State v. DeJesus
| Decision Date | 07 September 2004 |
| Docket Number | No. 16782.,16782. |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE of Connecticut v. Luis DeJESUS, Jr. |
Pamela S. Nagy, special public defender, New Haven, for the appellant (defendant).
John A. East III, senior assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, was Scott J. Murphy, state's attorney, for the appellee (state).
BORDEN, NORCOTT, PALMER, VERTEFEUILLE and ZARELLA, Js.
The defendant appeals1 from the trial court's judgment of conviction, rendered after a jury trial, of sexual assault in the first degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-70(a)(1),2 and kidnapping in the first degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-92(a)(2)(A).3 The defendant claims, among other things,4 that the trial court deprived him of his constitutional rights to confront witnesses against him and to present a defense by precluding him from questioning the victim about her prior history of prostitution. We agree with the defendant and, accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the trial court and remand the case for a new trial.5
The defendant, Luis DeJesus, Jr., was charged with sexual assault in the first degree in violation of § 53a-70(a)(1), and kidnapping in the first degree in violation of § 53a-92(a)(2)(A). The jury found the defendant guilty of both charges and the trial court rendered judgment of conviction on the verdict. This appeal followed.
The jury reasonably could have found the following facts. On the morning of March 21, 2001, the victim, Tina C.,6 went to the defendant's residence in New Britain seeking employment as a day laborer. The defendant operated a roofing business and, approximately one and one-half to two years earlier, he had employed the victim as a day laborer for a period of one day when he first met her. Since that time, the victim had interacted socially with the defendant several times, including visiting his home. On at least one occasion, the victim had engaged in consensual sexual activity with the defendant.
Upon her arrival at approximately 7:30 a.m., the victim encountered the defendant in the parking lot of the apartment complex where he lived. The defendant was returning home from a bar, which was located about four blocks from the apartment complex, where he had consumed six or seven beers and then slept in his truck from approximately 3 a.m. until just before returning home that morning. The victim asked the defendant if he had any work for her that day. After the defendant told her that he had to make a telephone call to find out if any work was available, the victim accompanied the defendant into his apartment, where he went upstairs, while the victim sat on the couch in the living room. When the defendant joined the victim in the living room, he informed her that he was not sure if any work was available. During the conversation that followed, the defendant and the victim began to discuss the topic of sex.
When the defendant expressed an interest in engaging in sexual activity with the victim, she indicated that she wanted to go home. Thereafter, the defendant and the victim engaged in a struggle, during which he held her by her arms to prevent her from leaving the apartment. The defendant then forced the victim to submit to vaginal intercourse, which culminated in the defendant ejaculating onto the victim's stomach. After the defendant used a cloth towel and the victim used a paper towel to wipe the semen from her stomach, the victim used the defendant's bathroom. When the victim returned from the bathroom, the defendant gave her $30, and she left the apartment.
After leaving the apartment, the victim stopped to put gas in her car, went to a shopping mall and subsequently returned home.7 Later that day, the victim telephoned her mother to tell her that she possibly had been raped. After her mother advised her to report the incident to the police, the victim went to the New Britain police department between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m., where Officer John Gonzalez took her written statement about the incident and filed a report.
The following procedural history and the defendant's account of the incident8 are also relevant to the resolution of this claim. At the beginning of the trial, the state filed a motion in limine requesting that the trial court prohibit the defendant from presenting evidence that the victim had engaged in or had claimed that she had engaged in prostitution, without a prior judicial ruling on the admissibility of such evidence. The state claimed that this evidence was irrelevant and prejudicial to the state's case. During argument on the motion, the state also claimed that the introduction of that evidence would violate General Statutes § 54-86f,9 which is commonly known as the rape shield statute. The defendant responded that he intended to inquire of the victim whether she had engaged in prostitution, whether she had told an investigating officer that she had engaged in prostitution, and whether the defendant was aware that she had engaged in prostitution. The defendant argued that the evidence was admissible under subdivision (4) of § 54-86f because it was relevant to a critical issue in the case, namely, whether the sexual intercourse was consensual, and the exclusion of the evidence would violate the defendant's constitutional rights to present a defense and confront the complaining witness.
