Volume 345 — Connecticut Reports

Pursuant to the rules of practice (§ 23-24), once a petition for a writ of habeas corpus is filed in the Superior Court, ''[t]he judicial authority shall promptly review [the] petition . . . to determine whether the writ should issue. The judicial authority shall issue the writ unless it appears that . . . the court lacks jurisdiction . . . the petition is wholly frivo- lous on its face . . . or . . . the relief sought is not available,'' and ''[t]he judicial authority shall notify the petitioner if it declines to issue the writ pursuant to this rule.'' Pursuant further to the rules of practice (§ 23-29 (3)), ''[t]he judicial authority may, at any time, upon its own motion . . . dismiss the petition, or any count thereof, if it determines that . . . the petition presents the same ground as a prior petition previously denied and fails to state new facts or to proffer new evidence not reasonably available at the time of the prior petition . . . .'' The petitioner, who had been convicted of arson in the first degree and conspiracy to commit arson in the first degree, filed a successive habeas petition, claiming that he was not canvassed properly about his right to appeal when the public defender assigned to represent him withdrew from representation before the start of the defendant's criminal trial. The habeas court, acting on its own motion and without notifying the parties, dismissed the petition as repetitious pursuant to Practice Book § 23-29 (3). Thereafter, the petitioner filed a petition for certification to appeal, which the habeas court denied, and the petitioner appealed to the Appellate Court, which summarily dismissed the petitioner's appeal. On the granting of certification, the petitioner appealed to this court, claiming that the habeas court improperly had dismissed his petition pursuant to § 23-29 without providing him with prior notice and an opportunity to be heard. Held that, prior to dismissing a habeas petition on its own motion under Practice Book § 23-29, a habeas court is required to provide the petitioner with notice of the court's intention to dismiss the petition, and the petitioner has the right to be heard on the papers, either by way of a brief or a written response, the habeas court thus improperly dismissed the petitioner's habeas petition pursuant to § 23-29 (3) without providing the petitioner with prior notice and an opportunity to submit a brief or a written response, and, accordingly, this court reversed the Appellate Court's judgment dismissing the petitioner's appeal and remanded the case for further proceedings: Because Practice Book § 23-29 was ambiguous with respect to whether a habeas court is required, once it issues the writ after applying the criteria set forth in Practice Book § 23-24, to provide notice and an opportunity to be heard before dismissing a petition pursuant to § 23- 29 on its own motion, this court reviewed the historical development of those rules, including the wholesale revision of the provisions governing habeas proceedings (§ 23-21 et seq.) by the Rules Committee of the Superior Court and a predecessor rule that previously had expressly authorized habeas courts to dismiss repetitive petitions without a hear- ing, as well as the differences and interplay between §§ 23-29 and 23- 24, the latter of which acts as a gatekeeping mechanism and requires the court only to provide notice after it has declined to issue the writ, and these considerations led this court to conclude that the Rules Committee intended that dismissal under § 23-29 requires additional procedural safe- guards beyond those that are required for a decision not to issue the writ under § 23-24. Although those additional safeguards required, at the least, prior notice to the petitioner or the petitioner's counsel and the opportunity to file a written response, it would be overly burdensome and inefficient to require the habeas court to conduct a full hearing on every petition that survives the court's initial review under Practice Book § 23-24, especially in light of the public policy underlying the legislature's comprehensive habeas reform in 2012, which was intended to improve and expedite the habeas process by efficiently disposing of frivolous petitions. This interpretation was consistent with the intent of the Rules Committee in revising the rules, drew a proper balance between the competing interests of affording petitioners due process and the need for expedi- tious resolution of habeas petitions in an effort to reach the meritorious cases, and permitted habeas courts to conduct full hearings when they deem them appropriate. Insofar as the habeas court in the present case did not have the opportu- nity to first determine whether any grounds existed for it to decline to issue the writ pursuant to Practice Book § 23-24, the case was remanded to the habeas court to first make that determination; if it opts to issue the writ and again elects to exercise its discretion to dismiss the petition on its own motion pursuant to Practice Book § 23-29, it must provide the petitioner with prior notice and an opportunity to file a brief or a written response addressing the proposed basis for dismissal pursuant to § 23-29. (One justice concurring separately) Argued September 15, 2021—officially released October 4, 2022

Pursuant to statute (§ 53a-98 (a) (3)), a person is guilty of custodial interfer- ence in the second degree when, ''knowing that he [or she] has no legal right to do so, he [or she] holds, keeps or otherwise refuses to return a child who is less than sixteen years old to such child's lawful custodian after a request by such custodian for the return of such child.'' Convicted of three counts of custodial interference in the second degree, the defendant appealed. The defendant's children, who were under the age of sixteen years, were at her home for visitation over a holiday weekend. F, the defendant's former husband and the children's father, had sole physical and legal custody of the children, whereas the defen- dant had visitation rights. Over the weekend, the children decided that they did not want to go home with F at the end of the long weekend. When F went to the defendant's home to pick up the children in accor- dance with the visitation schedule, the defendant told F that she wasn't sending the children out. The defendant stated that the children didn't want to come out to F and that she was going to do what the children wanted to do. Thereafter, F summoned a local police officer, who went to the defendant's home. Although the officer did not arrest the defen- dant, he encouraged her to seek legal counsel and to pursue the matter in family court. After F returned to his home, he contacted the children's school resource officer, N, and informed him of the children's refusal to return to his home. Soon thereafter, N contacted the defendant and asked her why the children had not been returned to F, and she told N that she was not going to make the children return to F. The children had also been absent from school during this time, and N told the defendant that she could be in trouble if she did not get the children back into school. The defendant agreed to return the children to school, and N agreed not to seek a warrant for her arrest. When the children continued to be absent from school, N again contacted the defendant, who said that she would not return the children to school. N then obtained an arrest warrant. After the defendant was convicted, she appealed to the Appellate Court, claiming that § 53a-98 (a) (3) was unconstitutionally vague in its application to her and that there was insufficient evidence to support her conviction. The Appellate Court rejected both claims and affirmed the judgment of conviction. On the granting of certification, the defendant appealed to this court. Held: 1. The defendant could not prevail on her unpreserved claim that § 53a-98 (a) (3) was unconstitutionally vague as applied to her, the defendant having failed to demonstrate the existence of a constitutional violation under the third prong of the test set forth in State v. Golding (213 Conn. 233): a. The defendant could not prevail on her claim that § 53a-98 (a) (3) was unconstitutionally vague as applied to her on the ground that it gave her no notice that her inaction in connection with the return of her children to F would satisfy the ''refuses to return'' element of the statute: The ''refuses to return'' element of § 53a-98 (a) (3) may be satisfied when a person either affirmatively refuses to send or deliver a child back to the child's lawful custodian or declines to take any affirmative action to send or deliver a child back to the child's lawful custodian, after such custodian has requested the return of the child, as the plain meanings of the words ''refuse'' and ''return,'' as gleaned from standard dictionaries, clearly impose an affirmative obligation on an individual to take some action to comply with a custodian's request to return a child, and, accord- ingly, refusing to return a child to the child's custodian may be demon- strated by affirmative action or a passive refusal to act. Allowing an individual to escape the requirements of § 53a-98 (a) (3) simply by ignoring requests from a child's custodian would plainly lead to an absurd result that the legislature could not have intended. This court clarified that § 53a-98 (a) (3) does not require an individual to compel a child to return to the child's lawful custodian but, rather, requires an individual to use efforts commensurate with the situation to avoid prosecution under that statute, and the efforts required in any given situation will vary and be dependent on any number of facts and considerations, including, without limitation, the age of the child and the relationship between the child and the individual required to return the child to the child's custodian. There was no merit to the defendant's claim that, even if § 53a-98 (a) (3) required some form of action, a person of ordinary intelligence in the defendant's position would not reasonably have known that she was engaged in prohibited conduct insofar as § 53a-98 and case law are silent on precisely what action is required to return a child, as any person of ordinary intelligence would understand that failing to take any action upon a request to return is the equivalent of an affirmative refusal to return and, therefore, prohibited by the plain language of § 53a-98 (a) (3). Accordingly, this court concluded that the defendant's conduct fell within the core meaning of § 53a-98 (a) (3), that the language of that statute provided notice to the defendant that the ''refuses to return'' element of the statute encompassed the behavior of an individual who, like the defendant, declines to take any action to send a child back to the child's lawful custodian, and that a person of ordinary intelligence would under- stand that ignoring a request to return is the equivalent of an affirmative refusal to return and is therefore prohibited by the plain language of the statute. b. The defendant could not prevail on her claim that § 53a-98 (a) (3) is unconstitutionally vague because it is subject to arbitrary and discrimina- tory enforcement and that it, therefore, impermissibly delegates the resolution of the definition of the phrase ''refuses to return'' to police officers, judges and juries on an ad hoc and subjective basis: There was no risk of arbitrary or discriminatory enforcement in the present case insofar as the plain terms of § 53a-98 (a) (3) provided sufficient guidance as to what conduct is prohibited and insofar as the statute has a core meaning within which the defendant's conduct fell. The fact that F's local police department charged the defendant with violating § 53a-98 (a) (3) but the defendant's local police department declined to do so did not necessarily demonstrate arbitrary or discrimina- tory enforcement but, rather, the exercise of discretion, and the defen- dant did not point to anything in the record that would support the conclusion that the police department that declined to charge the defen- dant believed that § 53a-98 (a) (3) was inapplicable to the defendant. 2. There was sufficient evidence to prove that the defendant ''refuse[d] to return'' her children to F within the meaning of § 53a-98 (a) (3) and to support her conviction: The evidence having established that the defendant told F, when he came to pick up the children, that she was not sending the children out of her house, that the children did not want to come out of the house, and that she was going to do what the children wanted to do, and the defendant having testified that she had told N that she did not make the children go outside to F because they did not want to go with him, that she was ''supporting whatever [the children] needed,'' and that the children had ''convince[d] [her] of the reasons why they [did not] want to go,'' the jury reasonably could have inferred that the defendant had refused to take any steps to return the children to F upon his request and, instead, had affirmatively abdicated her parental responsibility by allowing the children to decide whether to comply with the defendant and F's custody and visitation order. To the extent that the defendant claimed that her testimony reflected that she did not prevent the children from going with F and that she essentially urged them to go with F, the jury was not required to accept the defendant's version of events, and certain of the defendant's other testimony undermined the testimony that could be construed to indicate that she had urged the children to go with F. Although certain evidence demonstrated that the children had agreed that they were going to refuse to go with F, that evidence focused on the actions of the children and other individuals, rather than the defen- dant, and the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to sustaining the verdict, demonstrated that the defendant refused to do anything but follow the will of her children. Argued April 25—officially released October 18, 2022

Pursuant to statute (§ 12-63c (a)), an owner of real property used primarily for the purpose of producing rental income may be required to ''annually submit to the assessor not later than the first day of June'' certain income and expense information for such property. Pursuant further to statute (§ 12-63c (d)), an owner who fails to submit the information required by § 12-63c (a) ''shall be subject to a penalty equal to a ten per cent increase in the assessed value of such property for such assessment year.'' The plaintiff, who owns certain real property in the town of Hamden, appealed to the trial court from the decision of the defendant town's board of assessment appeals, which upheld the assessment, pursuant to § 12-63c (d), of a 10 percent penalty against the plaintiff's property for the plaintiff's purportedly late submission of certain 2015 income and expense information pursuant to § 12-63c (a). The plaintiff had mailed the information on May 31, 2016, but the assessor did not receive it until June 2, 2016, one day after the June 1 deadline set forth in § 12- 63c (a). The trial court upheld the board's decision, granted the town's motion for summary judgment, and rendered judgment for the town, concluding that the penalty was not improperly imposed because the word ''submit,'' as used in § 12-63c (a), required that the assessor receive the information by June 1. The Appellate Court affirmed the trial court's judgment, concluding that, when viewed in the context of other tax statutes, the use of the word ''submit'' in § 12-63c (a) unambiguously required delivery of the information to the assessor by June 1. On the granting of certification, the plaintiff appealed to this court, claiming, inter alia, that the term ''submit'' in § 12-63c (a) means ''to send'' and that the Appellate Court, therefore, incorrectly had concluded that the term ''submit'' required that the assessor receive the income and expense information by June 1. Held that the Appellate Court correctly concluded that the word ''submit,'' as used in § 12-63c (a), required that the assessor receive the plaintiff's income and expense information by June 1, and, accordingly, the asses- sor's imposition of the 10 percent penalty under § 12-63c (d) was not improper: Because the word ''submit'' was not defined in § 12-63c (a) or in the broader statutory scheme, this court looked to dictionary definitions in order to understand its ordinary meaning, and those definitions indicated that the process of submission is not considered complete in many contexts until the information is delivered to the recipient, and a reading of § 12-63c as a whole confirmed that the legislature's use of ''submit'' in the context of that statute unambiguously required the receipt, rather than the mere sending, of the income and expense information by June 1. Although the plaintiff claimed that the fact that subsection (c) of § 12- 63c used the word ''receipt'' and subsections (a) and (d) of that statute used ''submit'' suggested that the legislature must have intended those two words to have different meanings, a closer reading of § 12-63c (c) supported the opposite conclusion, as the phrase ''receipt of information'' in § 12-63c (c) is followed directly by the phrase ''as required under subsection (a),'' thus indicating that § 12-63c (a) requires receipt rather than mere sending. Construing the word ''submit'' to require receipt of the information pro- duced a more harmonious result with this court's case law suggesting that the common usage of the word ''submit'' contemplates not only transmission but receipt, as well, and a conclusion that § 12-63c (a) requires only sending or postmarking the information by June 1 could lead to unworkable results insofar as it would place the burden on the assessor to locate any information that is delayed or lost in the mail and would provide no incentive to the property owner to assist in locating or replacing such missing information. In the present case, the plaintiff did not ''submit'' its income and expense information to the assessor when it placed that information in the hands of the postal service on May 31, 2016, but, rather, the process of submis- sion was complete only when the assessor received the information on June 2, 2016, one day after the statutory deadline imposed by § 12-63c (a). (Two justices concurring separately in one opinion) Argued May 4—officially released October 18, 2022

The plaintiff landowner sought to quiet title to an abutting parcel of real property, to which the defendant O Co. held record title. The plaintiff's shorefront property, which was located on a peninsula protruding into Long Island Sound, had been owned by the B family for nearly seventy- five years before the plaintiff purchased it. The deed conveying the property to the plaintiff identifies the abutting parcel, which is forty feet wide and bound to the south by Long Island Sound, as a right of way. O Co., a nonprofit organization formed to promote the interests of certain property owners on the peninsula, had acquired title to the parcel and other rights of way to the shoreline in the 1970s. The plaintiff and her husband, during their plans to expand the house on the property, began to investigate the property's prior ownership and retained various attorneys, including M, to research whether the B family had acquired title to the parcel by adverse possession and to pursue that claim. M recommended that the plaintiff file a notice of her claim of adverse possession on the land records pursuant to a provision (§ 47-33f) of the Marketable Title Act (§ 47-33b et seq.) to ensure that O Co. did not attempt to extinguish her claim under the act. M also sent a letter analyzing the factual and legal grounds for and against the claim, in which M ultimately concluded that the plaintiff had acquired title to the parcel by adverse possession. Thereafter, the plaintiff recorded a notice of claim on the land records of the town in which her property and the parcel were located, claiming a fee interest in the parcel by virtue of adverse possession. In the present quiet title action, the plaintiff alleged that her predecessors in title had used and possessed the parcel for more than fifteen years in an open, visible, notorious, adverse, exclusive, continuous and uninterrupted manner such that the predecessors in title, and, through them, the plaintiff, had acquired title to the parcel. O Co. denied the plaintiff's claim and filed a counterclaim, alleging slander of title, pursuant to statute (§ 47-33j), on the basis of the plain- tiff's filing notice of her claim of adverse possession on the land records and seeking, inter alia, to quiet title in the fee of the parcel in its favor. During a bench trial, the plaintiff presented evidence of specific uses of the parcel by the B family that, according to her, supported her claim of adverse possession, namely, evidence that they had twice repaired a seawall in front of the parcel, installed a septic system leaching field, a portion of which was under the parcel, used a parking area on a portion of the parcel adjacent to the property's driveway, and planted several trees, maintained the lawn and installed a birdbath on the parcel. After finding that O Co. held record title to the parcel, the trial court concluded that none of the B family's uses established that they had repudiated their right by deed to pass over the parcel or placed O Co. or its predecessors on notice of an adverse possession claim. The court also found that, although the deed conveying the property to the plaintiff conveyed an easement over the parcel, the B family did not intend to convey a fee title to the parcel. The court therefore concluded that the plaintiff had failed to establish that her predecessors in title had repudiated their permissive use of the parcel and that, even if proof of repudiation were not required, the plaintiff had failed to establish her claim of adverse possession. Accordingly, the court found for O Co. on both the plaintiff's quiet title claim and the portion of O Co.'s counter- claim seeking to quite title. The court also found for O Co. on the portion of its counterclaim alleging slander of title, concluding that the plaintiff had filed her notice of claim with a reckless disregard for its truth and for the purpose of slandering O Co.'s fee title to the parcel. On appeal from the trial court's judgment in favor of O Co., held: 1. The trial court improperly required the plaintiff to establish, as a threshold matter in proving her claim of adverse possession, that she or her predecessors in title had clearly and unequivocally repudiated their right by deed to pass over the parcel: The repudiation doctrine, which recognizes that, when an original entry on land is by permission of the owner or under some right or authority derived from the owner, the possession of the land does not become hostile until the permission or authority has been clearly repudiated by the occupant, did not apply under the circumstances of the present case, as the authorities suggested that, when the right to use land for a particular purpose is conferred by deed, and the claimant has used the land for some other purpose that is more extensive than the right con- ferred by the deed, the use may be considered hostile and give rise to a claim of adverse possession. In the present case, the plaintiff claimed that she or members of the B family used the parcel for purposes for which they did not have permis- sion, either by license or by deed, and that their use in such a manner was sufficiently open, hostile and notorious to give notice to O Co. of a claim of adverse possession, and that was all the law required. 2. Notwithstanding the trial court's improper application of the repudiation doctrine, that court correctly determined that the plaintiff had failed to establish the elements of adverse possession: a. The plaintiff could not prevail on her claim that the trial court improp- erly had required her to establish, in order to satisfy the element of adverse possession that she used the parcel under a claim of right, that she and her predecessors in title had the subjective intent to use the parcel as owners, rather than establishing only that they engaged in acts that objectively evinced such an intent: This court's cases make clear that the party claiming adverse possession must show his or her intent to use the property as his or her own and that that issue involves an inquiry into that individual's mental condition. Accordingly, the trial court correctly determined that the plaintiff was required to prove that she and members of the B family subjectively intended to use the parcel as their own in order to establish her claim of adverse possession. b. The trial court's conclusion that the plaintiff failed to establish the elements of adverse possession was not so inextricably intertwined with its incorrect application of the repudiation doctrine that it could not stand as an independent ground for affirmance, as the evidence in the record supported each of the trial court's findings that formed the basis of its rejection of the uses that, according to the plaintiff, established adverse possession of the parcel: The B family made no assertion of ownership to the parcel in the various governmental permit applications that they submitted when repairing the seawall, and they shared the expense of those repairs with neighbors, indicating that they were not acting under a claim of ownership. The limited evidence regarding the septic system, including a memoran- dum from O Co. stating that its members could install septic systems in the rights of way, suggested a permissive use, and the septic system was underground and, thus, was not a visible or notorious use of the parcel. The evidence demonstrated that the members of the B family were aware that they did not own the parcel and understood that O Co. could remove the trees they had planted on the parcel if the trees interfered with the right of way, the B family used the gravel parking area that encroached on the parcel only when they hosted large gatherings, which was not inconsistent with O Co.'s use of the parcel or the manner in which other owners of property abutting the rights of way leading to the shoreline used the rights of way, and the birdbath that was installed on the parcel, which was only thirty-six inches in diameter, was not a substantial struc- ture that could give rise to a claim of adverse possession of the entire parcel. Historical evidence showed that the heirs of the individual who originally subdivided the properties on the peninsula and O Co.'s predecessor had community of property owners in the development, and the trial court found no evidence that members of the B family had acted in a way that was inconsistent with their easement over the parcel, that their conduct with respect to the parcel was dissimilar to the conduct of other shore- front lot owners with respect to rights of way abutting their properties, or that they had acted in a way inconsistent with the prevailing commu- nity spirit on the peninsula, such that their activities did not evince an intent to use the property as their own. Accordingly, although the plaintiff was not required to establish that her predecessors in title had repudiated their right by deed to pass over the parcel in order to establish adverse possession, she was required to establish that any more extensive use of the parcel was not impliedly permitted, which she failed to do, and the trial court's legal error regard- ing the repudiation doctrine could not have impacted its conclusion that the plaintiff had failed to establish adverse possession. 