State v. Adams
State v. Adams
Opinion of the Court
Opinion
The defendant, Dwayne Andre Adams, appeals from the judgment of conviction, rendered following a jury trial, of two counts of sexual assault in the first degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-70 (a) (2) and three counts of risk of injury to a child in violation of General Statutes § 53-21 (a) (2).
The jury reasonably could have found that, in late 2008, the eight year old victim and her parents lived next door to the defendant, his wife and their three children in Hartford. It was not uncommon for the victim to spend the night at the defendant’s residence. On these occasions, the victim would sleep alone in the children’s bedroom at the defendant’s residence while the defendant and his family slept in the living room. Sometime during the late evening hours of December 26, 2008, and the early morning horns of December 27, 2008, the defendant entered the bedroom where the victim was asleep. The defendant woke the victim, removed her pajama pants and underwear and engaged in penile-vaginal intercourse with her. Also, the defendant forced the victim to perform fellatio on him. The victim tried, unsuccessfully, to prevent the assault. Following the assault, the defendant instructed the victim to clean herself and threatened her not to tell anyone about the incident.
The following day, the victim told her mother about the incident. The victim’s mother reported the incident to the police, and the victim was examined and treated at the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center. Police
I
First, the defendant claims that the court improperly permitted the state to introduce constancy of accusation testimony from the victim’s mother; Tanya Ortiz, a Hartford police officer; Audrey Courtney, an advanced practice registered nurse who conducted a physical examination of the victim at the Children’s Advocacy Center; and Lisa Murphy-Cipolla, a clinical child interview supervisor who conducted a forensic interview of the victim at the Children’s Advocacy Center. We do not reach the merits of this unpreserved claim.
The defendant did not preserve any aspect of this claim at trial. On appeal, the defendant argues that the claim is reviewable (1) because he has a constitutionally protected right to review of any and all claims on appeal; (2) under the doctrine set forth in State v. Golding, 213 Conn. 233, 239-40, 567 A.2d 823 (1989); (3) under the doctrine set forth in State v. Evans, 165 Conn. 61, 70, 327 A.2d 576 (1973); (4) under the plain error doctrine codified in Practice Book § 60-5; and (5) under the exercise of this court’s inherent supervisory authority over the administration of justice. See, e.g., State v. Mukhtaar, 253 Conn. 280, 290 n.11, 750 A.2d 1059 (2000).
We readily reject the defendant’s initial, novel contention that he has a right to review of any claim raised on appeal, regardless of its nature or whether it was raised before the trial court. This assertion conflicts
The defendant’s invocation of Golding is unsuccessful because, as he acknowledged in argument before this court, our Supreme Court unambiguously has held that a claim that a court improperly admitted constancy of accusation testimony is not of constitutional magnitude. See State v. Samuels, 273 Conn. 541, 558, 871 A.2d 1005 (2005); State v. Troupe, 237 Conn. 284, 290-93, 677 A.2d 917 (1996). Unless “[a] claim is of constitutional magnitude alleging the violation of a fundamental right,” it is not reviewable under Golding. State v. Golding, supra, 213 Conn. 239. For the reasons set forth previously, we decline the defendant’s express invitation to overrule those decisions of our Supreme Court.
The defendant’s recourse to State v. Evans, supra, 165 Conn. 70, likewise is of no avail. It was observed in Golding, and reiterated in numerous appellate decisions, that the doctrine set forth in Golding was meant to “facilitate a less burdensome, more uniform application of the . . . Evans standard in future cases . . . .” State v. Golding, supra, 213 Conn. 239. Thus, there is no basis in our case law for the proposition that, following
The plain error doctrine is invoked sparingly and is reserved for those situations in which a reviewing court concludes that the failure to grant relief with regard to an unpreserved claim of error would result in a manifest injustice. See, e.g., State v. Roger B., 297 Conn. 607, 618, 999 A.2d 752 (2010). Having carefully reviewed the defendant’s argument, we conclude that the defendant has not demonstrated that the unpreserved evidentiary error of which he complains rises to the level of plain error.
