finding it proper for prosecutor, following defendant’s closing argument, to highlight dif- ference between state’s version and defendant’s version of facts and inferences properly drawn from those facts
How later courts described this case
- finding it proper for prosecutor, following defendant’s closing argument, to highlight dif- ference between state’s version and defendant’s version of facts and inferences properly drawn from those facts
- noting assistant public defender
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
FLYNN, J.,
concurring. I concur in the result reached and that the defendant’s conviction should be affirmed. There was overwhelming evidence of the defendant’s guilt. TMs evidence is pointed out in the majority opinion and needs no repetition. Its weight under the Williams factors militates against reversal. See State v. Pereira, 72 Conn. App. 545, 563-67 , 805 A.2d 787 (2002), cert. denied, 262 Conn. 931 , 815 A.2d 135 (2003).
I disagree with part I of the opinion holding that there was no impropriety. It has been said that nothing *674 exceeds like excess. Several of the prosecutor’s questions were excessively sarcastic. Injection of sarcasm into a cross-examination is improper. State v. Spiegelmann, 81 Conn. App. 441,457 , 840 A.2d 69 , cert. denied, 268 Conn. 921 , 846 A.2d 882 (2004). The question before the jury was whether the defendant shot his wife and two daughters and then burned their bodies, intentionally causing their death. Despite the horror of the defendant’s crime, the jury’s deliberation could have been better able to proceed without the mocking, caustic tone inviting ridicule that the cross-examination of the defendant took.