3. O Co. failed to demonstrate, as a matter of law, that the plaintiff had acted with malice when she filed notice of her claim of adverse possession on the land records, the trial court therefore incorrectly determined that she slandered O Co.'s title, and, accordingly, this court reversed in part the trial court's judgment and remanded the case with direction to render judgment for the plaintiff on that portion of O Co.'s counterclaim alleging slander of title under § 47-33j: The plaintiff's notice of claim was premised on an incorrect legal theory that had been endorsed by her attorneys, namely, that she could establish adverse possession by showing that she and her predecessors in title had used the parcel in a manner that objectively evinced their intent to own it, regardless of their subjective beliefs regarding actual ownership, and, although M and the plaintiff's other attorneys were incorrect regard- ing that legal proposition, the malice necessary for slander of title does not exist when the offending party's actions rest on a rational but incor- rect interpretation of the law. In the present case, the fact that the plaintiff's attorneys were incorrect with respect to their interpretation of the law did not mean that their position was so irrational that no reasonable attorney could propound it, as they relied on this court's own case law, albeit case law that has since been overruled, and a number of other jurisdictions employ the rule urged by the plaintiff's attorneys. Accordingly, although the plaintiff's claim of adverse possession was weak, both factually and legally, the claim was at least colorable in light of her mistaken but not entirely unreasonable position that she was not required to establish that her predecessors in title had any subjective intent to use the land as their own. Although evidence of a bad or corrupt motive or an intent to inflict harm is not required to establish a claim of slander of title under § 47-33j, lack of such a motive or intent may be probative, and, in the present case, the plaintiff had nothing to gain by recording a notice of a knowingly false claim, and her sole motive in recording the notice was to prevent her adverse possession claim from being extinguished by operation of the Marketable Title Act. Insofar as this court determined that O Co. could not prevail on its slander of title claim under § 47-33j, O Co. was not entitled to attorney's fees and costs pursuant to that statute, and, accordingly, this court vacated the trial court's award of attorney's fees and costs. Argued March 30—officially released October 18, 2022

Convicted of numerous crimes, including sexual assault in the first degree and unlawful restraint in the first degree, the defendant appealed to this court. The defendant had entered an apartment in which two sisters, F and M, were staying, where he threatened them with a revolver, forced them to undress, prevented them from leaving, and assaulted them sexually. At some point, M fled the apartment and encountered C, and one of C's companions called 911. F and M were transported to a hospital, where a nurse evaluated them and administered sexual assault kits. The defendant was arrested, and the police seized the clothing and jewelry he was wearing at the time of his arrest and the clothing he had worn the day of the incident. At the defendant's jury trial, R, a DNA analyst at the state forensic laboratory, testified about the comparison between known DNA profiles, which were taken from the defendant, F, and M, and DNA profiles from evidentiary samples, which were taken from the sexual assault kits, swabs of the defendant's clothes and jewelry, and a cigarette butt found in the apartment. R explained that F's and M's DNA profiles were included in the DNA profile drawn from the defen- dant's jeans, that M's DNA profile was included in profiles generated from the defendant's underpants, and that F's and the defendant's DNA profiles were both included in the DNA profile drawn from the cigarette butt. N, a biologist at the state laboratory, also testified regarding the forensic analysis performed in relation to the defendant's case, specifi- cally, about the presence of certain substances found in samples from the sexual assault kits and the defendant's clothing. The state also presented evidence that the defendant was wearing a global positioning system (GPS) monitoring device at the time of the incident, which revealed that he was at or near the apartment around the time in question. The defendant filed a posttrial motion for a new trial, claiming that his right to a fair trial had been violated insofar as the prosecutor and certain witnesses referred to F and M as ''victims'' during trial. He also filed a supplemental motion for a new trial, claiming that the state had violated his due process rights by failing to correct false or misleading testimony concerning a pretrial meeting attended by F, the prosecutor, and an investigator, K. At that meeting, F, who was the defendant in an unrelated criminal case, indicated her hope to enter a drug treatment program. At the defendant's trial, however, F testified that she never had asked the state's attorney's office for help with her pending criminal case, and K testified that the state had made no promises to F. The trial court denied both posttrial motions. On the defendant's appeal from the judgment of conviction, held: 1. The defendant could not prevail on his unpreserved claim that his federal constitutional right to confrontation was violated by virtue of the admis- sion of R's testimony regarding certain DNA profiles and N's testimony regarding certain forensic reports: a. Contrary to the state's argument, the defendant did not waive his confrontation claim on the ground that defense counsel failed to object to N's and R's testimony and used portions of the DNA evidence to the defendant's advantage: The law in effect at the time of the defendant's trial provided that a defendant's federal constitutional right to confrontation is not necessarily offended when a forensic laboratory employee who was not involved in preparing a DNA profile testifies that a comparison using that profile implicates the defendant, and it was not until after the defendant's trial that this court issued its decision in State v. Walker (332 Conn. 678), which held that, to satisfy the dictates of the confrontation clause, the state must call as a witness at least one analyst with personal knowledge concerning the accuracy of a numerical DNA profile, even though all analysts who participate in the process of generating a DNA profile need not testify. Because this court had not yet decided Walker when the defendant's case was tried, he arguably would not have had a colorable confrontation claim under the law in effect at the time of trial, and, accordingly, defense counsel's failure to object to R's and N's testimony, as well as counsel's choice to highlight whatever support for the defendant's position he could glean from the testimony of R and N and certain laboratory reports, did not constitute a knowing and intelligent waiver of the defendant's confrontation claim. b. This court declined to review the defendant's unpreserved claim that R's testimony violated his confrontation rights on the ground that R was not involved in generating, and had no personal knowledge of, certain DNA profiles used in the comparisons about which R testified, the record having been inadequate to review that claim: The defendant failed to establish the extent of R's involvement in or personal knowledge of the process of generating DNA profiles from the known samples because, when the prosecutor asked R whether she generated the known DNA profiles from M, F and the defendant, R responded in the passive voice, which created an ambiguity as to whether it was R who personally generated the profiles or, if it was not R, whether R had personal knowledge of their generation. Moreover, the defendant failed to establish the extent of R's involvement in or personal knowledge of the process of generating DNA profiles from certain evidentiary samples, as the record was clouded by indeterminate exchanges between the attorneys and R, as well as R's use of the passive voice, all of which made it impossible to assess whether the work was that of R or, if it was not, whether R had personal knowledge of how the profiles were generated. c. The defendant could not prevail on his unpreserved claim that N's testimony about certain forensic reports violated his confrontation rights on the ground that N had no direct involvement in or personal knowledge about the underlying testing or handling of the samples that formed the basis of those reports, as the state satisfied its burden of establishing that any confrontation clause violation was harmless beyond a reason- able doubt: The record was adequate to review the defendant's claim regarding N's testimony, that claim was of constitutional magnitude, and the state conceded, and this court agreed, that N offered testimonial hearsay, in violation of the defendant's confrontation rights under Walker, which permits only the examining analyst or another witness with the requisite personal knowledge to testify regarding the results of forensic reports, as N explicitly referred to, relied on, and vouched for the quality of work that she, the technical reviewer, did not perform when she testified about the presence of certain substances in samples from the sexual assault kits and the defendant's clothing. Nevertheless, the state satisfied its burden of establishing that the con- frontation clause violation was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, because, even without the portions of N's testimony that were admitted in error, the state's case against the defendant was compelling, and there was a substantial and strong body of evidence indicating that the charged crimes were committed and that the defendant was the perpetrator, which were the two major issues around which N's testimony centered. Specifically, F's testimony related how the defendant had entered the apartment and repeatedly sexually assaulted her and M, and that testi- mony was corroborated by the testimony and medical report of the nurse who examined F, F's statement to the police, and C's testimony regarding his encounter with M after M fled the apartment. With respect to whether the defendant was the perpetrator, the state presented evidence that F identified the defendant in a photographic array, her statement to the police describing the perpetrator's hair and clothing, which matched that of the defendant, DNA evidence confirming that the defendant had been in physical contact with M and F, GPS data placing the defendant at or near the crime scene around the time of the incident, and certain evidence of the defendant's consciousness of guilt. 2. