State v. Hinton

Citations

• 352 Conn. 183

Syllabus

Convicted of the crime of felony murder and attempt to commit robbery in the first degree, among other crimes, the defendant appealed to this court. The defendant's conviction stemmed from an incident in which another individual, C, shot the murder victim, D, while D and the defendant were engaged in a scuffle that occurred after the defendant had attempted to rob R. On appeal, the defendant claimed, inter alia, that the state, in order to secure the defendant's conviction of felony murder, was required to demonstrate that C had been an accessory to the defendant's predicate crime of attempted robbery. Held: The defendant could not prevail on his claim that the felony murder statute (§ 53a-54c) required the state to establish that C was an accessory to the defendant's attempted robbery of R, as felony murder is substantively dis- tinct from other forms of vicarious criminal liability, such as accessorial liability, and the plain language of § 53a-54c does not require the state to establish accessorial liability. The state presented sufficient evidence to sustain the defendant's conviction of felony murder, as the jury reasonably could have found, based on the evidence presented, that C had actively participated in the defendant's attempt to rob R and that C had shot and killed D in the course of and in furtherance of the predicate crime of attempt to commit robbery. This court having concluded that the state was not required to establish that C was an accessory to the defendant's attempted robbery of R as a prerequisite to the defendant's conviction of felony murder, the defendant could not prevail on his claim that the trial court had improperly failed to instruct the jury that the state had the burden of establishing that C was an accessory. The defendant could not prevail on his unpreserved claim that the trial court had violated his right of confrontation by admitting certain video- 184 JUNE, 2025 352 Conn. 183 State v. Hinton recorded interviews of R that had b