State v. Bolton

Citations

• 352 Conn. 477

Syllabus

Convicted of murder and criminal possession of a firearm in connection with the shooting death of the victim, the defendant appealed to this court. After the jury foreperson announced that the jury had reached a verdict and the jurors collectively confirmed their guilty verdict, defense counsel asked that the jurors be polled individually. The first five jurors of the twelve person jury confirmed the verdict, but the sixth juror, S.C., expressed equivocation and disagreement with the guilty verdict. At that point, the court stopped polling the jurors and excused the jurors in order to consult with counsel. The court ultimately directed the jurors to resume delibera- tions, and, subsequently, the jurors returned a unanimous guilty verdict. The defendant claimed, inter alia, that the trial court had abused its discretion when it denied his motion for a mistrial following the court's decision to stop polling the jurors and to direct them to resume deliberations after polling S.C. Held: The trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying the defendant's motion for a mistrial, as the record revealed that there was no impermissible coer- cion of S.C. The circumstances of this case were not indicative of potential coercion beyond the pressure inherent in the ordinary process of reaching a unani- mous jury verdict, and, without other evidence indicating coercion, such as misconduct or other negative reaction by the other jurors to S.C.'s dissent, the fact that S.C. expressed equivocation or disagreement with the verdict relatively early in the poll, took a break to relieve tensions, and then returned 478 JULY, 2025 352 Conn. 477 State v. Bolton to deliberate with her fellow jurors without incident demonstrated that S.C. had not abandoned her honest conviction in ultimately voting to find the defendant guilty. Moreover, on the basis of the circumstances before it, and after soliciting input from counsel, the trial court opted for a minimal and neutral course of action in