State v. Randolph, 284 Conn. 328

Summary

The Connecticut Supreme Court reviewed Gordon C. Randolph's convictions for felony murder, robbery, conspiracy to commit robbery, and criminal possession of a firearm arising from two restaurant robberies. The court held that the trial court improperly consolidated the cases and instructed the jury that evidence from each case could be considered in the other to establish a characteristic method in the commission of criminal acts. The court reversed the judgments of conviction.

Holdings

1. In a nonsex-crime case, evidence of uncharged misconduct may be admitted to establish a common scheme or plan only when it supports a permissive inference that the charged and uncharged crimes were related to an overall goal in the defendant's mind. When the claimed connection rests solely on modus operandi, the crimes must exhibit a distinctive signature and also support that inference. The two robberies shared only commonplace similarities and therefore were not cross-admissible to prove a common scheme or plan.
2. The improper admission of cross-case common-scheme evidence and the related jury instruction were harmful, requiring reversal of the convictions and a new trial.
3. A criminal defendant has a constitutional right to be present at a probable cause hearing but no corresponding constitutional right to be absent. The trial court may compel the defendant's presence when the state has a legitimate reason, including conducting an in-court identification to establish identity.
4. Assuming without deciding that admission of the postmortem report violated the confrontation clause, any error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
5. The photographic identification procedure was not unnecessarily suggestive, so suppression of the pretrial and in-court identifications was unwarranted.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the trial court improperly consolidated the Burger King and Empire Pizza prosecutions and permitted cross-use of the evidence to establish a common scheme or plan.
2. Whether the trial court improperly denied the defendant's request to waive his presence during eyewitness testimony at the probable cause hearing.
3. Whether admission of the postmortem report at the probable cause hearing violated the federal or state confrontation clauses, and, if so, whether the error was harmless.
4. Whether the pretrial photographic identification procedure was unnecessarily suggestive and required suppression of the pretrial and in-court identifications.

Disposition

reversed_and_remanded