State v. Lane

Citations

• 206 Conn. App. 1

Syllabus

Convicted of the crime of assault in the first degree in connection with an incident in which he struck the victim in the head with a chair during a confrontation, the defendant appealed to this court. Before the start of trial, the trial court denied the defendant's motion to disqualify the judicial authority on the basis that the trial judge, while serving as a prosecutor, might have been involved with pretrial proceedings in one of his prior criminal cases and, thus, appeared to lack impartiality. The court also denied in part the defendant's motion to exclude from evi- dence certain photographs of the victim's injuries on the basis that they were irrelevant and unduly prejudicial. Held: 1. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying the defendant's motion to disqualify the trial judge: the defendant made no claim of actual bias, and his claim that a reasonable person would question the impartiality of the judge because she had served as a supervising prosecutor in the Office of the State's Attorney in the judicial district of Waterbury at the time of pretrial criminal proceedings that were conducted there against him was unavailing, as the judge had a limited role, if any, in the previous criminal proceedings and was not working in her supervisory prosecutorial role when the defendant was convicted in the previous case, twelve years had elapsed between the previous proceedings and the current criminal case, and knowledge of the defen- dant's conviction in the previous case was available to any trial judge; moreover, this court declined to establish a bright-line rule requiring recusal of a judicial authority when there is an appearance of partiality but an absence of actual partiality, as our Supreme Court already estab- lished a rule in State v. Milner (325 Conn. 1) requiring recusal in cases in which a reasonable person would question a judge's impartiality on the basis of all of the circumstances. 2. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in