State v. Cooper
Syllabus
Convicted of murder in connection with the shooting death of the victim inside the stairwell of a housing complex, the defendant appealed to this court. The police had identified the defendant from video surveillance foot- age, which depicted the defendant leading the victim into a building through a basement door and then exiting the building alone through the front entrance minutes later. The police subsequently obtained a warrant to search the home of the defendant, who was seventeen years old at the time and living with G, his great-grandmother and legal guardian. During the search, officers seized a pistol and bullets from the defendant's bedroom. While the police were at the defendant's residence, they read the defendant his rights under Miranda v. Arizona (384 U.S. 436), and both the defendant and G signed a card acknowledging that the defendant had been advised of his rights and that he had agreed to speak with the police. Nineteen minutes into the police interview, which occurred in G's presence, the defendant indicated that he did not wish to answer any more questions, but the inter- view nevertheless continued. The trial court denied the defendant's request to suppress any statements made during the first nineteen minutes of the interview, concluding that, under the totality of the circumstances, the state demonstrated that the defendant had knowingly, voluntarily, and intelli- gently waived his Miranda rights. On appeal, the defendant claimed, inter alia, that the state had failed to demonstrate a knowing and voluntary waiver of his Miranda rights. Held: The trial court correctly concluded that, under the totality of the circum- stances, the state demonstrated, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the defendant's waiver of his Miranda rights was knowing, intelligent, and voluntary. The record supported the trial court's factual determinations that, at the time of the interview, the defendant was nearly eighteen years old, was in the tenth or eleventh grade, and displayed no indication of a mental or intellectual deficiency; that he was seated in his bedroom, in G's presence, and was not handcuffed or under the influence of drugs or alcohol; and that the tone of the interview between the defendant and the police was conversational; and all of these facts supported a finding of a voluntary and knowing waiver. There was no merit to the defendant's arguments that his level of education and the allegedly coercive manner in which the police sought the defendant's waiver of his rights weighed against a finding of a knowing and voluntary waiver. In considering the totality of the circumstances, it was appropriate to take into account the defendant's prior encounters with the criminal justice system, including thirteen prior arrests and at least eleven separate instances in which he received Miranda warnings, and the defendant's invocation of his rights nineteen minutes into the interview also demonstrated that his initial waiver of those rights was knowing and voluntary. The trial court gave adequate weight to the defendant's age in considering whether his waiver was knowing and voluntary, as it recognized that the defendant was seventeen years old when he was interviewed, but the court concluded that his youth was outweighed by numerous other factors. Even if this court had assumed that the first nineteen minutes of the police interview should have been suppressed, any error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt in light of the strength of the state's case and the nature of the statements that the defendant made during that portion of the interview. This court declined the defendant's request to adopt, under the state constitu- tion, a prophylactic rule pursuant to which a statement made by a juvenile during a custodial interrogation must be suppressed if the juvenile had not been afforded a meaningful opportunity to consult with an interested adult before the juvenile waived his rights. After considering the relevant factors set forth in State v. Geisler (222 Conn. 672) for construing the parameters of the Connecticut constitution, this court concluded, like the United States Supreme Court and the majority of other states, that the totality of the circumstances approach, in conjunction with the various statutory requirements concerning the interrogation of juveniles, was sufficient to ensure that any waiver of Miranda rights by a juvenile is knowing and voluntary. The defendant could not prevail on his claim that prosecutorial impropriety during closing and rebuttal arguments deprived him of his constitutional right to a fair trial. The prosecutor did not improperly mischaracterize the testimony of R, the state's firearm and toolmark examiner, when the prosecutor observed that R had testified ''to a certain degree of scientific certainty,'' ''to a scientific certainty,'' or ''to a degree of scientific certainty,'' as the prosecutor's com- ments were consistent with the trial court's pretrial order requiring that R's opinions about whether the casings and bullets recovered from the scene of the crime matched those of the firearm found in the defendant's bedroom be phrased in terms of a reasonable degree of certainty or a practical cer- tainty. Moreover, the prosecutor did not improperly argue facts not in evidence when discussing R's testimony, and the prosecutor's references to R's qualifi- cations did not, as the defendant claimed, amount to improper vouching for R's credibility but, instead, constituted fair comment on the evidence pre- sented. The prosecutor did not improperly express her personal opinion, or suggest that she had secret knowledge, about R's testimony when she expressed her disagreement with defense counsel's description of that testimony, as the prosecutor merely summarized R's testimony and invited the jury to conclude that defense counsel's assessment of that testimony was wrong. With respect to the prosecutor's comments that the victim was ''on his hands and knees'' and ''begging for his life'' when he was shot, that the victim had been ''forced at gunpoint to strip'' naked in order to humiliate him, and that the defendant had ''lured'' the victim into a stairwell and ''set a trap'' for him, the prosecutor did not argue facts not in evidence or improperly appeal to the emotions and passions of the jurors, as those comments were based on the evidence presented at trial and the reasonable inferences that could be drawn therefrom, and they were relevant to the issue of whether the defendant had intended to cause the victim's death. Furthermore, the prosecutor did not improperly appeal to the emotions and passions of the jurors by making frequent references to the victim's nudity at the time of the murder or by emphasizing how the victim, after being shot, dragged himself seventy-five feet across a floor while he was bleeding to death, as the victim's nudity was probative of the defendant's intent to cause the victim's death, and the victim's movements after being shot were relevant to demonstrate that the defendant was the shooter. Even if the trial court had improperly instructed the jury on the defendant's consciousness of guilt, which stemmed from evidence that the defendant covered his face with a mask when he exited the building in which he shot the victim and that he fled to Florida after he was interviewed by the police, any instructional error was harmless. This court was not persuaded that the jury likely was misled by the trial court's consciousness of guilt instruction because the state's case against the defendant was strong even without the consciousness of guilt evidence, that case having been based primarily on the testimony of various witnesses, surveillance footage depicting the defendant's conduct before and after the shooting, and evidence recovered from the crime scene and during the execution of the search warrant at the defendant's residence. Argued May 14—officially released September 30, 2025
Opinion Excerpt
************************************************ The “officially released” date that appears near the beginning of an opinion is the date the opinion will be published in the Connecticut Law Journal or the date it is released as a slip opinion. The operative date for the beginning of all time periods for the filing of postopin- ion motions and petitions for certification is the “offi- cially released” date appearing in the opinion. All opinions are subject to modification and technical cor