*********************************************** The “officially released” date that appears near the be- ginning of each opinion is the date the opinion will be pub- lished in the Connecticut Law Journal or the date it was released as a slip opinion. The operative date for the be- ginning of all time periods for filing postopinion motions and petitions for certification is the “officially released” date appearing in the opinion. All opinions are subject to modification and technical correction prior to official publication in the Connecticut Reports and Connecticut Appellate Reports. In the event of discrepancies between the advance release version of an opinion and the latest version appearing in the Connecticut Law Journal and subsequently in the Connecticut Reports or Connecticut Appellate Reports, the latest version is to be considered authoritative. The syllabus and procedural history accompanying the opinion as it appears in the Connecticut Law Journal and bound volumes of official reports are copyrighted by the Secretary of the State, State of Connecticut, and may not be reproduced and distributed without the express written permission of the Commission on Official Legal Publica- tions, Judicial Branch, State of Connecticut. *********************************************** STATE OF CONNECTICUT v. OSCAR H.* (AC 43622) Lavine, Prescott and Suarez, Js.** Syllabus The defendant, who had been convicted of several crimes, including murder, as a result of the stabbing death of N, appealed, claiming that the trial court improperly admitted into evidence the deposition testimony of B, whom the defendant also stabbed during the same incident, after having improperly determined pursuant to the former testimony exception to the rule against hearsay in the applicable provision (§ 8-6 (1)) of the Connecticut Code of Evidence that B, an undocumented immigrant, who had returned to her native Guatemala prior to trial, was unavailable to testify. The defendant also claimed that his conviction of attempt to commit murder and assault in the first degree as to B violated the constitutional prohibition against double jeopardy because each crime was predicated on the same act against B. Prior to trial, the court granted the state’s motion to issue a subpoena for B to be deposed, as her return to Guatemala would put her beyond the state’s subpoena power. At the judicially supervised deposition, which was video-recorded and tran- scribed, the defendant had an opportunity to cross-examine B without any restrictions by the court. B, who spoke no English, thereafter left for Guatemala. At trial, P, a director of an immigrant services organization, testified that she had spoken with B at least once a month after B returned to Guatemala and that, at the state’s request, she spoke to B by phone three days before the trial and B indicated that she would not voluntarily return to Connecticut to testify. The defendant argued that the state had failed to establish B’s unavailability because, inter alia, P spoke with B only by phone and did not testify that she had seen B in Guatemala, there was no evidence that B had been forced to leave the United States …
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals