State v. Calderon-Perez

• Court: Connecticut Court of Appeals
• Writing for the Court: SEELEY, J.
• Citation: State v. Calderon-Perez, 234 Conn.App. 228, 342 A.3d 1014 (Conn. App. 2025)
• Docket Number: AC 46643
• Decision Date: 05 August 2025
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Jayson CALDERON-PEREZ

342 A.3d 1014

234 Conn.App. 228

STATE of Connecticut

v.Jayson CALDERON-PEREZ

(AC 46643)

Appellate Court of Connecticut.

Argued November 20, 2024

Officially Released August 5, 2025

Hope J. Estrella, deputy assistant public defender, for the appellant (defendant).

Olivia M. Hally, deputy assistant state’s attorney, with whom, on the brief, were Sharmese Hodge, state’s attorney, and Devant Joiner, senior assistant state’s attorney, for the appellee (state).

Alvord, Suarez and Seeley, Js.

SEELEY, J.

₂₂₉The defendant, Jayson Calderon-Perez, appeals from the judgment of conviction, rendered after a jury trial, of assault in the second degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-60 (a) (6) and breach of the peace in the second degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-181 (a) (1). On appeal, the defendant claims that the trial court deprived him of his right to present a defense under the sixth and fourteenth amendments to the federal constitution by (1) excluding, as irrelevant, evidence of his physical appearance six months after the crime, (2) prohibiting a defense witness from testifying due to late disclosure, (3) preventing the defense from presenting testimony from an expert in ₂₃₀video graphics, and (4) limiting the defendant’s cross-examination of a state’s witness. In addition, the defendant claims that the prosecutor engaged in impropriety during the state’s rebuttal closing argument, thereby depriving the defendant of his due process right to a fair trial under the fifth and fourteenth amendments to the federal constitution. We conclude that the trial court’s exclusion of evidence of the defendant’s appearance six months after the crime violated the defendant’s constitutional right to present a defense.¹ Accordingly, we reverse the judgment and remand the case for a new trial.

The jury reasonably could have found the following facts on the basis of the evidence presented. Early in the morning on August 11, 2018, the victim, Bryan Spickle, was present at a Denny’s restaurant in Southington (restaurant). The victim was seated at a table with a group of three other people: Ryan McHale, Miriah Tatro and Julie Henderson. A man (perpetrator) was seated at a nearby table with a group of seven other people. At some point, a verbal altercation ensued between Henderson and members of the perpetrator’s group. Eventually, this escalated into a physical altercation when a woman from the perpetrator’s group approached Henderson and struck her. Henderson stood up and began fighting with the woman that attacked her; meanwhile, the victim also stood up and was accosted by three members of the perpetrator’s group, including the perpetrator, but did not physically engage with them. The victim then made his way toward the women who were fighting and began to reach toward Henderson, at which point the perpetrator “sucker punched” the victim in the side of the head “from behind.” The punch knocked the victim unconscious, and he fell face-first onto a table occupied by two other restaurant patrons, Michelle Yaglowski and ₂₃₁Dahnis-Shay Houser-Riley. The perpetrator then punched the unconscious victim in the head a second time. As a result of the assault, the victim suffered a concussion, lacerations to both eyebrows, significant swelling to his right eye and cheek, and bubbling and blistering on his chest due to a skin burn.² A few minutes later, the perpetrator and his group left the restaurant.

Around the time the perpetrator and his group exited the restaurant, police officers from the Southington Police Department were dispatched to the restaurant in response to a report of a fight.³ Upon arriving at the scene, the responding officers approached two women standing in the restaurant’s parking lot: Robin Angeloni, a waitress who was attempting to point out to the officers certain vehicles that had just left the parking lot, and Tatro, who was “hysterical” and “yelling” racial slurs. The officers spoke with Angeloni before entering the restaurant, and, around the same time, the victim was transported by paramedics to a hospital. Inside the restaurant, the officers took a statement from Houser-Riley and learned that the assault likely was captured by security cameras, which also would have captured footage of the perpetrator and his group exiting the restaurant. The investigating officer, Chad Michaud of the Southington Police Department, obtained this security camera footage (video) shortly thereafter.

