State v. Trice

Citations

• 235 Conn. App. 203

Syllabus

Convicted, following a bench trial, of the crime of robbery in the second degree, the defendant appealed. He claimed, inter alia, that the trial court improperly failed to conduct an independent inquiry into his competence to understand the proceedings and to assist his counsel in his defense. Held: The trial court did not abuse its discretion in declining to conduct a compe- tency hearing, as the court's observations of the defendant did not lead it to believe that his conduct rose to the level of substantial evidence of mental impairment and, thus, the defendant's unpreserved claim that the trial court's failure to conduct a competency hearing violated his due process right to a fair trial failed under the third prong of State v. Golding (213 Conn. 233). The evidence was sufficient to support the defendant's conviction, as the trial court found, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant intended to steal the victim's car and represented to the victim that he had a deadly weapon or a dangerous instrument, which he put to the back of the victim's head and threatened to use if the victim did not comply with his order to get on the ground. The trial court did not, as the defendant claimed, clearly and conclusively deny him his constitutional right to represent himself during a pretrial hearing, the court having instead continued the hearing to resolve its concern about his competence, and the defendant thereafter waived his right to self- representation when, after his counsel withdrew, he acquiesced to being represented by a different attorney and did not reassert his request to represent himself, and the defendant's contention that the court's alleged error was structural, thereby requiring the reversal of his conviction, did not contradict this court's conclusion that he waived his right to repre- sent himself. The trial court did not abuse its discretion when it properly determined that defense counsel opened the door to the admission of hearsay testimony from