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying the defendant's supplemental motion for a new trial, in which the defendant claimed that the prosecutor had violated his due process rights by failing to correct the allegedly false or misleading trial testimony of F, who denied having asked the state for assistance with her pending criminal case, and of K, who testified that the state had made no offers or promises to F: a. Although F's testimony that she never asked the state for help with her pending criminal case was technically true, it was misleading insofar as her statements at the pretrial meeting with the prosecutor and K regarding F's hope to enter a drug treatment program suggested an implicit request for the state's assistance with her drug problem or, potentially, with her criminal case. Nevertheless, F's testimony was not substantially misleading because it was not untrue in a manner that would have been obvious to the prosecu- tor, as F did not expressly ask the state for any help with her pending criminal case, and any tendency F's testimony had to mislead the jury was cured when the jury was made aware, through the prosecutor's questioning of K, that F had expressed, during the pretrial meeting, her wish to enroll in a drug treatment program. b. Although the state presented and failed to correct K's substantially misleading testimony, that testimony was not material and, therefore, did not require reversal of the defendant's conviction: The state conceded, and this court agreed, that K's testimony was sub- stantially misleading, insofar as the prosecutor should have elicited testi- mony from K, after K testified that the state had made no promises to F, about what K told F that K would tell the other prosecutor handling F's criminal case. Notwithstanding the state's argument that due process was satisfied inasmuch as the prosecutor disclosed the pretrial meeting to defense counsel before trial began and to defense counsel and the trial court during a midtrial meeting held outside the presence of the jury, those disclosures were not sufficient to cure K's misleading testimony, as it was the prosecutor who elicited the substantially misleading testimony from K on direct examination, the prosecutor used that testimony to the state's advantage during closing argument, K's testimony was important to the state's case insofar as it bolstered the credibility of F, who was the state's central witness, the truth was not brought to the attention of the jury by defense counsel, and the jury was never informed that the prosecutor offered to tell the other prosecutor handling F's criminal case that F wanted to enter a drug treatment program. Although the state's failure to correct K's testimony prevented the jury from accurately assessing both K's and F's credibility, K's credibility was largely immaterial, and there was no reason to believe that the result of the defendant's trial would have been different if the jury had determined that K lacked credibility. Because K's testimony helped bolster F's credibility, and because the jury may have treated F's testimony more skeptically if it had known of F's implicit inducement to testify, this court considered the strength of the state's case in the absence of F's trial testimony and concluded that the misleading testimony was not material to the result of the trial, insofar as F's testimony was corroborated by her own prior statements and other sources, F's potential inducement to testify falsely was limited, the jury reached a verdict quickly, even in the face of other impeachment evidence, and the jury found the defendant not guilty on one charge, indicating that it was able to assess F's credibility independently of the influence of K's substantially misleading testimony. 3. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying the defendant's motion for a new trial, in which he claimed that his right to a fair trial was violated when the prosecutor and certain witnesses referred or alluded to F and M as ''victims'' on the ground that the primary issue at trial was whether any crime had been committed: This court and the Appellate Court repeatedly have concluded that a prosecutor's infrequent use of the term ''victim'' does not constitute prosecutorial impropriety, and the prosecutor's single use of the term ''victim'' in the present case was not improper, particularly when she used the term only in an attempt to clarify a detective's testimony. With respect to the defendant's argument that the use of the term ''victim'' fourteen times by certain of the state's witnesses compromised his right to a fair trial, even if each of those uses was improper, this court could not conclude that the defendant satisfied his burden of demonstrating that those improprieties were so egregious that they amounted to a denial of due process, as the trial court, on at least three separate occasions during trial, issued curative instructions directing the jury to disregard the witnesses' use of the term ''victim'' and, at the outset of the trial, emphasized to the jurors that they would be solely responsible for determining the credibility of the witnesses. Argued March 28—officially released October 25, 2022

Pursuant to the tender years hearsay exception (§ 54-86l (a) and Conn. Code Evid. § 8-10), ''a statement by a child twelve years of age or younger at the time of the statement relating to a sexual offense committed against that child . . . shall be admissible in a criminal . . . proceeding . . . if [inter alia] (1) [t]he court finds, in a hearing conducted outside the presence of the jury . . . that the circumstances of the statement, including its timing and content, provide particularized guarantees of its trustworthiness . . . .'' Convicted of numerous crimes, including sexual assault in the first degree and risk of injury to a child, in connection with the sexual abuse of the victim, N, the defendant appealed. N was three years old at the time of the abuse and is the daughter of the defendant's cousin, J. The abuse occurred when N was alone with the defendant at his house, and N made four disclosures concerning the abuse shortly after it occurred. N made the first disclosure to J's mother, B, after B picked N up from the defendant's house on the day of the incident. B asked if N would like to return to the defendant's house to see his cat again, and N replied that she did not because the defendant had pulled down her pants. The second disclosure occurred shortly after N and B returned home, during which N told J that the defendant had seen her ''behind.'' In response, J asked N if the defendant had also touched her behind, and N pointed to her ''front private area.'' J spoke to B and then went to change N's clothes, when N made the third disclosure. J asked N if the defendant had pulled down her shorts. N initially said ''no'' but then said ''yes.'' When J asked if the defendant had pulled down her underpants, N initially said nothing but then said that he had. N then demonstrated how the defendant had touched her by inserting her finger inside ''where you pee . . . .'' N made the fourth disclosure to J the next morning, while J was bathing N. J made an audio recording of their conversation, which was in Spanish. J asked N what had happened at the defendant's house, and N made substantially the same allegations she did the night before. N stated that the defendant had touched her ''pola,'' which J testified is a Spanish term that they used to denote the vaginal area, and again demonstrated the defendant's actions by touching herself. On the first day of trial, the court held a hearing, outside the presence of the jury, on the state's notice of intent to present tender years evidence. After hearing testimony from J, the court found that the statements N made to J during N's bath were admissible under the tender years exception because, inter alia, they were made under circumstances that provided particularized guarantees of trustworthiness. The court, however, declined to admit the audio recording of that conversation due to concerns regarding the accuracy of the corresponding transcript, which had been prepared by a translator and interpreter contracted by the state. The transcript included the Spanish transcription of the conversation and a line-by-line English translation, but, in places where the translator was unable to understand what was said, the transcript was marked ''inaudible.'' On the second day of trial, the state proffered a modified transcription of the audio recording, in which J had filled in the sections marked ''inaudible'' with what she believed had been said. Defense counsel objected, arguing that the defense had no advance notice of the modified transcript and that, because J was not a disinter- ested witness, the modified transcript was unreliable. Defense counsel also stated that, if the court ruled that the modified transcript was admissible, he would need an opportunity to have Spanish translators review it and to do his own investigation. The trial court, however, admitted the modified transcript. It noted that the defense had had ample opportunity to obtain its own translator to prepare an alternate transcription but stated that counsel would have the ability to ask for additional time to have an interpreter review J's minor modifications to the original transcription. Defense counsel, however, never specified to the court the amount of time he sought and, instead, elected to proceed. On the defendant's appeal from the judgment of conviction, held: 1. The trial court correctly determined that the statements N made to J during the bath were made under circumstances that provided particularized guarantees of trustworthiness, and, accordingly, that court did not abuse its discretion in admitting those statements under the tender years excep- tion to the hearsay rule: Whether N's statements were made with particularized guarantees of trustworthiness is an issue that was properly analyzed under the totality of the circumstances, and factors that may be considered in determining whether hearsay statements made by a child witness in a child sexual abuse case are reliable include consistent repetition by the declarant, the degree of spontaneity inherent in the making of the statements, the declarant's mental state, use of terminology not within the average ken of a child of similar age, and the existence of a motive to fabricate or lack thereof. The challenged statements by N were largely consistent with her prior disclosures, in which she told B that she did not want to return to the defendant's house because he had pulled down her pants and in which, after telling J that the defendant had seen her behind, N pointed to her private area in response to J's question regarding whether the defendant had touched her, and the only inconsistencies, namely, N's initial denial that the defendant had pulled down her shorts and her initial silence when J asked if he had pulled down her underpants, did not render the trial court's conclusion that N's statements were trustworthy an abuse of discretion, particularly when the statements at issue viewed in the context of all four of N's disclosures and in light of the fact that N provided consistent answers within moments of her inconsistent statements and demonstrated her willingness and ability to contradict J when N's own version of events did not coincide with an assertion contained in J's questioning. Although none of N's statements during her bath was purely spontaneous, insofar as each statement followed a question or statement by J, N's statements were consistent with her initial disclosure to B, which was a completely spontaneous response to a neutral question, and N's initial, core allegation during the bath, namely, that the defendant had touched her vaginal area, was spontaneous in nature, as it was completely nonre- sponsive to J's neutral, preceding question regarding whether N wanted to go see the defendant's cat. There was no merit to the defendant's claim that the statements N made to J during the bath were unreliable insofar as J asked questions so rapidly that she effectively cross-examined N in order to produce a coerced confession because, in the context of child sexual abuse cases, the use of leading questions with a child does not necessarily render that child's responses untrustworthy. The evidence regarding N's mental state at the time she made the bath time statements was ambiguous, as the transcript and audio recording of the bath time conversation revealed that N played and made sounds typical of a child her age while she was being bathed, whereas J testified that N looked sad when N first indicated that the defendant had pulled down her pants and touched her, but N's repeated statements that she did not want to return to the defendant's house provided some evidence that N's attitude toward the defendant had changed in a manner consis- tent with the content of N's statements to J, and, although there was some evidence that N engaged in sexualized behavior during the bath and the night before when J changed N's clothes, no conclusions could be drawn as to what that behavior revealed about N's mental state in the absence of any expert testimony on that point. The terminology that N used to describe the defendant's behavior was appropriate for her age, as J testified that the she and N used the word ''pola'' to denote N's vaginal area, and N's physical demonstrations to J, both during the bath and the night before, provided the greatest amount of detail regarding the defendant's actions and were much more specific than her verbal descriptions, consistent with the fact that a child of N's age would be expected to lack the vocabulary necessary to describe the charged sexual acts. The trial court found that N had no motive to fabricate the allegations against the defendant, with whom N had little familiarity and had never been alone, and the record revealed no such motive. 2. This court declined to review the defendant's claim that the trial court had abused its discretion in admitting the modified transcription, prepared by J, of the conversation between N and J during N's bath on the ground that the modified transcription constituted improper lay opinion testimony, that claim having been unpreserved: Defense counsel did not raise the issue of J's status as a lay witness or object on the basis that the state had failed to proffer J as an expert in the area of creating translated transcriptions, and the objections that defense counsel did raise before the trial court concerning J's bias and the state's failure to provide sufficient notice of its intent to proffer the modified transcript were insufficient to alert either opposing counsel or the trial court of the claim that the defendant raised in this appeal. 3. The defendant could not prevail on his claim that the trial court had abused its discretion in denying defense counsel's request for a continuance, as the record did not support that claim: In its ruling admitting the modified transcript, the trial court made it clear that, although it would not grant a continuance for the purpose of allowing the defense to produce an alternative transcript, it would con- sider granting a continuance for the purpose of allowing the defense time to consult with an interpreter regarding J's modifications to the original transcript, but defense counsel, rather than assenting to the court's offer of a continuance and specifying the amount of time he sought, elected to proceed, and, in the absence of any indication as to the length of time defense counsel sought for the continuance, the trial court lacked a proper factual predicate for exercising its discretion to grant the continuance. Argued April 25—officially released November 8, 2022