Finally, the defendant summarily states that this court should grant relief in the exercise of its supervisory powers. We note that this request is devoid of any citation to authority or analysis, yet we readily conclude that the defendant’s claim does not warrant such an extraordinary level of relief. This court sparingly invokes its supervisory authority to address issues that affect the integrity of the judicial system as a whole and, in rare instances, to address conduct in a particular case that “is unduly offensive to the maintenance of a sound judicial process.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Jimenez-Jaramill, 134 Conn. App. 346, 381, 38 A.3d 239, cert. denied, 305 Conn. 913, 45 A.3d 100 (2012). Such concerns are not implicated by the defendant’s unpreserved evidentiary claim.
II
Next, the defendant claims that the court improperly admitted testimony from Courtney and Murphy-Cipolla that indirectly bolstered the victim’s credibility. We do not reach the merits of this unpreserved claim.
The defendant acknowledges that this claim is unpre-served. He argues, as stated in part I of this opinion,
Ill
Next, the defendant claims that he was deprived of a fair trial as a result of the prosecutor’s having introduced the constancy of accusation evidence at issue in part I of this opinion. We disagree.
Here, the defendant deems it improper that the prosecutor elicited testimony from state’s witnesses that, in his opinion, constituted inadmissible constancy of accusation evidence. There is no argument that, in eliciting the testimony at issue, the prosecutor disregarded any prior ruling of the trial court. As observed in part I of this opinion, the defendant did not raise a constancy of accusation objection to the testimony at trial. Even were we to accept as true the defendant’s assertion that the prosecutor elicited inadmissible constancy of accusation evidence, the defendant cites to no authority, and we are not aware of any, for the proposition that such action on the part of the prosecutor was particularly egregious such that it rose to the level of prosecutorial impropriety. Apart from referring to the principle that a prosecutor must seek impartial justice, the defendant does not support his argument by reference to any authority that supports the proposition that the introduction of the witnesses’ testimony arguably constituted impropriety. Thus, we reject the defendant’s attempt to transmute his unpreserved evidentiary claim into a claim of prosecutorial impropriety.
IV
Next, the defendant claims that the evidence did not support the jury’s verdict of guilt as to any of the charges of which he was convicted.
In support of this claim, the defendant argues: “The evidence before the jury consisted of the victim’s testimony, the testimony of constancy of accusation witnesses whose testimony was largely inadmissible, medical personnel who saw the victim after any incident occurred and who could not testify as to the incident itself but whose testimony was offered in large part to bolster the credibility of the victim, chain of custody witnesses, results of a physical examination showing no trauma to the victim, and forensic evidence that in large part did not conclusively prove the defendant’s participation in the act.”
The defendant, in his analysis of the evidence, appears to belittle the significance of the victim’s testimony. That is, the defendant appears to argue that without physical evidence that conclusively corroborated the victim’s version of events, the state did not satisfy its burden of proof. The victim’s testimony, which strongly was corroborated by the results of the forensic testing of the victim’s underwear, constituted sufficient evidence to support the defendant’s conviction. At trial, the
V
Finally, the defendant claims that the court improperly denied his motion for a new trial. We decline to review this unpreserved claim.
On June 29, 2010, the defendant filed a “motion for a new trial.” The body of the motion stated: “The defendant . . . hereby moves this Honorable Court to grant him a new trial as it is required in the interests of justice. The interests of justice mandate a new trial, as required by Rule 42-53 of the Connecticut Rules of Practice.” On October 14,2010, the same day as the court’s sentencing hearing, the court took up the motion for a new trial. Upon inquiry by the court, the defendant’s attorney stated: “Practice Book § 42-53 states that in the interests of justice, a new trial may be granted the defendant, and, on his behalf, I make that pro forma motion, again, this morning. I believe I made one toward the end of
In argument before this court, the defendant states: “[T]here was a clear abuse in the exercise of the trial court’s discretion when it improperly allowed the constancy of accusation evidence to be admitted, when it allowed with impunity the prosecutor’s improprieties and when it denied the defendant’s motions for acquittal.” The defendant asserts that, by filing the motion for a new trial on June 29, 2010, these grounds were adequately preserved for appellate review.
