State v. Glass

Citations

• 214 Conn. App. 132

Syllabus

Convicted of the crimes of burglary in the first degree and robbery in the first degree, the defendant appealed to this court. An intruder entered the house of the victim, F, one night while she was at home and, inter alia, struggled with her before stealing money and other various items. F never saw the intruder's face, but he left behind what appeared to be the fingertip of a latex glove. The police responded to the home shortly after the crime was committed. With the assistance of a canine officer, they recovered the stolen items, which had been discarded in the neigh- borhood, and tracked the intruder's scent past the defendant's house to a garage that was a couple of houses north of the defendant's, where the trail disappeared. Various officers spoke with the defendant that night, after encountering him outside of his home during their investiga- tion. Although the defendant matched F's general description of the intruder, his clothing did not match her description, and one of the officers determined that the defendant's breathing and heart rate appeared to be normal shortly after the crime was completed. Touch DNA evidence was recovered from the glove fragment and certain of the recovered stolen items, and the defendant was determined to be a major contributor to a mixture of DNA found on what was believed to be the interior side of the glove fragment. The state was unable to identify the defendant as a contributor to the DNA found on the other items tested. On the defendant's appeal to this court, held that the cumulative force of the state's evidence, even when viewed in the light most favorable to sustaining the verdict, was insufficient to establish, beyond a reasonable doubt, the defendant's identity as the intruder: the DNA evidence alone was insufficient for the jury to determine that the defendant had worn the glove during the robbery because there was no testimony or other evidence as to whether the DNA on the interior piece of glove was deposited via