Convicted of the crimes of intentional manslaughter in the first degree with a firearm, criminal possession of a pistol or revolver, and carrying a pistol or revolver without a permit in connection with the shooting death of the victim, the defendant appealed. The defendant had parked his car in front of a gas station. The victim parked his car near the gas station and then walked along the adjacent sidewalk directly toward the defendant's car. When the victim reached the defendant's car, he attempted to see through the car's tinted windows. The driver's side door then opened, and both the defendant and the victim exchanged gunfire. One of the defendant's several shots at the victim proved to be fatal. At trial, defense counsel claimed that the defendant had killed the victim in self-defense. During the trial, the trial court heard arguments from both parties, outside of the jury's presence, regarding the admissi- bility of two recorded phone calls that the defendant had made to his sister, L, from a holding cell on the morning after he was arrested. The recordings captured conversations between the defendant, L, and two male acquaintances, and certain portions arguably constituted adoptive admissions that the defendant was parked in the car from which the fatal gunshot was fired. The trial court ultimately determined that the recordings were admissible. The jury returned its verdict in the early afternoon on March 12, 2020. On that same date, at an unspecified time, the chief court administrator of the Judicial Branch, in response to the emerging COVID-19 pandemic, issued an order, providing that, with the exception of jury trials currently in progress and certain criminal trials, ''all jury trials, civil and criminal, are suspended for the next [thirty] days.'' At the defendant's sentencing in August, 2020, the trial court heard arguments on the defendant's motion for a new trial, in which he argued that a new trial was warranted in view of the prejudicial impact that the pandemic had on jury deliberations. The defendant specifically argued that the chief court administrator's order in response to the pandemic pressured the jurors to deliberate in a hurried fashion, effectively abridging his constitutional right to a fair and impartial jury. The trial court ultimately denied the defendant's new trial motion. On appeal from the judgment of conviction, held: 1. The record was inadequate to review the defendant's unpreserved claim that the trial court improperly admitted into evidence the recordings of the phone calls that the defendant had made to L from his holding cell after his arrest on the ground that the recordings contained evidence of the defendant's postarrest silence, in violation of Doyle v. Ohio (426 U.S. 610): The successful assertion of a Doyle violation requires that the record contain certain factual predicates, including an indication that the defen- dant's postarrest silence was preceded by the receipt of warnings in accordance with Miranda v. Arizona (384 U.S. 436), there was nothing in the record to confirm that the defendant did receive Miranda warnings prior to the contested phone conversations, and, accordingly, the record was devoid of a predicate necessary to assert a Doyle violation. 2. The trial court improperly instructed the jury on combat by agreement, a statutory (§ 53a-19 (c) (3)) exception to self-defense, as there was insufficient evidence presented at trial to warrant such an instruction, but the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt: This court's review of the record revealed no evidence presented at trial that would have allowed the jury to reasonably infer that the defendant and the victim had engaged in combat by agreement, and, although the state presented evidence to support its theory that the defendant and the victim had a bad relationship, the existence of ill will between persons, without more, is insufficient to warrant a combat by agreement instruc- tion. Moreover, the evidence presented at trial did not provide support for even an implied agreement to engage in combat, as the record was devoid of any indication that the victim or the defendant had been embroiled in an ongoing controversy prior to the shooting, and it was unclear from the record whether the defendant even knew that the victim was living in Connecticut at the time of the incident. Nevertheless, the trial court's improper instruction on combat by agree- ment reasonably could not be said to have misled the jury, as the jury's verdict depended on a determination of whether it was the defendant or the victim who pulled out his weapon and fired first, and, because the verdict could be fairly read to indicate a choice between two inconsistent versions of the shooting, namely, acceptance of the state's version of the shooting and rejection of the defendant's claim of self-defense, the principal factual issues to be decided by the jury were not dependent on the subtleties of the law of self-defense for their proof. 3. This court either declined to review or rejected the defendant's claims that the prosecutor had committed certain improprieties during portions of his closing argument, in violation of the defendant's due process right to a fair trial: The record was inadequate to review the defendant's claim that the prosecutor's reference, during closing argument, to the defendant's phone calls to L was improper on the ground that it drew attention to the defendant's post-Miranda silence, in violation of Doyle, this court having previously concluded that there was nothing in the record to indicate that the defendant had received Miranda warnings prior to his placing of those phone calls. There was no merit to the defendant's claim that the prosecutor improp- erly had commented on facts not in evidence when, during closing argu- ment, he stated that ''the defendant had his gun out when he opened [the] car door,'' and that, ''[i]f you go . . . frame by frame, you'll see that,'' as these comments constituted a reasonable inference based on the evidence presented at the trial. The prosecutor's comments, made during closing argument and in con- nection with his explanation of the combat by agreement exception to self-defense, that ''[the victim] appear[ed] to be a man walking [toward the defendant's car] with a purpose,'' that the defendant and the victim decided, ''[t]oday was the day . . . that we end this,'' and that ''[w]e're going to do this right here, right now,'' did not constitute prosecutorial impropriety, as the trial court had concluded, albeit erroneously, that the evidence warranted an instruction on combat by agreement, and the prosecutor had the concomitant right to argue, and proceeded on the reasonable assumption at that time, that combat by agreement between the defendant and the victim was supported by the evidence. 4. This court declined to review the defendant's claim that the trial court improperly denied his motion for a new trial, which was based on his claim that the COVID-19 pandemic had adversely affected the jurors' deliberations by pressuring them to deliberate in a hurried fashion, thereby depriving him of his right to a fair and impartial jury, as the defendant failed to provide an adequate record for appellate review: Although the jurors returned their verdict on the same day that the chief court administrator issued the order suspending jury trials that were not ongoing, the defendant presented no evidence that the order was issued before the jurors returned their verdict or that the jurors were aware of, or impacted by, that order, and there otherwise was no indication that the jurors' deliberations were impacted by the pandemic, generally, or the suspension order, specifically. Moreover, after the jurors returned their verdict, but before they were discharged, the trial court explicitly asked the parties whether they would like the court to ''address the jury further,'' and, at that point, if the defendant or defense counsel believed that the jurors felt rushed to reach a verdict in light of the pandemic, it was incumbent on counsel to timely alert the trial court regarding that concern. Argued April 28—officially released November 15, 2022

Convicted, after a bench trial, of the crimes of first degree arson, first degree reckless endangerment, and risk of injury to a child in connection with a fire at a multifamily residence where the defendant lived, the defendant appealed to this court. After getting into an argument with his stepfather on the first floor of the residence, the defendant was forced out of the building by one of his stepbrothers, shortly after which the defendant set fire to a mattress on the front porch. The fire engulfed the building, but all of the occupants of the residence were evacuated, including four children who were inside a second floor apartment. The state subsequently charged the defendant with four counts of risk of injury to a child under the act prong of the risk of injury statute (§ 53-21 (a) (1)), alleging, in each count, that the defendant ''did an act likely to impair the health [or] morals of a child.'' In finding the defendant guilty on each of those four counts, the trial court concluded that he had ''placed each child in a situation . . . likely to injure the child's physical health'' by intentionally setting the fire. On the defendant's appeal from the judgment of conviction, held: 1. The defendant could not prevail on his claims that there was insufficient evidence to support his conviction of risk of injury to a child under the act prong of § 53-21 (a) (1) and that the act prong was unconstitutionally vague as applied to him, which were based on his assertion that the state had failed to adduce proof that he had perpetrated an act directly on the children in the second floor apartment: a. The evidence presented at trial was sufficient to support a conviction of risk of injury to a child under the act prong of § 53-21 (a) (1), as that evidence, and the reasonable inferences drawn therefrom, demonstrated that the defendant's decision to set fire to the mattress on the front porch resulted in a risk of direct, physical harm to the four children in the second floor apartment: It was of no consequence that the defendant's actions were motivated by the argument with the first floor occupants, rather than being specifically directed at the children on the second floor, or that the children escaped from the building unharmed, as neither specific intent nor proof of actual injury is required to prove a violation of § 53-21 (a) (1). The evidence supported a reasonable inference that the defendant knew the children were present in the residence at the time of the incident, as the defendant's stepbrother, whom the trial court found to be credible, testified that he had told the defendant to leave the residence because he was doing ''crazy things around the kids,'' and a reasonable finder of fact could have concluded, on the basis of the totality of the circum- stances, that the defendant's conduct was sufficiently egregious to rise to the level of blatant abuse, especially in light of evidence presented about the speed of the blaze and the intensity of the heat and smoke that it produced. b. The act prong of § 53-21 (a) (1) was not unconstitutionally vague as applied to the defendant: A person of ordinary intelligence would understand that the defendant's alleged conduct constituted an act likely to impair the health of a child, as proscribed by the act prong of § 53-21 (a) (1). Because it was reasonable to infer that the defendant knew that the children were inside of the residence when he set fire to the mattress, and because § 53-21 (a) (1) requires neither specific intent nor proof of actual injury, this court perceived no plausible reason to believe that the defendant was operating under a mistaken belief that his conduct with regard to the children was lawful. 2. The trial court improperly found the defendant guilty of risk of injury under the situation prong of § 53-21 (a) (1), in violation of the defendant's constitutional right to notice of the charges against him, insofar as the state's information alleged only that the defendant violated the act prong of that subdivision, and, accordingly, this court reversed the trial court's judgment with respect to the four counts of risk of injury to a child and remanded the case for a new trial as to those counts: The trial court's finding regarding the risk of injury counts, namely, that the defendant had ''unlawfully placed each child in a situation . . . likely to injure the child's physical health,'' tracked the elements and the lan- guage of the situation prong of § 53-21 (a) (1), and the trial court's use of that language persuaded this court that the defendant improperly had been convicted under the situation prong of § 53-21 (a) (1) and not under the act prong of that subdivision, the latter of which the defendant specifically was charged with violating in the operative information. Argued March 29—officially released November 22, 2022

