State v. Stephenson

• Decision Date: 31 August 2021
• Docket Number: AC 40250
• Citation: 263 A.3d 101,207 Conn.App. 154
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Joseph A. STEPHENSON
• Court: Connecticut Court of Appeals

207 Conn.App. 154

263 A.3d 101

STATE of Connecticut

v.Joseph A. STEPHENSON

AC 40250

Appellate Court of Connecticut.

Argued March 11, 2021

Officially released August 31, 2021

Vishal K. Garg, West Hartford, for the appellant (defendant).

Sarah Hanna, senior assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, were Paul J. Ferencek, state's attorney, and Michelle Manning, senior assistant state's attorney, for the appellee (state).

Alvord, Prescott and Alexander, Js.

ALEXANDER, J.

This appeal returns to us on remand from our Supreme Court. In State v. Stephenson , 187 Conn. App. 20, 201 A.3d 427 (2019), rev'd, 337 Conn. 643, ––– A.3d –––– (2020), the defendant, Joseph A. Stephenson, appealed from the judgment of conviction, rendered after a jury trial, of burglary in the third degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-103, attempt to commit tampering with physical evidence in violation of General Statutes § 53a-49 (a) (2) and General Statutes (Rev. to 2013) § 53a-155 (a) (1),¹ and attempt to commit arson in the second degree in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a-49 (a) (2) and 53a-112 (a) (1) (B). The court imposed a total effective sentence of twelve years of incarceration followed by eight years of special parole. On appeal, the defendant claimed that (1) the state presented insufficient evidence to support his conviction of those charges, and (2) the court improperly excluded evidence regarding his mental state prior to the commission of those offenses.

This court concluded that the state had failed to produce sufficient evidence regarding the defendant's intent to commit the crime of tampering with physical evidence, a requirement common to all the charged offenses. Id., at 39, 201 A.3d 427. Accordingly, we reversed the defendant's conviction and remanded the case with direction to render a judgment of acquittal on all three charges. Id. As a result of this conclusion, we did not address the other claims raised by the defendant in his appeal. See id., at 30 n.4, 39, 201 A.3d 427.

After granting the state's petition for certification to appeal, our Supreme Court reversed the judgment of this court.

State v. Stephenson , supra, 337 Conn. at 654, ––– A.3d ––––. Specifically, it agreed with the state that this court improperly had "addressed an issue of evidentiary sufficiency sua sponte without calling for supplemental briefing as required by Blumberg Associates Worldwide, Inc. v. Brown & Brown of Connecticut, Inc ., 311 Conn. 123, 84 A.3d 840 (2014) ( Blumberg )." State v. Stephenson , supra, at 645–46, ––– A.3d ––––. As a result of this conclusion, our Supreme Court remanded the case to this court "in order to address the claims raised by the defendant in his initial appeal. If, during that proceeding, the Appellate Court chooses to exercise its discretion to reach the sufficiency issue raised in its previous decision, it must do so in a manner consistent with this court's decision in Blumberg ." Id., at 654, ––– A.3d –––– ; see also Stephenson v. Commissioner of Correction , 203 Conn. App. 314, 317 n.2, 248 A.3d 34, cert. denied, 336 Conn. 944, 249 A.3d 737 (2021).

In accordance with the directive from our Supreme Court, we ordered the parties to file simultaneous supplemental briefs addressing whether the evidence was sufficient to prove the defendant's intent to tamper with physical evidence. Following the receipt of the parties' supplemental briefs, we heard additional oral argument.

With this recitation of the appellate history of the case in mind, we set forth the issues before us, as presented in the defendant's original and supplemental briefs. The defendant first claims that the state failed to present sufficient evidence to support his conviction. Specifically, he argues that the evidence was insufficient to prove that (1) he had intended to tamper with evidence, an element common to all three offenses charged by the state, (2) he had (a) committed the completed crime of tampering with evidence or (b) intended to destroy or damage a building, which are elements of the offense of attempt to commit arson in the second degree as charged in this case, and (3) he had tampered with items that constituted physical evidence for the purpose of § 53a-155 (a) (1). Second, the defendant claims that the court erred in excluding evidence regarding his mental state prior to the commission of these offenses. Specifically, he argues that he suffered harm as a result of the court's improper ruling, or, in the alternative, that he was deprived of his constitutional rights to present a defense and that the state failed to demonstrate that the court's ruling was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.

