State v. Edwards

Citations

• 334 Conn. 688

Syllabus

Convicted of, among other crimes, murder, conspiracy to commit murder, assault in the first degree, and conspiracy to commit assault in the first degree in connection with an incident in which two men opened gunfire on a car and killed a fifteen year old victim and seriously injured two other victims, the defendant appealed to this court, claiming, inter alia, that the trial court improperly had admitted certain out-of-court state- ments by two witnesses, T and M, identifying the defendant as the shooter and improperly instructed the jury on third-party culpability by omitting the names of certain potential third-party culprits. On the day of the shooting, the defendant was attending a social gathering at which numerous other individuals were present, including F, T, C, M and H. The defendant had driven F and an unidentified man wearing a do-rag or a hat to the social gathering in a car that the defendant had been renting for approximately three weeks, but F was separated from the defendant shortly after arriving. At some point thereafter, two armed men approached a black car that was stopped in the vicinity and began shooting into the vehicle. The shooters then ran toward the defendant's parked car, entered it, and fled the scene, at which point a nearby driver recorded its license plate number. The following day, the defendant spoke to T and C and told them that he had ''done it'' but that the driver of the black car had been the intended target, not the fifteen year old victim. Subsequently, M came forward and stated to the police that he had seen the defendant by the driver's side of the black car during the shooting and that the defendant was one of the shooters. The defendant thereafter was arrested while attempting to flee Connecticut for Califor- nia. At the defendant's trial, the state questioned M on direct examination regarding his statements to the police, but M maintained that he could not recall making those statements or the events surrounding the sho