State v. Mansfield

Citations

• 201 Conn. App. 748

Syllabus

Convicted, after a jury trial, of the crimes of breach of the peace in the second degree and assault of public safety personnel, the defendant appealed to this court. On election day on November 8, 2016, the defen- dant went to the polling place located at the Bethel Town Hall where he proceeded to remove papers from a dry erase board and throw them on the ground and erase information written on the board. He entered the part of the town hall where voting was taking place and was given a ballot, which he then refused to return. Volunteers asked a police officer, P, who was providing security, for assistance. The defendant, who continued to refuse to return the ballot, then placed the ballot in his pants and dared P to retrieve the ballot from his pants. At this point, the volunteers allowed the defendant to keep the ballot and the defendant exited the area, knocking over a basket of stickers as he did so. He then took several boxes of cookies from Girl Scouts who were selling cookies outside the voting location and, when told by P to return the boxes, threw them aggressively onto the table. P then began to escort the defendant out of the town hall and, as they were walking, the defendant spit on a picture hanging on the wall. The next day, two police officers, B and C, went to the defendant's home to serve a sum- mons for breach of the peace in violation of the applicable statute (§ 53a- 181 (a) (1)), based on the defendant's conduct the day before. C handed the summons to the defendant and asked that he sign it. The defendant crumpled the summons, threw it on the ground, and then spat in C's face, at which point the defendant was arrested and charged with assault of public safety personnel. Held: 1. The defendant's challenges to his conviction of breach of the peace in violation of § 53a-181 (a) (1) were unavailing: a. The evidence was sufficient to support the defendant's conviction of breach of the peace in the second degree, as the jury reasonably could have con