The plaintiffs, as coadministrators of the estate of their son, R, sought to recover damages from the named defendant, A Co., among other parties, in connection with a fatal airplane crash in New York. A Co., a California corporation with its principal place of business in California, is a dealer and distributor of aircraft parts, including overhauled replacement parts for airplane engines. A Co. does not have any offices, plants, facilities, agents, employees, property, or direct business operations of any kind in Connecticut, and it does not directly advertise its products in Connecti- cut but, rather, advertises in a broad campaign directed at the North American market. Since 2008, A Co. has sold its products to Connecticut consumers, and approximately 0.5 percent of its total revenue from 2012 through 2017 was derived from Connecticut sales, averaging approxi- mately $593,000 per year. Out of the 6050 carburetors it sold between 2008 and 2017, 25 were shipped to Connecticut. In 2012, A Co. sold an overhauled replacement carburetor that it had purchased from K Co., an Alabama corporation, to E Co., a New York company, which installed the carburetor in one of its airplanes. Thereafter, that plane was involved in the crash that killed R. The plaintiffs, who, along with R, were Connect- icut residents, asserted a product liability claim against A Co. Specifi- cally, the plaintiffs alleged that the overhauled carburetor malfunctioned after takeoff due to a design defect and that this malfunction was a contributing factor in R's death. The trial court granted A Co.'s motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, concluding, inter alia, that the exercise of personal jurisdiction over A Co. would violate constitutional principles of due process in light of recent United States Supreme Court precedent requiring a showing that the defendant engaged in some activity that connects it to the forum state and that the action arises out of or relates to those contacts. Because A Co.'s only contacts with Connecticut were its limited sales, the trial court concluded that the ''arise out of or relate to'' element of specific personal jurisdiction had not been met. From the judgment of dismissal rendered in favor of A Co., the plaintiffs appealed, claiming that the trial court improperly had required, as a matter of due process, a causal connection between A Co.'s forum conduct and the plaintiffs' injuries to support specific personal jurisdiction. Held that the trial court correctly concluded that the exer- cise of personal jurisdiction over A Co. in the present case would violate constitutional principles of due process: 1. A Co. purposely availed itself of the privilege of conducting business in Connecticut: From 2012 to 2017, A Co. earned approximately $593,000 per year from its sale of aviation products, including carburetors, in the Connecticut market, activity of such a degree was sufficient to evince an intent or purpose to serve that market, and the fact that the volume of A Co.'s sales in Connecticut translated to a low percentage of its total sales did not render its contacts with the state random or fortuitous. Moreover, it would have been foreseeable to A Co. that it could be haled into a Connecticut court to litigate a product liability action, if, for example, one of the products it sold in Connecticut was unreasonably dangerous and caused injury in the state as a consequence of the alleged defect. 2. The plaintiffs nevertheless failed to establish that their claim against A Co. arose out of or related to A Co.'s contacts with Connecticut insofar as their specific product liability claim was not sufficiently connected to A Co.'s forum contacts to establish the case linkage necessary to support a finding of specific personal jurisdiction: This court reviewed recent United States Supreme Court precedent con- cerning the ''arises out of or relates to'' element of specific personal jurisdiction, including Ford Motor Co. v. Montana Eighth Judicial Dis- trict Court (141 S. Ct. 1017), and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court (137 S. Ct. 1773), those cases made it clear that, whereas the purposeful availment element of specific personal jurisdiction focuses exclusively on whether a defendant has a sufficiently meaningful affilia- tion with a forum, the relatedness or case-linkage analysis focuses on whether a plaintiff's specific claim is sufficiently connected to the defen- dant's forum contacts, and the case-linkage element therefore involves consideration of only those forum contacts of a defendant that have a connection to the specific claim or claims asserted by the plaintiff. In the context of product liability claims, most courts considering case linkage have required forum contacts pertaining to the specific product model at issue in the litigation, but some courts take a broader view in cases in which the defendant is the product manufacturer, pursuant to which a defendant's forum activity relating to other models of the same product type could provide support for specific personal jurisdiction if there is no basis to conclude that there is a material difference between the models. In the present case, although the plaintiffs broadly alleged that A Co. marketed and sold replacement aircraft engine parts, including carbure- tors, to Connecticut customers and that the overhauled replacement carburetor installed in the plane that crashed was defectively designed, K Co., and not A Co., was the product manufacturer, and there was no allegation or evidence that A Co. exclusively distributed K Co. products or that particular model of carburetor, or that A Co. distributed, sold, marketed, or otherwise placed into the stream of commerce any similarly defective products in Connecticut. Moreover, even if there was an allegation or evidence that A Co. had sold the same or a similarly defective product in Connecticut, that would not have been sufficient to support specific personal jurisdiction under the facts of the present case because no activity or occurrence relating to the plaintiffs' product liability claim against A Co. took place in Con- necticut, as the carburetor at issue was not overhauled or sold in Connect- icut, or installed or used in Connecticut, there was no claim that that any other product with the same alleged defect was ever marketed or sold in Connecticut, the alleged malfunction did not occur in Connecticut, and, although R's residency in Connecticut could bolster other factors that supported a finding of specific personal jurisdiction, in view of the present record, it was not a sufficient basis, in and of itself, to provide the necessary case linkage. The plaintiffs' reliance on the standard set forth by this court in Thom- ason v. Chemical Bank (234 Conn. 281) was misplaced because, although that standard, which rested on the foreseeability of a similar cause of action, is consonant with the core due process concern of fairness, it is nonetheless inconsistent with United States Supreme Court specific personal jurisdiction precedent, as presently articulated, and this court did not have the authority to adopt a more capacious standard for specific jurisdiction than that required by the United States Supreme Court. Argued March 25—officially released November 22, 2022

Pursuant to statute (§§ 53a-133 and 53a-136 (a)), a person commits robbery in the third degree when, in the course of committing a larceny, he uses or threatens the immediate use of physical force upon another person for the purpose of preventing or overcoming resistance to the taking of the property or to the retention thereof immediately after the taking, or compelling the owner of such property or another person to deliver up the property or to engage in other conduct that aids in the commission of the larceny. Pursuant further to statute (§ 53a-119), ''[a] person commits larceny when, with intent to deprive another of property or to appropriate the same to himself or a third person, he wrongfully takes, obtains or withholds such property from an owner.'' Convicted of the crimes of felony murder and carrying a pistol or revolver without a permit in connection with the shooting death of the victim, the defendant appealed to this court. After agreeing to assist in a drug transaction in exchange for a large sum of money, the defendant met with another individual, H, and got into the back seat of H's car. H told the defendant that there was a gun on the floor and that the defendant's role was to ''make sure that nothing happened.'' H then parked on a street near the victim's parked car. Sometime after their arrival, the defendant, who never saw any money in H's car, twice asked H if he had brought any money with him. Thereafter, the victim entered the front passenger seat of H's car, discussed the details of the transaction, which involved a substantial amount of marijuana, and returned to his own car. H then drove around the block a few times before returning and parking his car a second time. H exited his car to retrieve the marijuana from the victim's car, after which the victim got into the front passenger seat of H's car. The defendant, who was sitting behind the victim at that point, used the gun on the car floor to exchange gunfire with the victim, who was shot five times. The defendant was shot once. H then returned to his car with the marijuana, pushed the victim out of the car, and drove the defendant to a hospital. The next morning, the police interviewed the defendant at the hospital. The police told the defendant that they had viewed surveillance footage of the scene of the shooting, but the defendant denied knowing anything about the shooting or the victim's death. Later that day, the police interviewed the defendant a second time at his home. At that point, the defendant admitted that he had participated in the drug transaction and had shot the victim, but he claimed that the victim had shot him first, after the defendant made a noise that startled the victim. When asked if ''the intent was to rob'' the victim of the marijuana, the defendant said ''I guess so.'' At trial, the defendant testified and claimed that he had acted in self-defense, reiterating that he shot the victim only because the victim, who had been startled by a noise he made, shot at him first. The defendant further testified that he did not intentionally kill the victim and that he took nothing from the victim. Although the defendant had been charged with murder, among other crimes, the jury found the defendant not guilty of murder but guilty of the lesser included offense of intentional manslaugh- ter in the first degree with a firearm, as well as felony murder, with robbery in the third degree as the predicate felony, and carrying a pistol or revolver without a permit. The trial court ultimately vacated the conviction of intentional manslaughter in the first degree with a firearm on the ground that the defendant could not be convicted of multiple homicide charges for the same act. On appeal, the defendant claimed that there was insufficient evidence to support his conviction of felony murder, that the vacated manslaughter conviction could not be rein- stated in the event that this court agreed that there was insufficient evidence to support his felony murder conviction because the state failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he did not act in self- defense, and that the prosecutor engaged in certain improprieties during closing argument. Held: 1. The evidence was sufficient to support the defendant's conviction of felony murder, based on the predicate felony of robbery in the third degree, and, because this court rejected the defendant's insufficiency claim, it declined to address his claim related to the vacated manslaugh- ter conviction: a. The jury reasonably could have concluded, beyond a reasonable doubt and on the basis of all of the evidence, that the defendant intended to commit a larceny, insofar as he intended to deprive the victim of the marijuana: The circumstantial evidence was sufficient to support the jury's conclu- sion that the defendant had the requisite intent to deprive the victim of the marijuana, as the defendant knew at the time of the shooting that H did not have the means to or intend to pay for the marijuana and that the defendant's role was to participate in the robbery by using a gun to make sure ''nothing happened,'' the defendant shot the victim and then left the scene with H and the marijuana, the defendant responded, ''I guess so,'' when asked by the police if the plan had been to rob the victim, and, applying common sense, the jury reasonably could have inferred that the defendant had intended to use the gun to ensure that the victim, upon getting into H's car and discovering that there was no money, would not leave the car to get the marijuana back from H and that there would have been no reason for the victim