, he transported the victims to multiple loca- tions while they were confined to the Jeep, the fact that the defendant was more likely to be apprehended by the police at the gas station if he permitted the victims to immediately exit the Jeep did not compel a conclusion that the victims’ restraint was incidental to or necessary for the commission of the larceny, the defendant’s restraint of the victims in a fast-moving vehicle while withholding M’s cell phone from her, prevented the victims from summoning assistance or alerting the police to his location, the defendant’s risk of detection was reduced and he was able to flee the gas station unhindered because he did not stop to free the victims at or near the scene of the larceny, and the restraint increased the victims’ risk of harm independent of that posed by the larceny because the defendant confined them to a moving car that he was operating in an erratic manner and at high speeds and then left them on the side of the highway, he refused to return M’s cell phone before he drove away, and he inspired fear in his victims. 2. Contrary to the defendant’s claim, there was sufficient evidence from which the jury reasonably could have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of each of the three counts of kidnapping in the second degree: because, with respect to the defendant’s first claim, this court concluded that there was no reasonable possibility that a properly instructed jury would find that the defendant’s restraint was incidental to or necessary for his completion of the larceny, it necessarily followed that a reasonable view of the evidence supported the jury’s finding that the defendant intended to prevent the victims’ liberation beyond that which was incidental to or necessary to complete the larceny and, consequently, supported the jury’s verdict; moreover, the evidence admitted at trial, including testimony regarding the defendant’s erratic driving at high speeds and M’s concern for her safety and for that of her grandchildren, and the reasonable inferences that the jury was permitted to draw therefrom, were more than sufficient to establish that the defendant used or threatened to use force or intimidation to restrain the victims from exiting the vehicle before he began driving and while the vehicle was in motion. 3. The defendant could not prevail on his claim that the trial court abused its discretion and violated his constitutional right to due process when it denied his requests to have his leg shackles removed during trial: although the defendant expressed concern at trial that one of the jurors may have seen his leg shackles, the trial court had instructed a judicial marshal to sit in various chairs in the jury box to confirm that the defendant’s leg shackles were not visible to the jury and the record revealed no evidence to suggest that the jurors actually saw or otherwise knew of the defendant’s leg shackles; accordingly, the defendant failed to satisfy his burden of demonstrating that the jurors actually saw or otherwise was aware of his restraints and, therefore, failed to establish that the trial court’s denial of his requests to remove his restraints deprived him of his right to a fair trial. Argued September 15, 2021—officially released January 18, 2022

Procedural History

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Related

Walker v. Commissioner of Correction
230 Conn. App. 108 (Connecticut Appellate Court, 2025)
State v. Goode
211 Conn. App. 465 (Connecticut Appellate Court, 2022)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
210 Conn. App. 1, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-mccarthy-connappct-2022.