State v. Patterson

Citations

• 344 Conn. 281

Syllabus

Convicted of two counts of the crime of murder, the defendant appealed to this court. The defendant was a passenger in a car when the driver stopped to speak to two women on a street in the city of Hartford. When one of two men who had been walking behind the women told the occupants of the car to leave, the defendant shot both men. The police recovered spent cartridge casings at the scene, and, prior to trial, the state filed a motion seeking to present evidence of uncharged misconduct relating to two prior shootings on two different streets in Hartford in support of its claim that the defendant had possessed the means to cause the victims' deaths. Defense counsel objected, claiming that such evidence was inadmissible because it was irrelevant and more prejudicial than probative. The court ruled that the uncharged miscon- duct evidence was admissible to prove means and identity, but it limited the scope of the evidence to facts that connected the firearm used in 9 The defendant candidly remarked during trial that it was not his ''job'' to tell the truth, especially when ''it's going to harm [him] . . . .'' 282 AUGUST, 2022 344 Conn. 281 State v. Patterson the prior shootings to the firearm used during the shooting of the two victims. At trial, the state presented the testimony of S and D, the officers who collected the fired bullets and cartridge casings following the prior shootings that formed the basis of the uncharged misconduct evidence, the testimony of L and W, friends of the defendant who identified him as the shooter in those prior shootings, and J, a firearms expert who testified, to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty, that the cartridge casings from the prior shootings and the murders of the victims were all from the same firearm. The court instructed the jury five times during the trial that the uncharged misconduct evidence was being admitted for the limited purposes of establishing that the defendant had the means to murder the victims and es