State v. Nichols

Citations

• 234 Conn. App. 455

Syllabus

Convicted of the crimes of assault in the first degree and risk of injury to a child, the defendant appealed to this court. He claimed, inter alia, that the trial court applied an incorrect legal standard in denying his postverdict motion for a new trial, in which he claimed that the verdict was against the weight of the evidence. Held: Contrary to the defendant's contention, the evidence was sufficient to sup- port the jury's verdict finding him guilty of the crimes with which he was charged and that his abuse of the minor victim, an infant, occurred within the applicable statute of limitations (§ 54-193 (c)), as the jury reasonably could have credited the testimony of a witness who had watched the defen- dant cause the victim to hit his head on a granite countertop, drag the victim on a rug and slam him several times on a floor. The trial court applied an incorrect legal standard in denying the defendant's motion for a new trial to the extent that the court's statement that it could not reject the jury's findings and substitute its own view of the evidence applied the legal standard used to adjudicate sufficiency of the evidence claims, as the proper inquiry in adjudicating a motion for a new trial required the court to determine if there was a substantial question regarding the reliability of the verdict and to make its own credibility determinations, and the court's summary statement that it agreed with the jury's findings based on the evidence did not alter this court's conclusion that the trial court applied an incorrect legal standard; accordingly, the trial court's denial of the motion for a new trial was reversed and the case was remanded to the trial judge who presided over the trial to make his own assessment of the jury's credibility determinations. Argued May 19—officially released August 19, 2025