Opinion

The defendant, Eric A. Dean, appeals from the judgment of conviction, rendered after a jury trial, of one count of robbery in the second degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-135 (a) (2),1 and one *93count of conspiracy to commit robbery in the second degree in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a-482 and 53a-135 (a) (2). On appeal, the defendant claims that the trial court improperly precluded testimony from his psychotherapist, which he argues would have established that the act in question was larceny and not robbery because it would have shown the absence of the display of or the threat to use a dangerous instrument, an essential element of robbery in the second degree.3 The defendant argues that the preclusion violated his constitutional rights to due process and to present a defense.

The jury reasonably could have found the following relevant facts. The defendant and another man, Harold Rollins, planned to rob the manager of a Blockbuster video store at Bishops Corner in West Hartford as the manager walked with a cash deposit to a bank. The defendant knew that the manager, Lloyd Darle, walked to the bank every morning with large sums of money because the defendant’s daughter used to work at the video store and informed him of the procedure.

On the morning of July 20, 2002, the manager and one of his employees, Alicia Holt, set out on foot to make a deposit at an area bank. Before they reached the bank, a car driven by Rollins approached them. *94The defendant, from the passenger seat, ordered the manager to give him the deposit money. The defendant was handed an empty bag. The defendant became irritated and exited the car brandishing a steel pipe approximately ten to fourteen inches long. The defendant then raised the pipe over the manager’s head and again demanded that the manager give him the deposit money. The manager handed the defendant $4000 or $5000. The defendant then got back into the car, and Rollins drove away.

Darle and Holt immediately telephoned the police. They ultimately identified the defendant as the robber. The defendant was arrested and charged with one count of robbery in the first degree in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a-134 (a) (3)4 and 53a-8 (a),5 and one count of conspiracy to commit robbery in the first degree in violation of §§ 53a-134 (a) (3) and 54a-48 (a). The long form information did not specify the name or names of the alleged victim or victims. On October 16, 2003, after a jury trial, the defendant was found guilty of the lesser included offenses of robbery in the second degree in violation § 53a-135 (a) (2) and conspiracy to commit robbery in the second degree in violation of §§ 53a-48 and 53a-135 (a) (2).

During the trial, the defendant attempted to elicit testimony from his psychotherapist, Eric Robinson, *95which the defendant claims would have established that the act in question was larceny and not robbery because the testimony would have shown the absence of the use or threat of physical force on another person, an essential element of robbery. During an offer of proof, Robinson testified essentially that the defendant communicated to him that he planned to take money from a Blockbuster store and that “he had a manager on the inside who was complicit . . . .” The defendant argued to the court that Robinson’s proffered testimony showed the absence of the use or threat of physical force on another person during the act in question because Darle knew that the defendant never intended to use physical force. In other words, the threat of physical force was just an act because both the defendant and Darle knew that Darle eventually would hand over the deposit money. The state objected to the testimony. The court ruled that although the testimony satisfied the present statement of future intent hearsay exception embodied in § 8.3 (4) of the Connecticut Code of Evidence, the evidence was not relevant and, thus, not admissible.

The defendant claims that the court’s ruling violated his constitutional rights to due process and to present a defense and, thus, the judgment should be reversed and the case remanded for a new trial. The state argues that the court’s ruling was proper and that even if it were not, any impropriety was harmless and, thus, the judgment should be affirmed.

We need not address whether the court’s ruling was improper because even if we assume arguendo that the ruling was improper, any impropriety was patently harmless. “The allocation of the burden of proof under harmless error analysis depends on whether the error reaches the level of a constitutional violation. If the error is of constitutional magnitude, then the burden is on the state to prove that this error was harmless *96beyond a reasonable doubt.” State v. Flanders, 214 Conn. 493, 500, 572 A.2d 983, cert. denied, 498 U.S. 901, 111 S. Ct. 260, 112 L. Ed. 2d 217 (1990). “When a trial error in a criminal case does not involve a constitutional violation the burden is on the defendant to demonstrate the harmfulness of the error.” Id., 502.

Even if we further assume that the alleged impropriety is of constitutional magnitude, the state has proven that the alleged impropriety was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt because the defendant would still have been convicted even if Robinson’s testimony were admitted. The defendant was convicted of the lesser included offense of robbery in the second degree in violation of § 53a-135 (a) (2), which requires a person to commit robbery as defined in section 53a-1336 and “in the course of the commission of the crime . . . displays or threatens the use of what he represents by his words or conduct to be a deadly weapon or a dangerous instrument.” The record clearly shows that the defendant displayed the steel pipe in the presence of Holt and Darle. It therefore is irrelevant whether Darle was aware that the defendant never intended to use the steel pipe as a weapon.

The defendant does not argue that Holt was aware that the threat was an act and that he never intended to use the steel pipe as a weapon. Thus, the element of the crime requiring the display of a dangerous instrument was clearly satisfied when the defendant displayed the steel pipe in the presence of Holt.7 The state, *97therefore, has proven that the alleged error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt because Robinson’s testimony would not have had a tendency to influence the judgment of the jury, as the state proved that the defendant’s conduct satisfied all the elements of robbery in the second degree. See State v. Peeler, 271 Conn. 338, 399, 857 A.2d 808 (2004), cert. denied, 546 U.S. 845, 126 S. Ct. 94, 163 L. Ed. 2d 110 (2005).

The judgment is affirmed.

In this opinion the other judges concurred.