State v. Armadore

Citations

• 338 Conn. 407

Syllabus

Convicted of the crime of murder in connection with the shooting death of the victim, the defendant appealed. The defendant and a friend, T, had driven to a café, where the victim was fatally shot, and subsequently drove to a nightclub about twelve miles away. Another individual, G, 408 OCTOBER, 2021 338 Conn. 407 State v. Armadore saw T and a man who matched the defendant's description enter the nightclub about fifteen to twenty minutes after G received a phone call informing him that the victim had been shot. The defendant claimed that he was at the nightclub at the time of the shooting. After oral argument before the Appellate Court but before that court released its decision in the present case, the United States Supreme Court decided Carpenter v. United States (138 S. Ct. 2206), in which the court held that the fourth amendment requires the government to obtain a warrant supported by probable cause before acquiring historical cell site location information (CSLI), which reveals a cell phone user's past physical movements. The Appellate Court thereafter summarily denied the defen- dant's motion for permission to file a supplemental brief to raise a new claim, premised on Carpenter, challenging the admission of certain CSLI records, which the police had obtained prior to the defendant's arrest. The CSLI records of the defendant's cell phone and the two cell phones T had with him on the night of the shooting were admitted into evidence at trial without objection. Relying on the CSLI records of T's phones, the state's expert testified that T's and the defendant's cell phones were located near the café at about the time of the shooting and near the nightclub shortly thereafter. The Appellate Court upheld the defendant's conviction, and the defendant, on the granting of certification, appealed to this court, claiming, inter alia, that the Appellate Court improperly had denied his motion for permission to file a supplemental brief. Held: 1. The defendant could not p