State v. Luna

Citations

• 208 Conn. App. 45

Syllabus

Convicted of the crimes of misconduct with a motor vehicle and assault in the third degree, the defendant appealed to this court, claiming, inter alia, that the trial court improperly precluded her from introducing into evidence certain medical records of T, who died after the motorcycle he was operating collided with the defendant's vehicle. The defendant had initiated a left turn into a parking lot, without signaling and while speaking on a cell phone, when she turned her vehicle into the path of the oncoming motorcycle before running over the motorcycle and both T and his passenger, who suffered serious injuries. The defendant gave a sworn statement to the police at the accident scene that she had not been on her cell phone at the time of the crash and later mailed to them a second sworn statement, written with the assistance of her counsel, in which she stated, inter alia, that no cars were in the other lane of travel when she turned into the parking lot and that she neither made nor received any phone calls within twenty minutes before the colli- sion. Held: 1. The defendant could not prevail on her claim that the evidence was insufficient for the jury to determine that she acted with criminal negli- gence, as required for a conviction of both misconduct with a motor vehicle and assault in the third degree; there was sufficient evidence pursuant to which the jury could have found, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant exhibited a failure to perceive a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the manner in which she drove her vehicle would cause T's death when, in a gross deviation from the standard of care a reasonable person would observe in her situation, she did not wait for the motorcycle to pass but, believing that it was not traveling that fast, turned left into its path and drove over the motorcycle and its passengers. 2. The trial court did not abuse its discretion or violate the defendant's constitutional right to present a defense when it precl