State v. Tyus

Citations

• 342 Conn. 784

Syllabus

Convicted of the crime of murder in connection with the shooting death of the victim, the defendant appealed. Prior to the shooting, the defendant was involved in a dispute with the victim, after which the victim drove by the defendant's apartment and shot the defendant, and the defendant fired back at the victim. The defendant's close friend, A, thereafter stated an intention to seek revenge against the victim. Approximately two weeks later, the victim was shot and killed at a café in New London. In an interview with the police after the victim's murder, the defendant told them that, on the night of the victim's murder, he and A had traveled directly from Boston to a nightclub in Norwich located approximately twelve miles away from the café, thereby indicating that he and A were not present at the café at the time of the murder. The defendant and A were subsequently charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder, but the conspiracy charges were dismissed prior to trial. The trial court granted the state's motion to join the cases against the defen- dant and A for trial. At trial, A's girlfriend, E, testified that A told her that he had shot someone on the night the victim was killed. Bullet casings from the scene of the shooting at the defendant's apartment and from the murder scene were submitted to the state forensic laboratory. A ballistics analyst, P, examined the evidence and generated a written report containing his findings. S, who also was employed at the labora- 342 Conn. 784 APRIL, 2022 785 State v. Tyus tory, served as a technical reviewer of P's report. P died before trial and was therefore unavailable to testify. The state subsequently sought to admit testimony from S, and the court denied the defendant's motion to preclude S's testimony. The jury found the defendant guilty of murder as a principal or an accessory. The Appellate Court affirmed the defen- dant's conviction, and the defendant, on the granting of certification, appealed to this co