State v. Patterson
| Citation | 344 Conn. 281,278 A.3d 1044 |
| Decision Date | 09 August 2022 |
| Docket Number | SC 20349 |
| Parties | STATE of Connecticut v. Harold PATTERSON |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
Robert L. O'Brien, assigned counsel, with whom, on the brief, was Christopher Y. Duby, assigned counsel, for the appellant (defendant).
Timothy J. Sugrue, assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, were Sharmese L. Walcott, state's attorney, and David L. Zagaja and John F. Fahey, supervisory assistant state's attorneys, for the appellee (state).
Robinson, C. J., and McDonald, D'Auria, Mullins, Kahn and Ecker, Js.
D'AURIA, J.
The defendant, Harold Patterson, directly appeals from the judgment of conviction, rendered after a jury trial, of two counts of murder in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54a. He claims that the trial court abused its discretion in admitting evidence of uncharged misconduct, namely, two prior shootings involving the alleged murder weapon, to prove identity and means. We conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by admitting the uncharged misconduct. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of conviction.
The jury reasonably could have found the following facts. Early in the morning on August 25, 2008, the defendant and two friends, Willie Walker and Mark Mitchell, were driving in a white Nissan Maxima on Edwards Street in Hartford. Mitchell was driving, with the defendant in the front passenger seat and Walker sitting behind the defendant. The defendant and his friends saw two women walking on the street with two men trailing behind the women. Mitchell then pulled over to speak to the women. One of the men then walked up to the passenger window of the car and told the defendant and his friends to "get the fuck out of here." The defendant replied, "what you mean get the fuck out of here," pulled out a gun, and fired at the men. Mitchell immediately drove away and brought the defendant home.
At approximately 3:15 a.m., Hartford police responded to an emergency call reporting the shooting. Officers who arrived found the bodies of two victims, Carlos Ortiz and Lamar Gresham. Detective Argeo Diaz processed the scene and seized five spent nine millimeter cartridge casings and a copper
bullet jacket. Diaz attended the victims’ autopsies, where he took possession of a bullet fragment removed from the leg of one of the victims, a bullet removed from the same victim's arm, and a bullet removed from the second victim's chest. Both victims died of gunshot wounds to the chest, lung, and heart. The case went cold for a number of years until a new lead was brought to the attention of detectives with the cold case unit of the Division of Criminal Justice. The defendant was arrested and charged with the crimes in 2016.
Prior to trial, the state filed a motion seeking to present evidence of two prior shootings in Hartford. The state sought to admit evidence of a June 5, 2008 shooting on Acton Street, which resulted in the death of Raymond Hite, as well as evidence of a June 16, 2008 shooting on Mather Street, which resulted in bullets striking a building and a vehicle. Eyewitnesses from each shooting identified the defendant as the shooter, and an analysis of the casings collected from each shooting revealed that they were fired from the same gun used in the present case. The state offered these prior incidents to support its claim that the defendant possessed the instrumentality or means, as well as the specific intent, to cause the deaths of Ortiz and Gresham.1
Defense counsel timely objected to the state's motion, arguing that the trial court should preclude evidence of the uncharged misconduct. Specifically, counsel argued that the prior incidents "are not relevant or material to the issues of intent or means to the case at bar," that "the probative value of the evidence is substantially outweighed by the danger of undue prejudice," and that "admission of the evidence would be unduly cumulative, confusing and time-consuming, and would create distracting side issues that will complicate the main issues in the case at hand." Relying on State v. Raynor , 181 Conn. App. 760, 189 A.3d 652 (2018), rev'd, State v. Raynor , 337 Conn. 527, 254 A.3d 874 (2020), the defendant argued that, "[i]n ... light of recent research on the validity of [ballistics] science, it is no longer appropriate to make absolute, unquestioned statements about what the ballistics findings were," and, therefore, admitting evidence of the prior shootings would be improper.
