State v. Errol J.

Citations

• 199 Conn. App. 800

Syllabus

Convicted, after a jury trial, of the crimes of risk of injury to a child in violation of statute (§ 53-21 (a) (1)) and cruelty to persons in connection with his actions in beating and whipping the victim, his minor child, with an electrical cord, the defendant appealed to this court. Held: 1. The defendant could not prevail on his claim that the trial court erred by restricting his cross-examination of three of the state's expert wit- nesses, B, M and W, thereby violating his constitutional right to confron- tation: contrary to the defendant's claim that that court improperly prevented him from cross-examining B, who had diagnosed the victim with post-traumatic stress disorder, about whether she had considered alternative diagnoses, the record revealed that the defendant was able to inquire of B as to how she reached her diagnosis, to explore whether she had considered other disorders and to scrutinize the methods she used, and, therefore, the court's ruling on the scope of the defendant's cross-examination of B was not constitutionally defective; moreover, this court concluded that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in sustaining the prosecutor's objections to defense counsel's line of questioning with respect to B, as the defendant failed to meet his burden of showing that the restrictions imposed on cross-examination were clearly prejudicial; furthermore, this court declined to review the defen- dant's claims as to M and W, as those claims were not adequately briefed. 2. The defendant's claim that the trial court erred in admitting into evidence unredacted medical records and testimony addressing the ultimate issue in the case was unavailing: that court did not abuse its discretion because it properly admitted the unredacted medical records and related testi- mony under the medical diagnosis or treatment exception to the hearsay rule, as the medical reports were created by medical practitioners in the furtherance of the victim's medical treatment and t