State v. Carlson

Citations

• 226 Conn. App. 514

Syllabus

Convicted, after a jury trial, of the crime of manslaughter in the first degree, the defendant appealed to this court. Following an altercation in the parking lot of a bar, the defendant chased the victim approximately ninety feet and then stabbed the victim two times in the chest with a knife. The defendant then ran to his vehicle and quickly drove away from the scene. At trial, the defendant pursued the theory that the victim was the initial aggressor and that he had killed the victim in self-defense. At the state's request and over the defendant's objection, the trial court provided a consciousness of guilt instruction to the jury. Held: 1. The defendant could not prevail on his claim that the trial court's con- sciousness of guilt instruction implicated his constitutional right to due process of law: in its instruction, the trial court emphasized that any evidence of consciousness of guilt derived from the defendant's flight was circumstantial, which allowed for a permissive inference that did not unconstitutionally dilute the state's burden to disprove beyond a reasonable doubt the elements of self-defense, including the duty to retreat prior to using deadly physical force; moreover, the defendant did not drive away from the bar until after he had chased the victim and stabbed him in the chest two times and, as our Supreme Court instructed in State v. Luster (279 Conn. 414), flight that occurs after a defendant's use of deadly force does not logically compel a conclusion that the reason for the flight was self-defense nor does it entitle the defendant to present such evidence without permitting the jury to con- sider other possible reasons for the flight. 2. The defendant failed to demonstrate that the consciousness of guilt instruction violated his constitutional right not to testify as guaranteed by the fifth amendment to the United States constitution: this court concluded that the defendant's claim was unpreserved because it was entirely distinct from his o