State v. Cruz

Citations

• 227 Conn. App. 75

Syllabus

Convicted of the crimes of assault in the first degree, criminal possession of a firearm and carrying a pistol without a permit, the defendant appealed to this court, claiming that his constitutional rights to confron- tation and a fair trial were violated as a result of misrepresentations made by the state in moving to join his case for trial with that of his codefendant, J. The defendant and J had entered an apartment in which C was staying and engaged in an altercation with him, during which the defendant shot C, and C stabbed J with a knife. A police detective, F, interviewed J twice. During trial, the state informed the court that it intended to offer as consciousness of guilt evidence against J a recording of only J's first interview with the police. That recording was admitted into evidence during the state's direct examination of F, and the state did not thereafter question F about the second interview or offer the recording of that interview into evidence. On cross-examination, in response to an open-ended question by defense counsel, F testified that, during the second interview, J had identified the defendant and had stated that the defendant was in C's apartment at the time of the shooting. The court denied the defendant's motion to strike F's answer but expressed concern about F's reference to the second interview, of which the jury previously had been unaware. The court then approved an agreement between the parties, under which they would each elicit limited testimony from F about the second interview. F further testified that J had later identified the defendant from a photographic array the police had prepared. During closing argument, the state relied on F's testimony as substantive evidence of the defendant's culpability. Held that the defendant could not prevail on his unpreserved claim that the joinder of his case with J's case for trial was improper because the state had misrepresented that the evidence in the two cases was cross admissible: it