State v. Watson

Citations

• 195 Conn. App. 441

Syllabus

Convicted, following a trial before a three judge panel, of the crime of murder and, following a trial to the court, of the crime of sale of narcotics, the defendant appealed to this court. The defendant's conviction stemmed from an incident in which he sold crack cocaine to the victim, who later refused to leave the defendant's home. Thereafter, the defen- dant engaged in a physical altercation with the victim and stabbed him fifty-one times, resulting in the victim's death. On appeal, the defendant claimed, inter alia, that the state failed to disprove his defenses of self- defense and defense of premises beyond a reasonable doubt. Held: 1. The panel properly concluded that the state presented sufficient evidence to meet its burden of disproving the defendant's claims of self-defense and defense of premises beyond a reasonable doubt: the defendant's claim that he experienced a blackout following his physical altercation with the victim was inconsistent with his statement to the police, which included multiple details of events that he alleged happened after he claimed to have blacked out, his statement to the police included other irregularities regarding what occurred following the stabbing, the nature and extent of both the victim's and the defendant's wounds did not support the defendant's self-defense narrative, and the defendant's actions following the stabbing, in which he acknowledged that the victim lay on the floor bleeding significantly but failed to seek medical assis- tance, changed his clothes upon leaving his apartment and purposefully avoided his apartment and the police for thirty-six hours following the stabbing, belied an actual belief on the defendant's part that he was acting in self-defense; furthermore, the panel was not obligated to accept as credible the defendant's evidence or version of events, and the evi- dence supported the panel's findings that the defendant did not believe that the victim was using or about to use deadly physical for