As to the defendant's first claim, the state counters that the evidence adduced at trial was sufficient to support the defendant's conviction. With respect to his second claim, the state concedes that the court's evidentiary ruling constituted an abuse of discretion but asserts that it amounted to harmless error. We agree with the state on both claims and, accordingly, affirm the judgment of conviction.²

In its decision, our Supreme Court set forth the follow relevant facts and procedural history. "A silent alarm at the [Norwalk] courthouse was triggered at around 11 p.m. on Sunday, March 3, 2013, when the defendant entered the state's attorney's office by breaking a window on the building's eastern side. Although the police were able to respond in about ninety seconds, the defendant successfully evaded capture by running out of a door on the building's southern side. Footage from surveillance cameras introduced by the state at trial show that the defendant was inside of the building for slightly more than three minutes. In the investigation that followed, the police determined that the broken window belonged to an office shared by two assistant state's attorneys. One of those attorneys was scheduled to commence jury selection for a criminal trial [of] the defendant on certain felony charges [pending felony charges] only two days after the break-in occurred. No other cases were scheduled to begin jury selection that week. Immediately after the break-in, various case files were discovered in an apparent state of disarray at the northern end of a central, common area located outside of that room. Specifically, several files were found sitting askew on top of a desk with two open drawers; still other files were scattered on the floor below in an area adjacent to a horizontal filing cabinet containing similar files. Photographs admitted as full exhibits clearly show labels on these files reading ‘TUL’ and ‘SUM.’ Finally, in a short hallway at the opposite end of that same common area, the police found a black bag containing six bottles of industrial strength kerosene with their UPC labels cut off. The bag and its contents were swabbed, and a report subsequently generated by the Connecticut Forensic Science Laboratory included the defendant's genetic profile as a contributor to a mixture of DNA discovered as a result.

"Various other components of the state's case against the defendant warrant only a brief summary. The day after the break-in, the defendant called the public defender's office at the Norwalk courthouse to ask whether the courthouse was open and whether he was required to come in that day. The state also submitted evidence showing that the defendant drove a 2002 Land Rover Freelander with an aftermarket push bumper, a roof rack, and a broken taillight, and that surveillance videos from the area showed a similar vehicle driving by the courthouse repeatedly in the hours leading up to the break-in. Finally, the state submitted recordings of various telephone calls the defendant made after he had been taken into custody as a result of his conviction on the criminal charges previously pending against him in Norwalk. During one such telephone call, the defendant asked his brother, Christopher Stephenson, to get rid of ‘bottles of things’ for a heater, speculated about how the police located the vehicle, and attempted to arrange an alibi." (Footnote omitted.) State v. Stephenson , supra, 337 Conn. at 646–47, ––– A.3d ––––.

We noted in our previous opinion that the state sought to prove that the defendant had committed burglary in the third degree, attempt to commit tampering with physical evidence, and attempt to commit arson in the second degree under the following closely intertwined theories of factual and legal liability. State v. Stephenson , supra, 187 Conn. App. at 27–28, 201 A.3d 427. "As to the charge of burglary in the third degree , the state claimed that the defendant had entered or remained unlawfully in the courthouse, when it was closed to the public and he had no license or privilege to be there for any lawful purpose, with the intent to commit the crime of tampering with physical evidence therein . Although the state conceded that the defendant had not completed the crime of tampering with physical evidence while he was inside the courthouse, it nonetheless claimed that he had intended to commit that offense within the courthouse by engaging in conduct constituting an attempt to commit that offense therein. On that score, the state further argued that the defendant had broken into the courthouse through the window of the assistant state's attorney who was prosecuting him on two pending felony charges, entered the larger state's attorney's office and gone directly to the file cabinets where the state stored its case files, and in the short time he had there before the state police arrived in response to the silent alarm, begun to rummage through the state's case files in an effort to find and tamper with the contents of his own case files. Claiming that the defendant was desperate to avoid his impending trial, the state argued that the defendant thereby attempted to tamper with his case file by altering, destroying, concealing or removing its contents, and thus to impair the verity or availability of such...