State v. WILLIAM C.
| Decision Date | 16 July 2002 |
| Docket Number | (AC 19540) |
| Citation | 801 A.2d 823,71 Conn. App. 47 |
| Court | Connecticut Court of Appeals |
| Parties | STATE OF CONNECTICUT v. WILLIAM C. |
Lavery, C. J., and Landau and Dranginis, JS. Hubert J. Santos, with whom, on the brief, was Hope C. Seeley, for the appellant (defendant).
Christopher T. Godialis, assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, were John M. Bailey, chief state's attorney, and Sandra L. Tullius, senior assistant state's attorney, for the appellee (state).
In this criminal appeal, the defendant claims primarily that the trial court deprived him of his constitutional right to a fair trial by failing to disclose certain documents in a timely fashion and by making improper evidentiary rulings, thereby depriving him of the right to present a defense and to confront witnesses against him. In essence, the defendant claims that because he did not have access to the documents in a timely fashion, he was denied the opportunity to conduct an exhaustive cross-examination of the victim, who was an admitted liar. After conducting a thorough review of the transcript and an in camera review of the records at issue, we conclude that the defendant's claims are without merit. We conclude that the defendant's secondary claims concerning the court's jury instructions are without merit as well. We therefore affirm the judgment of the trial court.
The defendant appeals from the trial court's judgment of conviction, rendered after a jury trial, of sexual assault in the fourth degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-73a (a) (1) (A)2 and risk of injury to a child in violation of General Statutes (Rev. to 1995) § 53-21 (1), Public Acts 1995, No. 95-142, § 1.3 With respect to the charges, the defendant admitted that he had applied lotion to the victim's back and torso, including her chest and the sides of her breasts. The jury therefore had to determine whether the defendant touched the victim in a sexual manner so as to violate the prohibitions of the statute, § 53a-73a (a) (1) (A), which required the jury to assess the defendant's credibility with regard to his intent.
On appeal, the defendant raises eight claims that fall within the broad categories of either (1) a deprivation of the constitutional right to a fair trial, (2) an improper application of the rules of evidence or (3) an improper instruction to the jury.
The following facts are relevant to this appeal. When the victim was quite young, the department of children and families (department) removed her from the home of her biological parents. She lived with her maternal grandmother for a period of time before the defendant and his wife began to care for her. The defendant and his wife subsequently adopted the victim when she was about seven years old. In the fall of 1995, the victim began to communicate with her biological mother, who is the sister of the defendant's wife. The victim did not get along well with her adoptive mother and expressed a desire to live with her biological mother. She thought this would be possible if she were removed from her parents' home.4
The victim developed behavioral problems that intensified when she was in the seventh grade. In particular, the victim had difficulty coping with her anger and with limits imposed on her, and she had difficulty telling the truth. She sometimes destroyed personal property belonging to others. On one occasion, she "trashed" her parents' home and lied to a neighbor to obtain transportation to another part of town. She had difficulties with her classmates and refused to go to school. During the 1996 spring semester, her parents enrolled her in a special school in which she was able to receive psychological counseling in addition to academic instruction. In February, 1996, the victim became angry with her mother for not permitting her to have a party and assaulted her mother. The victim threatened suicide and, for a brief period of time, received in-patient treatment at the child and adolescent psychology department of Mount Sinai Hospital (Mount Sinai). The special school provided the victim and her parents with family therapy with a clinical psychologist assigned to the victim. As part of the family therapy, the victim and her parents entered into a behavioral contract. Because the victim and her mother argued a great deal, the family agreed that the defendant should deal with the victim if she failed to comply with the behavioral contract.
In March, 1996, the victim told her peers at her new school that the defendant had sexually abused her. According to the victim's psychologist, who learned of the reported abuse second hand, the victim first complained about the defendant's behavior when she was asked to confront her inappropriate behavior toward her peers. The psychologist held a family conference to discuss what she understood to be inappropriate boundaries in the family home, e.g., the defendant's touching himself and "mooning" the victim. During the conference, the victim alleged that the defendant had inserted his finger into her vagina. The psychologist then made a sexual abuse report to the department and to the police.
The defendant was arrested in July, 1996, and charged in a second, amended long form information with one count of sexual assault in the first degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-70 (a) (2), two counts of risk of injury to a child in violation of § 53-21, one count of sexual assault in the third degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-72a (a) (1) (A) and two counts of sexual assault in the fourth degree in violation of § 53a-73a (a) (1) (A).
With respect to the charges of which the defendant was convicted, the victim, who was then fifteen years old, testified that the defendant had fondled her breasts when he applied lotion to her sunburned back and again when he applied lotion to a rash on her torso. When he testified, the defendant admitted that on different occasions he had applied lotion to sunburn on the victim's back and to a rash on the victim's torso, including her chest and the sides of her breasts, but he denied that he had touched her nipples or touched the victim in a sexual manner. The theory of defense to the victim's allegations was that the victim had fabricated the allegations of sexual abuse so that she could move out of her parents' home and live with her biological mother.
On January 8, 1999, the jury convicted the defendant of one count of sexual assault in the fourth degree for intentional contact with the breasts of a person less than fifteen years old in violation of § 53a-73a (a) and one count of risk of injury to a child in violation of § 53-21. He was acquitted of the other charges. The defendant received a total effective sentence of ten years incarceration, suspended after six years, and five years probation. The defendant thereafter appealed to this court.
On appeal, the defendant claims that he was denied a fair trial because he was deprived of the right to present a defense and the right to confront witnesses in violation of the sixth and fourteenth amendments to the United States constitution, and article first, § 8, of the constitution of Connecticut.5 The defendant raises five claims under this constitutional banner, although most of them are merely evidentiary in nature. The defendant claims that (1) the state and the trial court failed to disclose exculpatory material to him in a timely manner in violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S. Ct. 1194, 10 L. Ed.2d 215 (1963), (2) the court improperly failed to disclose in a timely fashion two sets of documents containing exculpatory materials pursuant to an in camera review, (3) the court improperly excluded from evidence portions of a narrative allegedly written by the victim and (4) the court improperly admitted hearsay testimony from the victim's friends. We disagree.
The following facts are relevant to our resolution of the defendant's Brady claims, which concern two sets of documents, specifically a portion of the victim's Mount Sinai records and notes taken by the state police trooper (trooper) who interviewed the victim as part of the investigation of alleged sexual abuse. Prior to trial, the defendant's counsel wrote to the prosecutor, requesting, pursuant to Public Acts 1998, No. 98-70,6 that the prosecutor review the victim's juvenile files and that the state disclose any Brady material to the defendant. Shortly thereafter, the defendant filed a motion in limine with the court, asking it to conduct an in camera review of all the victim's psychological and psychiatric records subpoenaed by the defendant, and to disclose to him any records that related to the victim's ability to tell the truth or that demonstrated the victim's prejudice and hostility toward the defendant. The defendant also asked the court to disclose any records that constituted Brady material as a result of any support in that material for exculpatory explanations or alternative motives for the victim's allegations. The court conducted an in camera review of the victim's psychiatric and psychological records, but did not order the records at issue disclosed to the defendant prior to trial.
At trial, after the victim had testified, the state presented the testimony of the victim's school psychologist, who also had participated in the victim's treatment at Mount Sinai. While the defendant was cross-examining the psychologist, he learned that the state had permitted the psychologist to review the victim's Mount Sinai progress notes prior to testifying. Until that time, the defendant had not seen the progress notes. The court ordered the state to provide the defendant with a copy of the records and told the defendant that he could recall the victim for further cross-examination.
By oral motion, the defendant subsequently asked the court to dismiss the charges...
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