State v. Council

Citations

• 344 Conn. 113

Syllabus

Convicted of the crimes of murder and criminal possession of a firearm in connection with the shooting death of the victim near a gas station in New Haven, the defendant appealed to this court. At trial, the state presented a witness who qualified as an expert in historical cell site analysis and testified that the defendant's cell phone utilized cell towers near the gas station around the time of the shooting. In order to corrobo- rate the defendant's theory that he was not present at the gas station at the time of the shooting, defense counsel proffered testimony from O, an investigator for a private investigation company who had received training in cell phone analytics, as to the defendant's location at relevant times on the basis of certain cell phone carrier data. The trial court sustained the prosecutor's objections to O's proffered testimony and precluded O from testifying on the grounds that the evidence was imma- terial and irrelevant, O did not possess sufficient qualifications to provide expert testimony on the cell phone carrier data, and O did not establish the reliability of the methodology on which he relied. On appeal, the defendant contended that the trial court had violated his constitutional right to present a defense by precluding O's testimony. Although the defendant acknowledged that his right to present a defense was limited by the rules of evidence, he nevertheless claimed that the trial court 114 JULY, 2022 344 Conn. 113 State v. Council had improperly excluded O's testimony because O was qualified as an expert pursuant to the applicable provision (§ 7-2) of the Connecticut Code of Evidence, which permits testimony by a qualified expert when his or her testimony will assist the fact finder in understanding the evidence or in determining a disputed fact. Held that the defendant's appeal was dismissed as moot; even if this court agreed with the defen- dant that the trial court improperly had determined that O lacked suffi- cient qualification