State v. Leniart

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STATE v. LENIART—CONCURRENCE
PRESCOTT, J., concurring. Although our Supreme
Court unanimously agreed with our earlier conclusion
that the trial court improperly excluded the videotape
of the polygraph pretest interview, a majority of the
justices nonetheless concluded that the defendant had
failed to demonstrate that the improper exclusion of
the videotape was harmful to him. See State v. Leniart,
333 Conn. 88, 127–28, 138, 215 A.3d 1104 (2019). In
reaching that conclusion, the majority stated that ‘‘[o]ur
impression of the videotape, and what the jury likely
would have gleaned therefrom, differs from that of the
Appellate Court.’’ Id., 133.
As a judge on an intermediate appellate court, I am, of
course, bound by the majority opinion of our Supreme
Court in this matter. This obligation, in my view,
includes the duty to analyze the question of whether
the improper exclusion of the videotape violated the
defendant’s constitutional rights by applying the
descriptions and characterizations of the contents of
the videotape that are set forth in Justice Mullins’ major-
ity opinion; see id., 133–36; regardless of my own
impression or the impression of Justice D’Auria in his
dissent. See id., 169–70. In light of those characteriza-
tions, I cannot conclude, under the precedent well
described and aptly applied by Judge Devlin, that the
improper exclusion of the videotape violated the defen-
dant’s constitutional rights to present a defense or to
confront the witnesses against him.
Accordingly, I concur in the result.