Because, in his written motion for a new trial and in argument before the trial court concerning the motion, the defendant did not set forth any specific grounds on which the motion was based, we readily conclude that the defendant did not preserve the grounds on which he now argues the court should have granted him a new trial. It would be fundamentally unfair, both to the trial court and to the state, for this court to conclude that the strikingly vague motion raised before the trial court encompassed the present claim. Accordingly, we conclude that the present claim is unpreserved and is unreviewable.
The judgment is affirmed.
In this opinion the other judges concurred.
The jury returned a verdict of not guilty with regard to one count of sexual assault in the first degree arising from an allegation that the defendant engaged in penile-anal intercourse with the victim during the incident underlying the charges of which the defendant was convicted. Additionally, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty with regard to one count of risk of injury to a child and one count of sexual assault in the third degree arising from another alleged incident in October, 2008. In addition to the imposition of a fine, the court imposed a total effective sentence of fifty years incarceration, twenty years mandatory to serve, followed by fifteen years of special parole.
In accordance with our policy of protecting the privacy interests of the victims of sexual abuse and the crime of risk of injury to a child, we decline to identify the victim or others through whom the victim’s identity may be ascertained. See General Statutes § 54-86e.
See also Practice Book § 60-5 (“[t]he [reviewing] court shall not be bound to consider a claim unless it was distinctly raised at trial or arose subsequent to the trial”).
Additionally, the defendant argues that the claim is reviewable pursuant to Sokolowski v. Medi Mart, Inc., 24 Conn. App. 276, 279-80, 587 A.2d 1056 (1991), because the evidence at issue was introduced after the court cautioned the state that expert witnesses may not testify regarding the victim’s credibility. The defendant’s interpretation of Sokolowski is flawed. This court, in Sokolowski, reviewed the defendant’s evidentiary claim on appeal after determining quite clearly that the defendant adequately preserved his objection to the admission of the evidence by virtue of a motion in limine that raised the same evidentiary ground as that raised on appeal. Id., 280.
Although it does not affect the reviewability of the claim, for even unpre-served sufficiency of the evidence claims are reviewable on appeal; see State v. Lewis, 303 Conn. 760, 767 n.4, 36 A.3d 670 (2012); the record reflects
Also, the defendant argues that the evidence was insufficient because “[t]he state . . . admitted during closing argument that the physical evidence [related to the victim’s condition] showed everything to be normal, that no trauma occurred and that all of the witnesses were acting simply in response to the [victim’s] accusation, not in response to any evidence that the action occurred.” Having reviewed the state’s argument in its entirety, we disagree with the defendant’s characterization of it. We observe, nonetheless, that the defendant’s argument in this regard is puzzling because the state
The defendant argues that if this deems his claim to be unpreserved, this court should review the claim “for all of the reasons cited in [the portion of his brief devoted to claim I].” This abstract assertion, unsupported by adequate legal analysis related to the particular claim to which it applies, is wholly inadequate. “We repeatedly have stated that [w]e are not required to review issues that have been improperly presented to this court through an inadequate brief. . . . Analysis, rather than mere abstract assertion, is required in order to avoid abandoning an issue by failure to brief the issue properly.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. T.R.D., 286 Conn. 191, 213-14 n.18, 942 A.2d 1000 (2008). This same rationale applies to the defendant’s unsupported assertion that the present claim warrants extraordinary review.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- STATE OF CONNECTICUT v. DWAYNE ANDRE ADAMS
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- Status
- Published