to shoot the defen- dant while H was retrieving the marijuana from the victim's car unless the victim believed that H and the defendant had intended to take the marijuana without paying for it. Because the jury was entitled to discredit the defendant's exculpatory testimony while crediting his testimony that was corroborated by other evidence admitted at trial, the jury reasonably could have rejected the defendant's testimony that he had shot at the victim only after the startled victim shot at him and reasonably could have concluded that the victim had shot the defendant because the defendant was attempting to hold him at bay with the gun, was about to shoot him, or already had shot him to prevent him from interfering with H's taking of the marijuana. Moreover, in light of the fact that the defendant was aware, after his first interview with the police, that the police had surveillance footage of the scene of the shooting, that the police suspected that the car in that footage was the same car in which the defendant arrived at the hospital, and that the police knew that the defendant had been shot, the jury reasonably could have found that the defendant must have realized, after the initial police interview, that his continued insistence that he had not shot the victim and knew nothing about the incident would simply not be believable, and that the statements the defendant made during his second interview with the police, in which he generally tended to inculpate himself in the victim's murder, were true, and the jury reasonably could have rejected the defendant's claim that he was prom- ised a large sum of money and provided access to a gun to do nothing more than sit in H's car. b. There was no merit to the defendant's claim that the evidence was insufficient to support the conclusion that he had committed a larceny insofar as there was no evidence that the defendant himself, rather than H, physically took the victim's marijuana, as the jury reasonably have concluded that the defendant wrongfully withheld the marijuana from the victim: Pursuant to § 53a-119, a person commits larceny when he ''takes, obtains or withholds . . . property from [its] owner,'' the state did not limit its theory of the defendant's commission of larceny to any one of those three statutory terms, the trial court included all three terms in its jury instruction, and, accordingly, the jury could find that the defendant had committed larceny if it found that he obtained or withheld the marijuana, even if he did not physically take it. Because § 53a-119 did not define the term ''withholds,'' this court consid- ered dictionary definitions of that term, including ''[t]o refrain from giving, granting, or permitting,'' and concluded that there was sufficient evidence that the defendant had committed larceny in light of the mean- ing of that term, as the defendant sat behind the victim in H's car and was armed with a gun, the purpose of the defendant's involvement in the drug transaction was to make sure ''nothing happened'' while H retrieved the marijuana from the victim's car, and the jury reasonably could have inferred that the defendant was in the back seat of H's car with access to the gun for the purpose of ''refrain[ing] from giving, granting, or permitting'' the victim access to the marijuana. Moreover, the jury also could have reasonably inferred that the defendant had shot the victim as part of an effort to refrain from permitting or allowing the victim access to the marijuana once H had effectuated the plan to deprive the victim of the marijuana without paying for it. c. The evidence was sufficient to establish, under §§ 53a-133 and 53a- 136a, that the defendant used or threatened the immediate use of force for the purpose of preventing or overcoming the victim's resistance to the taking of the marijuana or compelling the victim to deliver up the marijuana: The jury reasonably could have found that H would not have gone to retrieve the marijuana from the victim's car unless he and the defendant had come to an understanding that the defendant would prevent the victim from interfering with H's taking of the marijuana and that the victim would have had no apparent reason to shoot the defendant unless the defendant was using or threatening to use force to prevent the victim from interfering with H. 2. The defendant could not prevail on his claim that the prosecutor commit- ted certain improprieties during closing argument by arguing facts that were not in evidence and making inferences that were unsupported by the evidence, in violation of the defendant's due process right to a fair trial: The prosecutor's remarks that H had brought no money with which to purchase the marijuana and that the victim was startled by the lack of money the second time he entered H's car were supported by the evi- dence, insofar as the defendant twice asked H whether he had money, never saw any money in H's car, and responded that he ''guess[ed]'' that it was their intent to rob the victim, and that evidence supported the inference that H did not have any money to pay the victim for the mar- ijuana. Insofar as the other alleged instances of impropriety related exclusively to the defendant's claim on appeal in connection with his vacated man- slaughter conviction, and because that claim was not before this court in light of its conclusion that the evidence was sufficient to support the defendant's felony murder conviction, this court declined to address those prosecutorial impropriety claims. Argued January 12—officially released December 6, 2022

Pursuant to statute (§ 53a-71 (a) (4)), ''[a] person is guilty of sexual assault in the second degree when such person engages in sexual intercourse with another person and . . . such other person is less than eighteen years old and the actor is such person's guardian or otherwise responsi- ble for the general supervision of such person's welfare . . . .'' Convicted of numerous crimes, including sexual assault in the second degree and risk of injury to a child, in connection with the sexual abuse of S and A, the defendant appealed to this court. S is the biological daughter of the defendant and his former spouse, D, and A is D's granddaughter, whom D was raising. The defendant allegedly began to abuse S when she was twelve years old, after the defendant married D for the first time. At that point, the defendant was living with D, S, and A, and caring for S and A while D was at work. Over the course of approximately four years, the defendant forced S to have vaginal and oral intercourse with him numerous times. On some of those occasions, the defendant told S that her ''pussy was his'' and that she ''better not give it up to anybody.'' On one occasion, S successfully resisted the defendant's advances, leading him to say, ''fuck you, bitch.'' Following these inci- dents, the defendant often would threaten to kill S and D, if S told anyone what had happened. One or two years after the defendant last had vaginal intercourse with S, he attempted to force A, who was six or seven years old, to perform oral sex on him. A was able to resist those efforts, but the defendant proceeded to digitally penetrate A's vagina. At some point during this period, D separated from, and eventu- ally divorced, the defendant due to his domestic abuse toward her. The defendant and D later remarried but separated again due to the defendant's continued abuse. Several years later, S disclosed to T, D's daughter from a prior relationship, that the defendant had sexually assaulted her. T then told S that she also had been sexually assaulted by the defendant. Upon hearing of T's and S's disclosures, A made her own disclosure. The state subsequently charged the defendant in an eight count information with various crimes, including, in count three, risk of injury to a child for allegedly subjecting A to contact with the defendant's intimate parts, and, in counts five, six, and seven, sexual assault in the second degree in violation of § 53a-71 (a) (4) for his assaults on S on ''uncertain dates'' during a specified four year period of time, while he purportedly was responsible for the general supervision of S's welfare. At trial, there was conflicting testimony as to where the defendant was living when those sexual assaults took place. Specifically, certain dates D provided at trial with respect to when she and the defendant separated and whether they had resumed living together con- tradicted certain dates provided by S and A during their respective testimonies. D had testified, however, that her memory with respect to dates was adversely affected by her tendency to block out trauma. During closing argument, the prosecutor highlighted the ''vulgar'' and ''disgusting'' remarks that the defendant made to S and remarked that D could not explain why she remarried the defendant because she was exposed to trauma and was a victim of domestic violence. On the defendant's appeal from the judgment of conviction, held: 1. Although the evidence was sufficient to support the defendant's conviction of the counts of sexual assault in the second degree pertaining to S, the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction of risk of injury to a child pertaining to A: a. A testified that she successfully resisted the defendant's efforts to force her to perform oral sex on him, the state conceded that there was no evidence presented at trial that A had contact with the defendant's intimate parts, which was required under the portion of the risk of injury statute (§ 53-21 (a) (2)) under which the defendant had been charged in connection with his conduct toward A, and, accordingly, this court accepted the state's concession that there was insufficient evidence to support the defendant's conviction of risk of injury to a child pertaining to A, reversed the defendant's conviction as to that charge, and remanded the case with direction to render a judgment of acquittal as to count three of the information. b. The evidence presented at trial was sufficient to support the defen- dant's conviction of the three counts of sexual assault in the second degree pertaining to S, as the jury reasonably could have concluded that the defendant was S's guardian or otherwise responsible for the general supervision of her welfare at the time of the charged sexual misconduct: Contrary to the defendant's claim that he was acting as a mere babysitter to S during the relevant time period, when the sexual assaults took place, the jury reasonably could have concluded that the defendant was exercising sufficient authority and control over S such that he was responsible for her general supervision for purposes of § 53a-71 (a) (4) at the time of the assaults, especially in light of the fact that the defendant is S's biological father and S's testimony that the defendant assaulted her on numerous occasions while he lived in the same residence as her and that the incidents of abuse occurred when D was working and when the defendant was the only adult in the home. Moreover, although S's and D's testimony conflicted as to whether the defendant was residing with them when the assaults occurred, the jury was free to resolve any inconsistencies by crediting S and A's combined testimony over the admittedly dubious recollection of D, who testified that she had a difficult time recalling dates due to past trauma. 2. The defendant could not prevail on his claim that the prosecutor had committed certain improprieties during closing and rebuttal arguments, in violation of the defendant's due process right to a fair trial: a. The prosecutor did not improperly appeal to the jurors' emotions by emphasizing certain ''vulgar'' and ''disgusting'' comments that the defendant had made while he sexually assaulted S, as the challenged remarks were based on the evidence presented at trial, were relevant to the charges, and supported the state's theory that S delayed in her disclosure of the sexual abuse because she was afraid of the defendant: The prosecutor's remark that the defendant got so angry and frustrated with S that he said, ''fuck you, bitch,'' was relevant to the charge of attempt to commit sexual assault with respect to S because it illustrated that the defendant had the intent to sexually assault S and became so frustrated when he was unsuccessful that he addressed his own daughter using vulgar language. The prosecutor's reference to the defendant's comments, made while he was having intercourse with S, regarding S's ''pussy'' having belonged to him, was relevant to the charge of sexual assault in the second degree because it illustrated that the defendant and S engaged in sexual inter- course and was also relevant to the charge of risk of injury to a child because it illustrated that the defendant caused S to have contact with his intimate parts in a sexual and indecent manner that was likely to impair her morals, and those comments also supported the state's theory that S delayed in her disclosure of the sexual abuse because of her fear of the defendant and the embarrassing nature of the incidents. The prosecutor's characterization of the defendant's comments as ''vul- gar'' and ''disgusting,'' and his remark that ''[t]his is how he talks to a twelve year old, his own biological daughter,'' did not amount to an impermissible personal attack on the defendant, as that commentary was based on S's testimony and was not so