State v. Iverson

Citations

• 352 Conn. 422

Syllabus

Convicted of murder, attempt to commit murder, burglary in the first degree, and arson in the first degree in connection with the stabbing death of the victim and assault of the victim's son, the defendant appealed to this court. The defendant claimed that the trial court had improperly denied his request to charge the jury on manslaughter in the first degree as a lesser included offense of murder and had improperly admitted a report concerning the victim's autopsy that was prepared by a medical examiner who did not testify at the defendant's trial. Held: The trial court correctly determined that the defendant was not entitled to an instruction on the lesser included offense of manslaughter in the first degree, the defendant having failed to demonstrate that he satisfied either the third or the fourth prong of the test set forth in State v. Whistnant (179 Conn. 576) for determining whether a defendant is entitled to a lesser included offense instruction. The defendant did not present sufficient evidence at trial to justify a convic- tion of manslaughter in the first degree, and the evidence presented with respect to the element that differentiates manslaughter from murder, namely, whether the defendant acted recklessly with extreme indifference to human life or whether he acted intentionally, was not sufficiently in dispute to permit the jury to find the defendant not guilty of murder but guilty of first degree manslaughter. Specifically, the state presented overwhelming evidence that the defendant had intended to kill the victim, and there was no evidence that would have supported a conclusion that the defendant had acted recklessly in causing the victim's death. The defendant could not prevail on his unpreserved claim that the trial court had improperly admitted into evidence an autopsy report that was prepared by a medical examiner who performed the autopsy but who did not testify at the defendant's trial, in violation of the defendant's constitu- tional right to