On the basis of his review of the video, Michaud identified the woman who had attacked Henderson and the man who had punched the victim as suspects in the investigation. On September 10, 2018, as part of Michaud’s investigation, the Southington Police Department made a post on its public Facebook page soliciting ₂₃₂tips regarding the assault. The post contained still images from the video of both suspects leaving the restaurant. One month later, on October 10, 2018, Michaud received a voicemail from an anonymous caller stating that an employee at Henry’s Garage, in Bethany, “looks like the male suspect …. ” Because Bethany was outside the jurisdiction of the Southington Police Department, Michaud contacted the Connecticut State Police for assistance in following up on the tip.

On October 12, 2018, after being briefed by Michaud, David Merriam of the Connecticut State Police went to Henry’s Garage to follow up on the tip. At Henry’s Garage, Merriam spoke with Henry Sarbieski,⁴ the owner of the business, showed him three photographs of the male suspect that had been taken from the video, which Michaud had provided to him, and asked Sarbieski if he knew the person in the photographs. Sarbieski identified the person in the photographs as the defendant and informed Merriam that the defendant was present at work. Merriam then spoke with the defendant, showed him the photographs that Michaud had provided to him, and asked the defendant if he was the person in the photographs. Although the defendant replied affirmatively, he expressed confusion about being at the restaurant’s Southington location, telling Merriam that he had been to the restaurant’s Waterbury location. Merriam told the defendant to contact Michaud and collected his contact information, which he then emailed to Michaud.

After learning from Merriam that the defendant had identified himself as the person in the photographs, Michaud determined that “the investigation was basically concluded” and, subsequently, applied for a warrant to arrest the defendant, which was reviewed and ₂₃₃issued by the court on January 9, 2019. The defendant was arrested on February 11, 2019. Following his arrest, the defendant was charged in a substitute long form information with assault in the second degree in violation of § 53a-60 (a) (6) and breach of the peace in the second degree in violation of § 53a-181 (a) (1). A jury trial followed, at which the state presented testimony from Michaud; McHale; Ya-glowski; Sarbieski; Merriam; Jessica Nocera, a legal technology specialist at the Office of the Chief State’s Attorney; and the victim. The defendant presented testimony from Suzanne Bobrowiecki, an investigator at the New Britain public defender’s office, and from three waitresses at the restaurant who had witnessed the assault: Angeloni, Megan McElhone and Lindsay Matthews. At trial, Angeloni testified that she saw the perpetrator and that the individual was not the defendant, but she could not otherwise describe the perpetrator. McElhone testified that she saw the perpetrator and that he was not the defendant. She described the perpetrator as “maybe Dominican, Jamaican, but he was darker skinned, probably about my height, five six, five five, not heavy, in pretty good shape but a smaller gentleman. He was not very tall but he was definitely dark skinned …. ” Matthews also testified that she saw the perpetrator and that he was not the defendant, and she described the perpetrator as “[p]robably about six two, I mean very, very tall gentleman, darker complexion.” In summary, the three waitresses at the restaurant who had witnessed the assault all affirmatively testified that the defendant was not the perpetrator, and no other eyewitness identified the defendant as the perpetrator.

At the conclusion of trial, the case was submitted to the jury, which found the defendant guilty of both charges. On May 11, 2023, the court, Baldini, J., sentenced the defendant to a total effective term of five years and ten months of incarceration and four years ₂₃₄and two months of special parole. This appeal followed. Additional facts and procedural history will be set forth as necessary.

The defendant claims that the court abused its discretion when it ruled that “evidence of the defendant’s height and weight … and whether he had tattoos on his forearms was irrelevant…. ” In support of his claim that the court improperly excluded that evidence, the defendant argues that such evidence was “relevant and material” because it “would have corroborated [his] assertion that he was not the perpetrator …. ” He further asserts that “the court’s conclusion that [such evidence] was irrelevant is wrong and violated his right to present a defense.” The essence of the defendant’s argument is that, because his defense was a claim of misidentification, evidence of his appearance during his arrest was highly relevant and material to his defense. Finally, he contends that, because the court’s erroneous evidentiary ruling rose to the level of a constitutional violation, the state bore the burden of proving that the ruling was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt and that the state failed to do so.⁵ We agree with the defendant that the court abused its discretion in precluding the proffered evidence and that the ruling deprived him of his constitutional right to present a defense. Furthermore, we also agree that the state failed to prove that the ruling was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, and, therefore, the defendant is...