STATE v. MARCELLO E., SC 20792

Judicial District of Hartford

 Criminal; Whether Admission of Uncharged Misconduct Evidence to Establish Intent Was Improper; Whether Any Error in Admission of Uncharged Misconduct Evidence was Harmless.  The defendant was convicted of assault in the first degree for stabbing his former girlfriend multiple times on her head and body, causing significant injuries.  The defendant appealed, claiming that the trial court improperly admitted evidence of uncharged misconduct for the purpose of establishing his intent to commit the charged crime.  Specifically, the trial court admitted evidence of two alleged altercations occurring two and three years prior to the charged crime, one in which the defendant hit the victim in the head during an argument and restrained her from leaving their home and the other in which he punched the victim in the mouth.  The Appellate Court (216 Conn. App. 1) affirmed the conviction, holding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the uncharged misconduct evidence.  The Appellate Court found that the trial court reasonably could have concluded that the evidence was relevant to the issue of intent because the uncharged misconduct was not too remote in time, it involved the same victim and was of a similar nature as the charged conduct, and it was probative of the defendant's attitude toward the victim's well-being.  The Appellate Court found that the admission of the evidence did not run afoul of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in State v. Juan J., 344 Conn. 1 (2023), which held that uncharged misconduct evidence was inadmissible to prove intent in a general intent crime case in which the theory of defense was that the conduct did not occur, rather than that the conduct was unintentional.  The Appellate Court noted that the present case involved a specific intent crime and that, as a result, the state still bore the burden of proving that the defendant had the intent to cause serious injury to the victim even though he raised an alibi defense and did not dispute the element of intent.  The Appellate Court also found that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in determining that the evidence was not unduly prejudicial because the conduct and injuries underlying the uncharged misconduct were substantially less severe than those involved in the charged crime, the evidence was litigated out of the jury’s presence and did not consume an undue amount of trial time or create side issues, the state’s questioning of the victim about it was limited and not inflammatory, the defendant was not unfairly surprised by the misconduct evidence, and the trial court restricted the use of the evidence by giving the jury limiting instructions.  The Appellate Court further found that, in light of the strength of the state's case and the tailored introduction of the evidence, the admission of the evidence did not substantially affect the verdict.  The defendant filed a petition for certification to appeal, which the Supreme Court granted as to the issues of whether the Appellate Court correctly concluded (1) that the trial court had not abused its discretion by admitting evidence of uncharged misconduct to establish intent and (2) that any error in the trial court's admission of evidence of uncharged misconduct was harmless.