Opinion ID: 2273504
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: The Bryant Evidence and the Shabazz Minimum Credibility Threshold

Text: Notwithstanding its finding that the Bryant evidence was sufficiently trustworthy to be admissible at a new trial, the trial court further concluded that the evidence was not sufficiently believable for purposes of the test adopted by this court in Shabazz v. State, supra, 259 Conn. 811, 792 A.2d 797, to warrant a second trial. Although purporting to apply the test mandated under Shabazz for analyzing a petition for a new trial, the trial court never considered the newly discovered Bryant evidence in light of the original trial evidence, presumably because, in the court's view, Bryant's statements were not credible enough to require that second level of review. [60] I disagree with the trial court that Bryant's statements were not sufficiently credible to require a review of that evidence in the context of the original trial evidence. In particular, I believe that, because the Bryant evidence was admissible as trustworthy declarations against penal interest, that evidence, under the specific circumstances of this case, necessarily satisfied the minimum credibility threshold that comprises the first prong of the two part Shabazz test. [61] Thus, the trial court's failure to view the newly discovered evidence in the context of the evidence adduced at the petitioner's criminal trial was improper. Moreover, as I explain more fully hereinafter, the trial court's findings with respect to the admissibility of the Bryant evidence and its findings with respect to the credibility of that evidence are irreconcilably in conflict, a problem that irretrievably taints both the court's analysis under Shabazz and its ultimate determination that a new trial is not warranted.