State v. Petersen

Citations

• 196 Conn. App. 646

Syllabus

Convicted, after a jury trial, of the crime of failure to appear in the first degree, the defendant appealed to this court. The defendant had been arrested and charged with a felony offense; a trial was scheduled to commence at 10 a.m. on October 3, 2017. The defendant was not present in court on the scheduled date and time and the court ordered the defendant's bond forfeited and that he be rearrested. The defendant entered the courthouse at 10:34 a.m., then briefly went outside to tele- phone his attorney, W. The defendant and W reentered the courthouse and the court ordered that jury selection proceed; the defendant, how- ever, left the courthouse and, subsequently, he was charged with failure to appear. On appeal, the defendant claimed, inter alia, that the evidence was insufficient to sustain his conviction. Held: 1. The evidence was sufficient to support the defendant's conviction of failure to appear in the first degree: the evidence admitted at trial and the reasonable inferences from that evidence that the jury was permitted to draw were sufficient to establish that the defendant wilfully failed to appear, as the defendant knew that he must appear in court to commence jury selection, he admitted that he could have walked to the courthouse from his home and arrived on time but chose not to do so, and the jury reasonably could have inferred from that decision that he did not intend to appear; moreover, the defendant's conduct after arriving at the courthouse provided a basis for the jury reasonably to have inferred that he wilfully failed to appear in court at the place and time to which the charges against him were continued, the court provided an opportunity for the defendant to remedy his failure to appear by stating that, even though it ordered a rearrest, it was willing to commence with jury selection that day and reopened a courtroom to do so, and, despite knowing of this opportunity, the defendant fled the courthouse; furthermore, the defendant did not