Background
Lawrence M. was charged in two separate informations with sexual assault in the first degree and risk of injury to a child. The first set of charges arose from his alleged digital penetration of P, his former girlfriend’s daughter, when P was approximately eight years old, sometime between February 2011 and December 2012. The second set arose from his alleged digital penetration of C, his biological daughter, when C was approximately eight to nine years old, between October 2020 and June 2021. P came forward to police in 2021 after learning that C had reported the abuse; years earlier, P had disclosed the incidents to her mother following a breakdown with suicidal ideation. The trial court granted the state’s pretrial motion to join the two cases for a single trial, finding that the evidence in each case would be cross admissible as propensity evidence under Connecticut precedent.
At trial, the state called clinical psychologist Danielle Williams as an expert on child sexual abuse. Williams testified generally about behavioral characteristics common among child victims and about “grooming” — a pattern by which abusers ingratiate themselves with a child and normalize sexual contact. The prosecutor then posed two hypothetical questions tracking facts closely mirroring those in the cases: whether referring to the sexual abuse of a sibling to obtain a child’s compliance would constitute grooming, and whether conditioning gift-giving on the child remaining at the abuser’s home would constitute grooming. Williams answered affirmatively to both. Defense counsel objected that the hypotheticals amounted to improper bolstering of the complainants’ credibility, but the trial court overruled the objection. The jury convicted the defendant on all four counts, and the court imposed a total effective sentence of twenty years of incarceration — suspended after fifteen years — followed by fifteen years of probation.
On direct appeal to the Connecticut Supreme Court, the defendant raised two claims: (1) the trial court applied the wrong legal standard on joinder by improperly shifting the burden of proof onto him, and (2) the trial court abused its discretion by allowing Williams to answer the hypothetical questions, which he contended implicitly vouched for the complainants’ credibility.
The Court’s Holding
The court unanimously affirmed the judgments of conviction on both grounds. On the joinder issue, the court applied plenary review because the defendant alleged an error of law rather than an abuse of discretion. It found that the trial court expressly cited and relied upon State v. James A., 345 Conn. 599 (2022), and State v. DeJesus, 288 Conn. 418 (2008) — the controlling authorities that place the burden squarely on the state to demonstrate, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the defendant will not be substantially prejudiced by joinder. The trial court’s oral decision confirmed it had reviewed the state’s proffer and conducted the required cross-admissibility and probative-versus-prejudicial balancing analysis. The defendant’s argument that the phrase “eight or so years” showed the court failed to view facts in his favor was rejected; the court read that phrase as a colloquial description of a range (approximately eight to ten years) supported by the evidence, and the defendant had not shown one end of the range was more probable than the other. The court similarly rejected the argument that the phrase “not more prejudicial than probative” revealed an inverted legal standard, finding the record as a whole confirmed the court performed the correct balancing test.
On the expert testimony issue, the court applied the abuse-of-discretion standard and found no error. Relying on State v. Favoccia, 306 Conn. 770 (2012), it reaffirmed that experts may testify in general or hypothetical terms about behavioral characteristics of child sexual abuse victims, but may not opine whether the specific complainant exhibited such behaviors — because doing so crosses into impermissible indirect vouching. The court distinguished Williams’ testimony: she had no contact with C or P, had not reviewed their forensic interviews, and could not tell the jury anything about them specifically. Her answers addressed only whether the hypothetical scenarios were generally consistent with known grooming behavior. The court acknowledged that closely tailored hypotheticals carry a risk of implicit endorsement, but held that the similarity of the hypotheticals to the actual facts was precisely what made the testimony relevant, and that Williams’ testimony did not cross the line identified in Favoccia.
Key Takeaways
- When the state seeks to join separate informations for trial in Connecticut, it bears the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant will not be substantially prejudiced — a burden confirmed by James A. and DeJesus and which the trial court correctly applied here.
- Under Favoccia, a child-abuse expert may answer hypothetical questions that track the facts of the case so long as the expert does not specifically testify about the complainant’s own behaviors or credibility; generalized grooming testimony framed in hypothetical terms remains permissible.
- Imprecise language in a trial court’s oral ruling — such as “not more prejudicial than probative” or an approximate time reference — does not establish legal error when the record as a whole demonstrates the court applied the correct standard and conducted the required analysis.
- A defendant’s failure to offer evidence supporting one end of a factual range (here, the timing of the alleged assaults) undermines any appellate argument that the trial court construed that range against him.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces the boundaries Connecticut courts have drawn around expert testimony in child sexual abuse prosecutions. Practitioners on both sides now have clearer guidance that hypothetical questions closely mirroring case facts are not automatically barred — the critical line remains whether the expert speaks to the specific complainant’s behavior or credibility rather than to general behavioral patterns. Defense counsel should be alert to the distinction and prepared to challenge testimony that, even under a hypothetical framing, effectively profiles the actual victim.
The joinder holding also matters for trial strategy. The court’s reaffirmation that the state bears the preponderance burden to demonstrate cross-admissibility or lack of unfair prejudice — and its confirmation that deference to the trial court’s oral reasoning is appropriate when the court cites the right authority — signals that appellate challenges based solely on an imprecise turn of phrase in an oral ruling face a high bar. Defendants seeking to defeat joinder motions would be well served to develop a factual record rebutting the state’s proffer rather than relying on linguistic critique of the trial court’s phrasing.