State v. Bolden

Citations

• 227 Conn. App. 636

Syllabus

Pursuant to statute (§ 53a-155 (a)), a defendant is guilty of tampering with evidence if, ''believing that a criminal investigation conducted by a law enforcement agency . . . is . . . about to be instituted, [the defendant] . . . conceals . . . [a] thing with purpose to impair its . . . availability in such criminal investigation . . . .'' Convicted, following a jury trial, of the crimes of evading responsibility in the operation of a motor vehicle and tampering with physical evidence, the defendant appealed to this court. The defendant's conviction stemmed from an incident during which the defendant struck and killed the victim with the SUV he was driving, fled the scene, and thereafter left the SUV in a driveway. Held: 1. The defendant could not prevail on his claim that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction of tampering with evidence: a. The evidence was sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant believed that a criminal investigation was about to be instituted when he fled the scene of the accident and abandoned the SUV he was driving in a driveway; the jury was permitted to consider circumstantial evidence presented by the state to make reasonable infer- ences regarding the defendant's state of mind, including evidence that the defendant saw the victim on the ground when he returned to the intersection before fleeing the scene, or that the defendant must have known from the significant damage to the SUV that the victim had been injured, and the jury was free to credit or discredit the defendant's statements in his recorded statement to the police. b. There was sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant had concealed the SUV; a rational juror could consider and credit the context for the defendant's act of concealment, including evidence that the defendant likely knew he had seriously injured a pedes- trian, fled the scene, and needed to act quickly and temporarily abandon the vehicle, which