State v. Nathan S.

Syllabus

Convicted, after a jury trial, of sexual assault in the fourth degree and risk of injury to a child in connection with the sexual abuse of an eleven year old girl, A, the defendant appealed to this court. He claimed, inter alia, that the trial court improperly admitted testimony from his teenage son, U, regarding statements he made to U about middle school age girls, pursuant to the Connecticut Code of Evidence (§ 4-5 (b)) as evidence of his propensity to engage in aberrant and compulsive sexual misconduct and pursuant to the Connecticut Code of Evidence (§ 4-5 (c)), as evidence of his specific intent to obtain sexual gratification for purposes of the charge of sexual assault in the fourth degree. Held: This court had a fair assurance that the trial court's admission of U's testi- mony regarding the defendant's comments about middle school age girls did not substantially affect the jury's verdict, as this court concluded that, even if it assumed there was error in the trial court's ruling, in light of the relative strength of the state's case, the defendant failed to establish that he was harmed by the admission of U's testimony, which encompassed only about ten pages of the 1400 pages of transcript and had at best a minimal impact on the jury. The prosecutor's cross-examination of the defendant's DNA expert, M, with respect to her conclusion that the defendant was eliminated as a contributor to DNA samples taken from an item of A's clothing, namely, leggings, was not improper, as the prosecutor's questioning of M intended to make the point that exclusion as a possible contributor did not necessarily mean that the defendant had never touched the leggings, it was not improper for the prosecutor to question M about how the data in an exhibit that previously had been admitted into evidence but which the state then marked up with highlighting, formed the basis for M's conclusion, and the prosecutor's use of the term ''profile'' rather than ''type'' when questioning M ab