State v. Rodriguez

759 A.2d 123, 60 Conn. App. 398, 2000 Conn. App. LEXIS 478
CourtConnecticut Appellate Court
DecidedOctober 10, 2000
DocketAC 18347
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 759 A.2d 123 (State v. Rodriguez) 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. Rodriguez, 759 A.2d 123, 60 Conn. App. 398, 2000 Conn. App. LEXIS 478 (Colo. Ct. App. 2000).

Opinion

Opinion

SCHALLER, J.

The defendant, Alberto Rodriguez, appeals from the judgment of conviction, rendered after a jury trial, of two counts of sexual assault in the first degree in violation of General Statutes (Rev. to 1989) § 53a-70 (a) (2), as amended by Public Acts 1989, No. 89-359, one count of sexual assault in the first degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-70 (a) (1), one count of attempt to commit sexual assault in the first degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-49 and General Statutes (Rev. to 1989) § 53a-70 (a) (2), as amended by Public Acts 1989, No. 89-359, and one count of risk of injury to a child in violation of General Statutes § 53-21.

On appeal, the defendant claims that the trial court improperly (1) refused to allow the defense to inspect the victim’s school health assessments and allowed only one page of those records to be admitted into evidence, (2) refused to admit testimony from the school nurse about the victim’s teacher, (3) instructed the jury that it could consider the two versions of the facts as presented by the victim and the defendant, and (4) instructed the jury that it could consider the defendant’s interest in the outcome of the case when evaluating his credibility.1 We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

[400]*400The jury reasonably could have found the following facts. In 1989, at the time the sexual assaults began, the victim, her mother and the defendant all lived together. The victim was ten years old. During the summer of that year, the defendant began to perform oral sex on the victim approximately two to three times per week. The defendant also attempted to have the victim perform fellatio on him, but she refused. When the victim was eleven years old, the defendant began having sexual intercourse with her in his bedroom and the living room of their dwelling.

One morning in 1991, the victim’s mother returned home from work and found the defendant in bed with the victim in the victim’s bed. The defendant immediately pretended that he was trying to wake the victim, but he had an erection when he got out of the bed.

At trial, the state proffered testimony about the physical and psychological effects of the sexual abuse. The victim testified that she starved herself, her hair became brittle as a result of her deficient diet and that she became dizzy at school. Additional facts will be set forth where necessary.

I

The defendant claims first that the court abused its discretion in refusing to allow the defense to inspect the victim’s school health assessments and in limiting the admission of the assessments into evidence to a single page. We disagree.

[401]*401The defense issued a subpoena to the New Haven board of education bureau of nursing, directing the production of the victim’s school medical records pertaining to her physical examinations, which records were produced in court. The state made a motion in limine to preclude disclosure of the records under General Statutes §§ 10-205 through 10-209, claiming that the records were inadmissible. The defendant sought to examine all of the subpoenaed records for the purpose of determining their usefulness to the defense. The victim was not in court when the issue arose and took no position on the disclosure of the documents. The state’s attorney, however, indicated that the victim “has pretty much vested in me the ability to go on my best judgment as to what I feel is appropriate. I think that in that stead, for the limited use of this document that the state will not object, and I think I can state that [the victim] would not object as well since she is eighteen and she has control of her own records at this time.” The corporation counsel for the city of New Haven argued that the court should review the materials pursuant to General Statutes § 10-15b2 before disclosing any of the records.

[402]*402The court did not make a determination that § 10-2093 created a privilege that required it to withhold the health assessment records from the trial proceedings. The court, however, examined the records in camera and, after doing so, decided that only one two-sided page of the documents was relevant to the proceedings. The court ruled that “[t]he balance of the documents have no bearing on this case with one exception and that simply repeats something that’s on the reverse side of the document that you are now talking about.” The court filed the remainder of the documents as a court exhibit under seal. We note that although the defendant states in his principal brief that he “continued to request that [he] be given access to the entire document,” he did not seek a specific ruling from the court as to the basis for its decision to withhold the documents.

The defendant argues first that the court improperly failed to allow him to examine the documents himself, instead reviewing them in camera. We disagree. Section 10-209 provides that the subject records are not to be public.4 Furthermore, “[n]o such record or copy shall be open to inspection by any person except upon the order of a judge of the court concerned,” and “[a]ny and all parts of any such record or copy, if not otherwise inadmissible, shall be admitted in evidence . . . .” (Emphasis added.) General Statutes § 10-15b (b). Pursuant to the language of § 10-15b (b), the court acted properly in accordance with its authority to determine whether anyone should have access to the records and to determine the admissibility of portions of the [403]*403records. The court’s in camera review of the records was authorized by statute and therefore was proper.

The court’s ruling on the admissibility of evidence is entitled to great deference. State v. Castonguay, 218 Conn. 486, 497, 590 A.2d 901 (1991); see State v. Sharpe, 195 Conn. 651, 659, 491 A.2d 345 (1985). “[T]he trial court has broad discretion in ruling on the admissibility ... of evidence. . . . The trial court’s ruling on evidentiary matters will be overturned only upon a showing of a clear abuse of the court’s discretion. . . . We will make every reasonable presumption in favor of upholding the trial court’s ruling, and only upset it for a manifest abuse of discretion.” (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Coleman, 241 Conn. 784, 789, 699 A.2d 91 (1997). “Relevant evidence is evidence that has a logical tendency to aid the trier in the determination of an issue. . . . One fact is relevant to another if in the common course of events the existence of one, alone or with other facts, renders the existence of the other either more certain or more probable. . . . Evidence is irrelevant or too remote if there is such a want of open and visible connection between the evidentiary and principal facts that, all things considered, the former is not worthy or safe to be admitted in the proof of the latter. ... A party is not required to offer such proof of a fact that it excludes all other hypotheses; it is sufficient if the evidence tends to make the existence or nonexistence of any other fact more probable or less probable than it would be without such evidence. . . . Evidence is not rendered inadmissible because it is not conclusive.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
759 A.2d 123, 60 Conn. App. 398, 2000 Conn. App. LEXIS 478, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-rodriguez-connappct-2000.