State v. Gonzalez

Citations

• 338 Conn. 108

Syllabus

Convicted of the crimes of sexual assault in the first degree, home invasion, and risk of injury to a child, the defendant appealed, claiming, inter alia, that he was deprived of his constitutional rights to present a closing argument and to a fair trial by virtue of the prosecutor's cursory review of the evidence during her initial closing summation followed by a more detailed discussion of the evidence during rebuttal argument. The defendant had entered the ten year old victim's home and sexually assaulted her. At trial, R, an analyst at the state forensics laboratory, testified that the defendant's DNA profile was included in the mixture found in the victim's vaginal swabs that had been taken after the sexual assault. R testified that the expected frequency of individuals who could be included as a contributor to that sample was approximately one in 52 million in the African-American population. In addition, two police detectives testified regarding efforts that the police had made to analyze fingerprints found on a window in the victim's home, and one of those detectives testified that he did not know how long the fingerprints that had been found were present. The Appellate Court affirmed the judgment of conviction, concluding that the prosecutor's closing argument did not prevent the defense from responding to the state's theory of the case and that the prosecutor did not mischaracterize the DNA and fingerprint evidence during her rebuttal argument. On the granting of certification, the defendant appealed to this court. Held: 1. The Appellate Court correctly concluded that the structure of the prosecu- tor's closing argument did not deprive the defendant of his constitu- tional rights: 338 Conn. 108 SEPTEMBER, 2021 109 State v. Gonzalez a. The prosecutor did not deprive the defendant of his right to present a closing argument: the fact that defense counsel did not know the exact manner in which the prosecutor would marshal inculpatory evidence did not mean that