The mission of the Connecticut Judicial Branch is to serve the interests of justice and the public by resolving matters brought before it in a fair, timely, efficient and open manner.

Criminal Law Supreme Court Slip Opinion

by Townsend, Karen

 

SC20773- State v. Garrison (“The sole issue in this certified appeal is whether officers from the Vernon Police Department elicited incriminating statements from the defendant, Alexander A. Garrison, during a custodial interrogation in his hospital room without first administering Miranda warnings, in violation of his rights under the fifth and fourteenth amendments to the United States constitution. The state appeals, upon our grant of its petition for certification, from the judgment of the Appellate Court, which reversed the judgment of conviction, rendered following a court trial, of assault in the first degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-59 (a) (1). See State v. Garrison, 213 Conn. App. 786, 789–90, 841, 278 A.3d 1085 (2022). The state claims that the Appellate Court incorrectly determined that a new trial was required because the trial court should have suppressed the defendant’s statements on the ground that he was in custody when he spoke with the police officers in his hospital room without having received Miranda warnings. We conclude that the defendant was not in custody during any of his interactions with the police officers at the hospital and, accordingly, reverse the judgment of the Appellate Court.”)