State v. Henry B.-A.

Citations

• 234 Conn. App. 197

Syllabus

Convicted, following a jury trial, of sexual assault in the second degree and risk of injury to a child, the defendant appealed. He claimed that he was deprived of his due process right to a fair trial as a result of improper remarks the prosecutor made during closing and rebuttal arguments to the jury. Held: The prosecutor did not improperly vouch for the victim's credibility when he referred to the defendant by his nickname, ''Zeus,'' as that reference was based on the victim's testimony, as well as a message and a video the defendant had sent her that was admitted into evidence, and the prosecutor never made a statement that could be construed as his personal opinion concerning the victim's veracity. The defendant's assertion that the prosecutor's statements that the defen- dant had threatened the victim and that she cried when he sexually abused her were comments on facts that were not in evidence and improperly appealed to the jurors' emotions was unavailing, as those statements were based on the evidence or reasonable inferences that could be drawn there- from. This court was not persuaded that the prosecutor's statement that the victim ''got victimized in the hospital,'' made during the prosecutor's discussion of the medical examination that the victim underwent at the hospital after disclosing the sexual abuse, improperly appealed to the jurors' emotions, as the jury reasonably could have inferred from the prosecutor's statement that the defendant had continued to victimize the victim while she was at the hospital, in that his presence there compounded the vulnerable state she was in while undergoing an invasive medical examination. In accordance with our policy of protecting the privacy interests of the victims of sexual abuse and the crime of risk of injury to a child, we decline to use the defendant's full name or to identify the victim or others through whom the victim's identity may be ascertained. See General Statutes § 54-86e. Moreover, in accordance