State v. Salamon

• Decision Date: 01 July 2008
• Docket Number: No. 17610.,17610.
• Citation: 287 Conn. 509,949 A.2d 1092
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Scott SALAMON.

949 A.2d 1092

287 Conn. 509

STATE of Connecticut v. Scott SALAMON.

No. 17610.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued April 17, 2007.

Decided July 1, 2008.

[949 A.2d 1099]

Pamela S. Nagy, special public defender, for the appellant (defendant).

Marjorie Allen Dauster, senior assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, were David I. Cohen, state's attorney, Timothy J. Sugrue, senior assistant state's attorney, and Michael Colombo, former deputy assistant state's attorney, for the appellee (state).

BORDEN, NORCOTT, KATZ, PALMER, VERTEFEUILLE, ZARELLA and SULLIVAN, Js.^*

[949 A.2d 1100]

PALMER, J.

A jury found the defendant, Scott Salamon, guilty of one count each of the crimes of kidnapping in the second degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-94,¹ unlawful restraint in the first degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-95,² and risk of injury to a child in violation of General Statutes (Rev. to 2001) § 53-21(a)(1).³ The trial court rendered judgment in accordance with the jury verdict,⁴ and the defendant appealed.⁵ On appeal, the defendant raises several claims. With respect to his conviction of kidnapping in the second degree, the defendant urges us to revisit and overrule our interpretation of this state's kidnapping statutes, most recently articulated by this court in State v. Luurtsema, 262 Conn. 179, 811 A.2d 223 (2002), under which a person who restrains another person with the intent to prevent that person's liberation may be convicted of kidnapping even though the restraint involved in the kidnapping is merely incidental to the commission of another offense perpetrated against the victim by the accused.⁶ See id., at 202, 811 A.2d 223.

With respect to his conviction of unlawful restraint in the first degree, the defendant challenges the propriety of the trial court's jury instructions on the element of intent. Finally, the defendant claims that he is entitled to a new trial on all three counts on the basis of certain prosecutorial improprieties that had occurred during the trial. We accept the defendant's invitation to reconsider our prior interpretation of the kidnapping statutes and now conclude that that interpretation was incorrect and must be overruled. Because the trial court instructed the jury in accordance with this court's then applicable precedent governing the interpretation of those statutes, we reverse the defendant's conviction of kidnapping in the second degree and remand the case for a new trial on that charge.⁷ We disagree, however, with the defendant's other claims and, therefore, affirm the defendant's conviction of unlawful restraint in the first degree and risk of injury to a child.

The jury reasonably could have found the following facts. In the summer of 2002, the victim, a fifteen year old female,⁸ was visiting her aunt and uncle in Tuckahoe, New York. On July 3, 2002, the victim's aunt drove her to Bronx, New York, to visit with other relatives. The following evening, the victim boarded a train in New York, intending to return to the Tuckahoe residence of her aunt and uncle. While on the train, the victim fell asleep. When she awoke sometime between 9:30 and 10 p.m., she realized that she was in Connecticut and that she apparently had taken the wrong train. The victim disembarked the train in Stamford and began walking toward a stairwell in the direction of the main concourse. At that time, the victim noticed the defendant, who was watching her from a nearby platform. As the victim approached the stairwell, she observed that the defendant was following her. The defendant continued to follow the victim as she ascended the stairs. Before the victim reached the top of the stairs, the defendant caught up to her and grabbed her on the back of the neck, causing her to fall onto the steps. The victim, who had injured her elbow as a result of the fall, attempted to get up, but the defendant, who had positioned himself on the steps beside her, was holding her down by her hair. The victim screamed at the defendant to let her go. The defendant then punched the victim once in the mouth and attempted to thrust his fingers down her throat as she was screaming. Eventually, the victim was able to free herself from the defendant's grasp, and the defendant fled. Security personnel were summoned, and, shortly thereafter the defendant was apprehended and arrested. At the time, the victim told a security guard that she thought that the defendant had been trying to rape her; later, however, the victim indicated that she did not know why the defendant had accosted her. According to the victim, the altercation with the defendant lasted at least five minutes.

