State v. Holmgren

Citations

• 197 Conn. App. 203

Syllabus

Convicted, after a jury trial, of the crimes of home invasion, burglary in the first degree and sexual assault in the third degree in connection with an incident in which the defendant forced the victim into her apartment at knifepoint, forced her to undress and sexually assaulted her, the defendant appealed. Held: 1. The defendant could not prevail on his claim that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to sustain his conviction of the charges of home invasion and burglary in the first degree: a. There was sufficient evidence to support the defendant's conviction of home invasion; contrary to the defendant's claim that the state failed to prove that he entered a dwelling while the victim was present in that dwelling, as required by the home invasion statute (§ 53a-100aa (a) (1)), because the victim was not actually present in her apartment when he entered it, the jury was entitled to credit the victim's testimony that she entered her apartment before the defendant and, therefore, was present in it when the defendant entered. b. The defendant's claim that the evidence underlying his conviction of burglary in the first degree was insufficient because the state failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he entered the victim's apartment with the intent to commit a crime was unavailing; the jury reasonably could have inferred the defendant's intent to commit a sexual assault from the fact that he was in possession of a syringe and injectable erectile dysfunction medication when he unlawfully entered the victim's apartment, and there was no merit to the defendant's challenge to the permissibility of such an inference on the ground that he told a police detective that those items were intended to be used with his former girlfriend, as the jury was not required to credit the defendant's statement. 2. The defendant could not prevail on his claim that the trial court improperly allowed the state to introduce the testimony of a police detective regard- ing sta