State v. Tinsley

Citations

• 197 Conn. App. 302

Syllabus

The defendant, who previously had been convicted of the crimes of man- slaughter in the first degree and risk of injury to a child, appealed to this court from the judgment of the trial court denying his motion to correct an illegal sentence. The defendant claimed that the trial court improperly concluded that his conviction did not violate the constitu- tional guarantee against double jeopardy because the defendant failed to demonstrate that both offenses occurred during the same transaction and the crime of risk of injury to a child was not a lesser included offense of manslaughter in the first degree as charged. Held that the trial court improperly denied the defendant's motion to correct an illegal sentence because his right to be free from double jeopardy was violated, the offenses of manslaughter in the first degree and risk of injury to a child arose from the same act or transaction, the long form information having alleged that both crimes occurred on the same day, at the same location, and were perpetrated on the same victim, all of the victim's wounds were recent, were inflicted in the same short period of time, and occurred not long before the victim's death, including the fatal laceration to the victim's liver, and the state's theory of the case, pre- sented during trial and its closing argument, was that the defendant inflicted multiple blows to the head, chest and abdomen of the victim over a short period of time, in a single, continuous attack; moreover, the offenses of manslaughter in the first degree and risk of injury to a child constituted the same offense, as risk of injury to a child was a lesser included offense of manslaughter in the first degree as charged because it was not possible for the defendant to have committed man- slaughter in the first degree as charged by causing the death of the victim by blunt trauma to the abdomen without also impairing the health of the victim by inflicting trauma to his abdomen, as charged in the risk of inju