The defendant's consent defense was predicated on the following account of the incident as set forth in evidence presented to the jury from the defendant's testimony at his violation of probation hearing and the statement that he gave to the police. When the defendant encountered the victim in the parking lot of the apartment complex, on the morning of March 21, 2001, he told her that he did not have any work at that time, but that if any work became available, he would call her. When the victim continued to ask the defendant about work, he invited her into his apartment to continue the discussion. The defendant had an expectation that the victim wanted to engage in sexual activity when he invited her into the apartment because of past experience with her. The victim followed the defendant into the apartment where the ensuing conversation eventually turned to the topic of sex. When the victim asked him whether he had a condom, the defendant went upstairs to search for a condom but was unable to find one. The defendant returned to the living room, told the victim that he could not find a condom, and they continued to talk. During the discussion, the victim indicated that she could not have sexual intercourse with the defendant without a condom because she had genital herpes. After the defendant informed the victim that he also had genital herpes, she began to act in a provocative manner and engaged in consensual foreplay, culminating in the victim removing her clothes and engaging in consensual vaginal intercourse with him. The defendant ejaculated onto the victim's stomach because she requested that he not ejaculate into her vagina. After the defendant wiped the victim and himself off with the cloth towel, the victim wiped herself off with the paper towel and went into the bathroom. The victim returned and started another conversation with the defendant. When the defendant indicated that he was tired and asked the victim to leave, she requested $50. The defendant expressed surprise because he had not paid the victim for previous sexual activity, but she insisted on receiving the $50. The defendant told the victim that he had only $30, which he gave to her. The victim then counted the money and suggested that she would return for the balance of the $50 that she had requested. The defendant told the victim not to do so because his wife would be home. The victim stated, "`I warned you,'" which the defendant understood to be a warning about the herpes, and then she left.
The trial court postponed a ruling on the state's motion to prohibit the defendant from introducing evidence regarding the victim's prior history of prostitution until after the victim had given her direct testimony. Following the victim's direct testimony, the trial court permitted the defendant to make an offer of proof outside the presence of the jury. The defendant, in preparing his defense, had obtained a copy of Gonzalez' report,10 which included the victim's statements to Gonzalez that she had engaged in prostitution and that the defendant knew that she had engaged in prostitution. During his offer of proof, the defendant attempted to educe the victim's agreement that she had made the statements to Gonzalez.11 The state objected to the evidence about the defendant's knowledge as being irrelevant, requiring speculation on the part of the victim, and being more prejudicial than probative. The defendant responded that the testimony was relevant and critical to the issue of consent, required no speculation on the victim's part, and helped establish a motive for the victim to make false allegations of rape. The defendant also stated that precluding the inquiries would prejudice his defense. The trial court ruled that inquiries into whether the victim had asked for money, had accepted money or had been given money on the morning of March 21, 2001, were relevant, but that inquiries into "prostitution on prior occasions and the defendant's knowledge of [the victim's] prostitution or alleged prostitution on prior occasions [were] not relevant and any probative value [was] outweighed by the prejudicial effect."
The defendant claims that the trial court's ruling on the state's motion in limine deprived him of his constitutional rights to confront the witnesses against him and to present a defense under the sixth amendment to the United States constitution12 as applied to the states through the fourteenth amendment to the United States constitution13 by excluding evidence that the victim was a prostitute and...
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...We decline to address these claims because we cannot conclude that they are likely to arise on retrial. E.g., State v. DeJesus, 270 Conn. 826, 828 n. 5, 856 A.2d 345 (2004). 2. The evidence is unclear as to whether the defendant lived on the first floor or the third floor of the apartment h......
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...constitution. Accordingly, we limit our analysis to those guarantees provided in the federal constitution. See State v. DeJesus, 270 Conn. 826, 834 n. 14, 856 A.2d 345 (2004). 18. Practice Book § 44-20(a) provides in relevant part: "In any criminal proceeding involving an abused or neglecte......
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...but must bow to other legitimate interests in the criminal trial process." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. DeJesus, 270 Conn. 826, 836, 856 A.2d 345 (2004). Our review of the record and the original notes of Puryear and Thomas leads us to the conclusion that the refusal to prov......
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§ 10.07 Rape Shield Law: FRE 412
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§ 10.07 RAPE SHIELD LAW: FRE 412
...to shield defendants from their illegal conduct by discouraging victims from testifying.").[114] Compare Saunders with State v. DeJesus, 856 A.2d 345, 355 (Conn. 2004) ("[E]vidence of the victim's prior history of prostitution and the defendant's knowledge of that history was sufficiently m......