The trial court, D'Addabbo, J ., heard oral arguments and issued a preliminary ruling allowing evidence of both prior shootings. The court ruled that the evidence was admissible to prove means and identity but inadmissible to prove intent. The court further limited the scope of the evidence of both shootings to facts "tying the gun to the case at hand." As to the Acton Street shooting, the court precluded testimony that the defendant shot and killed Hite. The court similarly limited evidence of the Mather Street shooting to show only "that a witness observed the defendant in possession of the firearm on that date and that he fired the firearm ...." The court also ruled that expert testimony that tied the casings from the prior shootings to the casings found at the Edwards Street shooting was admissible contingent on the state's introducing other evidence that tied the defendant to the prior shootings. The court stated that it would give limiting instructions to the jury when the state offered the uncharged misconduct evidence and that it would "revisit its ruling at the time of the offer and assess it in light of the evidence admitted and the positions of the part[ies]."
At trial, when it planned to offer evidence of the Mather Street shooting, the state asked the trial court, Graham, J ., to issue a final ruling on the uncharged misconduct evidence. Defense counsel objected to the "whole line of inquiry ...." The court adopted Judge D'Addabbo’s preliminary ruling that evidence of the uncharged misconduct was admissible to prove means and identity, with the same limitations on the scope of the admissible evidence. Further, the court ruled that, until the state tied the casings from the prior shootings to the same gun that ejected the casings found on Edwards Street, the purpose of the evidence would be limited to proving means.
Prior to the state's offer of evidence of the Mather Street shooting, the trial court instructed the jury: 2
As to the Mather Street shooting, the state offered the testimony of Officer Brian Sulliman and Stephon Long, a friend of the defendant. Sulliman testified that, on June 16, 2008, at about 2:50 a.m., he responded to an emergency call regarding gunshots fired at a multiunit building on the corner of Mather and Brook Streets. From the scene, Sulliman collected one fired bullet from inside of a car parked in front of the building, one fired bullet from a bedroom in one of the units, and seven spent nine millimeter shell casings from outside of the building. Long testified that, on June 16, 2008, he drove the defendant's Dodge Durango to a building located on the corner of Mather and Brook Streets, where the defendant instructed him to stop. Long saw the defendant fire two or three gunshots at the building. Long believed that the gun was a semiautomatic but could not describe a specific model or the color of the gun. Immediately after Long testified, the trial court again instructed the jury that the evidence "was admitted solely to the extent it bears [on] the [defendant's] having [had] the means to commit the crimes on trial before you."
As to the Acton Street shooting, the state offered the testimony of Diaz and Walker. Diaz testified that, on June 5, 2008, he responded to an emergency call on Acton Street, where he located and seized two fired bullets, a copper
bullet jacket, and three spent nine millimeter shell casings. Walker testified that, on June 5, 2008, he drove the defendant's Dodge Durango to Acton Street, where the defendant exited the vehicle and fired a gun. Walker did not know what type of gun the defendant fired but remembered that it was dark in color. Immediately after Walker's testimony, the trial court instructed the jury a third time that the evidence pertaining to the Acton Street shooting was "admitted solely to the extent it bears [on the defendant's] having [had] the means to commit the crimes on trial before you."
Edward Jachimowicz, the state's firearms expert, testified regarding the connection between the bullet casings found at all three shootings. Jachimowicz testified that, based on a microscopic examination and comparison, he concluded that all of the shell casings, bullets, and bullet fragments found at the Edwards Street shooting, where the victims in the present case were found, had been fired from the same semiautomatic weapon. Jachimowicz testified that he entered the shell casings into the NIBIN system,3 which showed a suspected correlation to casings collected in three prior shootings. Jachimowicz compared the physical evidence from the prior shootings to the casings from the Edwards Street shooting to verify the connection.4 His opinion, to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty, was that all of...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
State v. Marcello E.
...required the state to "elicit testimony regarding these two prior incidents in a non-inflammatory manner." See State v. Patterson , 344 Conn. 281, 296, 278 A.3d 1044 (2022) (finding significant "the degree to which the trial court exercised its discretion to limit the extent of the evidence......
- State v. Bowden
-
50-State Survey of State Court Decisions Supporting Expert-Related Judicial Gatekeeping
.... . . [should] serve as a ‘gatekeeper’ and make a preliminary assessment of the validity of scientific testimony.” State v. Patterson, 278 A.3d 1044, 1052 (Conn. 2022) (quoting State v. Porter, 698 A.2d 739, 746 (Conn. 1997)). Thus, “trial courts have a role in assessing the reliability of ......