The defendant initially was charged with various offenses, including unlawful restraint in the first degree risk of injury to a child and assault in the third degree.⁹ At the beginning of jury selection, however, the state filed an amended information charging the defendant with one count each of kidnapping in the second degree, risk of injury to a child, attempted sexual assault in the third degree and unlawful restraint in the first degree, and three counts of assault in the third degree. Immediately preceding the commencement of the evidentiary portion of the trial, however, the state filed a substitute information charging the defendant with kidnapping in the second degree, unlawful restraint in the first degree and risk of injury to a child. In a pretrial motion to dismiss, the defendant asserted that there was an inadequate factual basis for the charge of kidnapping in the second degree. The defendant renewed this claim in a motion for judgment of acquittal, which he filed at the conclusion of the evidentiary portion of the trial. In each of these motions, the defendant claimed that he had been overcharged for conduct that, in essence, constituted third degree assault. The trial court denied both of the defendant's motions. In addition, the defendant requested that the court instruct the jury that, if it found that the restraint involved in the alleged kidnapping was incidental to the defendant's assault of the victim, then it was required to find the defendant not guilty of kidnapping in the second degree. The trial court did not give the requested jury instruction. The jury ultimately found the defendant guilty as charged.

On appeal, the defendant claims that his conviction of kidnapping in the second degree must be reversed because, contrary to controlling precedent, the jury should have been instructed to find the defendant not guilty of that charge if it first found that the defendant's restraint of the victim in connection with the kidnapping was incidental to the defendant's restraint of the victim in connection with his assault of the victim. The defendant also maintains that he was deprived of his due process right to a fair trial as a result of certain improper conduct by the deputy assistant state's attorney during the trial and that the trial court improperly instructed the jury on the intent element of the offense of unlawful restraint in the first degree. We agree with the defendant's first claim but disagree with his other two claims.

I.

The defendant maintains that our construction of this state's kidnapping statutes has been overly broad, thereby resulting in kidnapping convictions for conduct that the legislature did not contemplate would provide the basis for such convictions. He claims that the legislature did not intend for the enhanced penalties available upon conviction of kidnapping¹⁰ to apply when the restraint involved in the kidnapping is incidental to the commission of another crime or crimes. In support of his claims, the defendant contends: (1) the evolution of the common law predating our kidnapping statutes indicates that a narrower construction is warranted; (2) our prior decisions construing the kidnapping statutes appeared to recognize the propriety of that narrow interpretation, but we subsequently expanded the scope of the offense, without sound reason for doing so, to reflect the literal language of the kidnapping statutes; see footnote 6 of this opinion; (3) our current approach leads to absurd and unconscionable results when the restraint that provides the basis of the kidnapping charge constitutes the same restraint that a defendant necessarily uses to commit the primary, underlying offense; and (4) a significant majority of our sister states have rejected that literalist approach and, instead, have interpreted their kidnapping statutes in accordance with the construction that the defendant urges us to adopt. In response, the state asserts that the defendant has failed to offer cogent reasons for overruling established precedent that permits a conviction for kidnapping when the restraint involved in the commission of that offense is merely incidental to the commission of a separate, underlying offense against the victim. After careful consideration of the competing claims, we are persuaded by the defendant's arguments.¹¹

At the outset, we address the state's contention that we should not reexamine our prior holdings concerning the construction of this state's kidnapping statutes. In support of its claim, the state relies primarily on two separate but related principles, namely, the doctrine of stare decisis and the tenet of statutory interpretation that counsels against overruling case law involving our construction of a statute if the legislature reasonably may be deemed to have acquiesced in that construction. Although we recognize that both of these principles implicate important policy considerations that should not be set aside lightly, we are persuaded that the doctrines are not sufficiently weighty to bar reconsideration of our prior precedent interpreting the kidnapping statutes.

"This court has repeatedly acknowledged the significance of stare decisis to our system of jurisprudence because it gives stability and continuity to our case law." Conway v. Wilton,...