STATE OF CONNECTICUT v. ADAM PALMER, SC 20849

Judicial District of Bridgeport

Criminal; Due Process; Constancy of Accusation; Evidence; Whether Instruction Prohibiting Jury from Considering Delay in Reporting Sexual Assault Violated Defendant's Due Process Rights or Was Plain Error; Whether Defendant's Statement to Victim Regarding His Abuse of Another, Admitted as Evidence of Grooming Behavior, Was Unduly Prejudicial. Shortly after beginning a romantic relationship with Q in 2005, the defendant moved into the Connecticut apartment that Q shared with her daughters, the victims D and T. Due to Q's work schedule, the victims were left in the defendant's care for significant periods of time, except during the summer and for a ten-month period in 2010, when the victims lived with Q's mother. The defendant continued to live with them until he and Q broke up in 2013, whereupon he moved to North Carolina. When Q moved out of the state in 2014, she sent the victims to live with relatives and did not see them again until she and the victims resumed living together in 2016. In 2017, shortly after Q suggested that she might invite the defendant to move back in with them, the victims disclosed to Q that the defendant had sexually abused them. After the abuse was officially reported in 2018, the defendant was arrested and returned to Connecticut, where he was charged with seven counts of sexual assault in the first degree and eight counts of risk of injury to a minor. At trial, the victims testified that the defendant had sexually abused them for years and had framed the abuse as a game. Over the defendant's objection, D also testified that, when at one point she told the defendant that she felt uncomfortable, he replied that he had played the same game with his daughter, that she had enjoyed it, and that D was the only one who did not. The court ruled that D's testimony about the defendant's prior statement was admissible as a statement of a party opponent relevant to show grooming behavior. During his case-in-chief, the defendant sought to show that the victims had long been deprived of their mother's affection and had fabricated their accusations to prevent the defendant from disrupting their relationship with her. Because defense counsel did not seek to impeach the victims regarding their delayed disclosure of the abuse, the court instructed the jury not to consider the delay in evaluating the victims' credibility, as required by State v. Daniel W.E., 322 Conn. 593 (2016). In Daniel W.E., our Supreme Court modified the constancy of accusation doctrine to permit the victim to testify on direct examination regarding the identity of any person to whom the incident was reported but barred the state from calling constancy of accusation witnesses unless the victim's credibility is challenged; if the victim's credibility is not challenged, the jury must be instructed not to consider any delay in the victim officially reporting the incident. The defendant ultimately was convicted on all counts except for two of the sexual assault charges. Following sentencing, the defendant directly appealed to our Supreme Court pursuant to General Statutes § 51-199 (b) (3). He first claims that the Daniel W.E. instruction violated his due process rights because it unconstitutionally shifted the state's burden of proof onto him and denied him the ability to establish his defense of recent fabrication. Alternatively, he claims that the trial court's instruction was plain error. The defendant also claims that the trial court abused its discretion by admitting D's testimony about his claimed abuse of his daughter because such testimony was unduly prejudicial.