Court Opinion

ID: 9699914
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 20:56:31.775467+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:42:32.739828
License: Public Domain

Loiselle, J.
(concurring). While I concur in finding no ground to set aside this judgment, I feel that the court should have sustained the defendant’s objections to the state’s attorney’s comments to the jury concerning the defendant’s failure to produce Willie Tripp as a witness.
Although the state’s attorney did not spell it out, it is clear that his comments were designed to persuade the jury to draw an inference that the defendant did not produce Willie Tripp because so doing would have hurt, rather than helped, his defense. The fact that the argument was not spelled out does not make it proper. In Sickmund v. Connecticut Co., 122 Conn. 375, 383, 189 A. 876, a party presented evidence that the other party had learned of certain evidence and failed to produce it at the trial. The court stated that it was clear that the party “sought by this method to raise an inference unfavorable to the defendant,” and that, because the inference was not permissible, it was error to admit the evidence.
*350There is a substantial body of law in this state concerning the circumstances under which a fact-finder may draw an unfavorable inference from the failure of a party to call a witness. See, e.g., Macie-jewska v. Lombard Bros., Inc., 171 Conn. 35, 43, 368 A.2d 206; Broderick v. Shea, 143 Conn. 590, 593, 124 A.2d 229; Cullum v. Colwell, 85 Conn. 459, 466, 83 A. 695; Scovill v. Baldwin, 27 Conn. 316, 318.
The rule is that the party seeking the benefit of the inference bears the burden of proving that the witness is available and within the other party’s power to produce. Queen v. Gagliola, 162 Conn. 164, 169, 292 A.2d 890. This the state did not do in this case, at least as it appears in the record. Although the law is often discussed in the context of errors in the jury charge; see, e.g., Maciejewska v. Lombard Bros., Inc., supra; Cullum v. Colwell, supra; the purpose of the charge is merely to tell the jury what the law is on this matter; the law applies equally to inferences which a jury is permitted to draw, without any suggestion by court or counsel; Lemmon v. Paterson Construction Co., 137 Conn. 158, 163, 75 A.2d 385; and to suggestions made by counsel. Fierberg v. Whitcomb, 119 Conn. 390, 397, 177 A. 135 (the court correctly sustained an objection to argument concerning the inference when it could not properly be drawn, and then instructed the jury properly); Turner v. Scanlon, 146 Conn. 149, 161, 148 A.2d 334 (when both parties claimed the inference in argument, “the trial court was required to charge upon the matter”); accord, McCormick, Evidence (2d Ed.) § 272, p. 659 (“Most of the courts, moreover, whether or not they customarily include in their instructions a charge . . . assume that they are required to keep a firm rein upon arguments on this inference.”)
*351In State v. Ferrone, 96 Conn. 160, 169, 113 A. 452, this court stated: “While the privilege of counsel in addressing the jury should not be too closely narrowed or unduly hampered, it must never be used as a license to state, or to comment upon, or to suggest an inference from, facts not in evidence, or to present matters which the jury have no right to consider.” That was precisely what the state’s attorney did in this case.
I am persuaded, however, that the error was not harmful when viewed in the context of the whole trial. The defendant was permitted to introduce evidence showing that he had assisted the police in locating Tripp, for whom a warrant had been issued. He also showed that although the police arrested Tripp, the undercover agent did not take the opportunity to look at Tripp to see if he could be the person to whom he made the sale. Further, the court, in responding to a defense objection to the comments of the state’s attorney, did charge the jury that “there is no burden upon a defendant to prove his innocence. The whole burden is upon the state. That remains true, of course, throughout the trial. However, argument which calls upon your human experience is allowable, so I will charge the jury once again there is no burden upon the defendant.” Although there is a distinction between argument on the burden of proof and the right to an inference based on failure to call a witness; see State v. Brown, 169 Conn. 692, 706, 364 A.2d 186; the statements made in argument, viewed in the context of the charge and evidence presented by the defense, were not so prejudicial as to deprive the defendant of his right to a fair trial and due process of law.