State v. Jacques

Citations

• 353 Conn. 122

Syllabus

Convicted, after a second trial, of murder in connection with the stabbing death of the victim, the defendant appealed to this court. The defendant was convicted of murder after his first trial, but this court reversed his conviction and remanded the case for a new trial on the ground that certain illegally obtained evidence had been improperly admitted. Prior to the defen- dant's second trial, defense counsel requested a second probable cause hearing, but the trial court denied that request. The trial court also denied the defendant's pretrial motion to exclude the testimony of a jailhouse informant, V, after making a threshold determination that V's purported testimony was reliable. At the defendant's second trial, the trial court permit- ted the state to introduce, as a prior inconsistent statement, the written statement of the defendant's former cellmate, J, which J had given to the police and which recounted certain inculpatory statements of the defendant. J had testified at the defendant's probable cause hearing and at his first trial but later suffered a stroke prior to the defendant's second trial that allegedly resulted in memory loss. Although J testified at the defendant's second trial, the defense claimed that his alleged memory loss rendered him functionally unavailable as a witness at the second trial. On appeal to this court, the defendant challenged the trial court's rulings on the request for a second probable cause hearing and the admission of J's statement to the police and V's testimony. Held: The trial court did not violate the defendant's state constitutional right to a probable cause hearing by declining counsel's request for a second probable cause hearing after this court reversed the defendant's conviction and remanded the case for a second trial. Neither the state constitution nor the statute (§ 54-46a) governing probable cause hearings requires a second probable cause hearing when an appellate This case was originally argued before a pane