gratuitous, crudely phrased, or inflammatory as to rise to the level of an improper personal attack. b. Although not all of the prosecutor's challenged remarks constituted unsworn testimony or improperly vouched for the credibility of the state's witnesses, as the defendant claimed, certain remarks the prosecu- tor made regarding the defendant's domestic abuse of D were improper: The prosecutor's remark, regarding the disclosures made by T, S, and A, that ''[t]his isn't a case of [the three girls] get[ting] together and get[ting] [their] stories straight'' did not constitute unsworn testimony or improperly vouch for the credibility of the state's witnesses, as it was based on evidence presented at trial, namely, the testimony of T, S, and A regarding how their disclosures occurred and the lack of any evidence that they had conversations to conspire against the defendant prior to their disclosures, the jury reasonably could have inferred from that evidence that the girls had not coordinated their accusations out of some conspiratorial vengeance, and there was no merit to the defendant's contention that the prosecutor improperly relied on constancy of accusa- tion evidence in making the challenged remark. The prosecutor's remark that S had a ''flat affect'' while testifying did not improperly usurp the jury's role in judging S's credibility but, instead, served to urge the jury to draw a reasonable inference from the evidence presented at trial, including S's testimonial demeanor and certain expert testimony on the effects of trauma, that S's demeanor was consistent with the demeanor of individuals who have experienced trauma, and this court found unavailing the defendant's argument that such an inference involved a matter requiring the jury to have special expertise, akin to that of making a psychiatric diagnosis. The prosecutor's remarks regarding how D could not explain why she remarried the defendant because she was exposed to trauma and was a victim of domestic violence were improper because they violated a limiting instruction that the trial court had given to the jury that evidence of the defendant's abuse of D was to be used only for the purpose of explaining why S and A had delayed in their disclosures of the sexual abuse, and evidence that properly was admitted at trial could not be used for a purpose for which it was not admitted. c. The prosecutor's improper remarks regarding the domestic abuse of D did not deprive the defendant of his right to a fair trial, as the jury's verdict would not have been different in the absence of the prosecutor's improper remarks: The improper remarks were not frequent or severe, defense counsel did not object to the remarks, and they were counterbalanced by the trial court's instructions following closing arguments that evidence of the defendant's abuse of D could be used only to explain why S and A had delayed in their disclosures of the sexual abuse. Moreover, although the credibility of the witnesses was a central issue in the case and the remarks had some bearing on credibility, the defense, at least in part, invited the remarks, and the state's case, which included the testimony of T, S, and A, all of whom had experienced the defendant's sexual abuse, was not overshadowed by those improper remarks as to D, especially in view of the trial court's jury instructions. Argued September 12—officially released December 6, 2022

A criminal information is duplicitous when it charges a defendant in a single count with two or more distinct and separate criminal offenses, thereby implicating the defendant's constitutional right to a unanimous jury verdict. Convicted of five counts of the crime of risk of injury to a child in connection with the sexual abuse of five victims, including N, S, and T, the defendant appealed to the Appellate Court. The defendant allegedly had sexual and indecent contact with the intimate parts of the victims, all of whom were under sixteen years of age at the time, on multiple occasions over the course of several years, while at the defendant's home. Each of the five risk of injury counts pertained to a different child. At the defendant's trial, N and T testified regarding the defendant's frequent touching of their breasts, and S testified about a single evening during which the defendant touched her vagina multiple times and made contact with her breasts. During the defendant's trial, defense counsel requested that the court provide a specific unanimity jury instruction on each of the risk of injury counts, claiming that the evidence demonstrated that there were discrete incidents of abuse and not a continuing course of conduct, which could cause the jurors to reach a guilty verdict on a particular count on the basis of findings as to different incidents of abuse. The trial court nevertheless denied the request for a unanimity instruction with respect to the counts pertaining to N, S, and T. On appeal to the Appellate Court from the judgment of conviction, the defendant claimed, inter alia, that the risk of injury counts pertaining to N, S, and T were duplicitous insofar as each count charged him with a single violation of the risk of injury to a child statute (§ 53-21 (a) (2)), even though there was evidence that he had engaged in multiple, separate instances of unlawful conduct, and that the trial court, therefore, improperly had declined defense counsel's request for a specific unanimity instruction as to those counts, in violation of his right to a unanimous jury verdict on each count. The Appellate Court affirmed the trial court's judgment, and the defendant, on the granting of certification, appealed to this court. Held: 1. This court's review of federal case law concerning the scope of the unanimity requirement led it to clarify that a duplicitous information may raise two distinct and separate kinds of unanimity issues, that is, unanimity as to the elements of a crime and unanimity as to instances of conduct, the defendant's claims in the present case related to unanim- ity as to instances of conduct, and this court adopted the approach utilized by a majority of the federal courts of appeals for determining whether a criminal information gives rise to unanimity claims based on instances of unlawful conduct: The issue of unanimity as to the elements of a crime arises when a defendant is charged in a single count with having violated multiple statutory provisions, subsections, or clauses, and, when such an issue is presented, a court must determine whether the statutory language creates multiple elements, each of which the government must charge as a separate offense, or alternative means of committing the element at issue. The issue of unanimity as to instances of conduct arises when a defendant is charged in a single count with having violated a single statutory provi- sion, subsection, or clause on multiple, separate occasions, and the dispute centers on whether, in light of the statutory language, the defen- dant could be convicted of a single count of violating a statute based on evidence of multiple, separate occurrences of the prohibited act or acts. In the present case, the defendant claimed that the counts of the informa- tion pertaining to N, S, and T violated his right to unanimity as to instances of conduct, insofar as each count was premised on multiple, separate instances of conduct and the trial court had declined to provide a specific unanimity instruction as to those counts. This court adopted the following multipart test, employed by federal courts, for claims of unanimity as to instances of conduct, to determine whether a defendant's constitutional right to jury unanimity was violated by the trial court's failure to give a specific unanimity instruction. First, considering the allegations in the information and the evidence admitted at trial, does a single count charge the defendant with violating a single statute in multiple, separate instances? Second, if so, does each instance of conduct establish a separate violation of the statute? If the statute contemplates criminalizing a continuing course of conduct, then each instance of conduct is not a separate violation of the statute but a single, continuing violation. To determine whether the statute contemplates criminalizing a continuing course of conduct, well established principles of statutory interpretation should be employed. Only if each instance of conduct constitutes a separate violation of the statute is a count duplicitous. Third, if the count is duplicitous, was the duplicity cured by a bill of particulars or a specific unanimity instruction? If yes, then there is no unanimity issue. If not, then a duplicitous count violates a defendant's right to jury unanimity but reversal of the defendant's conviction is required only if the defendant establishes prejudice. In light of this court's adoption of the foregoing test for claims of unanim- ity as to instances of conduct, to the extent that this court and the Appellate Court in previous cases have failed to heed the relevant federal precedent and to distinguish between unanimity as to the elements of a crime and unanimity as to instances of conduct, this court overruled those prior cases. 2. Applying the newly adopted test for unanimity as to instances of conduct, this court concluded that the counts of the information pertaining to N, S, and T were not duplicitous and that the trial court's failure to grant defense counsel's request for a specific unanimity instruction as to those counts, therefore, did not violate the defendant's constitutional right to jury unanimity, and, accordingly, affirmed the Appellate Court's judgment: a. The counts of risk of injury to a child pertaining to N and T, which were based on similar testimony about the defendant's touching of N's and T's intimate parts, were not duplicitous: Under the first prong of the multipart test, this court concluded that the counts pertaining to N and T were premised on multiple, separate incidents of conduct and not a single incident, insofar as there was testimony that the defendant frequently touched N's and T's breasts in a sexual and indecent manner during N's weekly visits to the defendant's residence and whenever T was at the residence. Under the second prong, regarding whether each incident could establish an independent violation of § 53-21 (a) (2), this court concluded that the state had the discretion to charge the defendant with having violated § 53-21 (a) (2) as to each incident of conduct or to present those incidents to the jury as a continuing course of conduct, because, although the plain language of the statute was ambiguous as to whether the multiple, separate instances of conduct at issue were separate and distinct viola- tions of § 53-21 (a) (2), nothing in that statute's legislative history sug- gested that the legislature intended to abrogate this court's prior case law interpreting § 53-21 to allow a defendant to be charged under a continuing course of conduct theory. Moreover, not only does § 53-21 (a) (2) contemplate criminalizing a continuing course of conduct, but, in the present case, the state charged the defendant under such a theory, alleging in the counts pertaining to N and T that the defendant had contact with their intimate parts in a sexual and indecent manner over a period of time, rather than charging the defendant with a single instance of contact as to each child on a single date, and the jury reasonably could have found that the multiple, separate incidents of conduct constituted a continuing course of conduct on the basis of the evidence presented at trial, especially the testimony of N, T, and the other victims. b. The count of risk of injury to a child pertaining to S, which was premised on multiple acts of sexual and indecent contact with S's vagina and breasts during a single evening, was not duplicitous: Although it may be difficult to determine whether a single count is premised on multiple acts, each of which is committed in the course of a single criminal episode of relatively brief, temporal duration, and thus constitutes alternative means of committing the elements at issue, or whether the count is premised on multiple, separate and distinct acts, each of which could constitute a separate statutory violation, in the present case, the jury reasonably could have interpreted the evidence as demonstrating that the defendant's acts toward S constituted either a single criminal episode of relatively brief, temporal duration or a contin- uing course of conduct in that the acts occurred multiple times during a single evening, involved a single victim and furthered a single, continuing objective to touch S in a sexual and indecent manner. (Two justices concurring separately) Argued November 15, 2021—officially released December 13, 2022

The plaintiff bank, N. Co., sought to foreclose a mortgage on certain real property owned by the named defendant, T, following T's default on a promissory note secured by the mortgage. The note originally was exe- cuted in favor of H Co., but, subsequently, it was specially endorsed to J Co., and H Co. assigned its rights under the mortgage to N Co. The trial court rendered the first judgment of foreclosure by sale in 2014. Thereafter, T filed, and the trial court granted, multiple motions to open the judgment and to extend the sale date. In 2016, the trial court again rendered a judgment of foreclosure by sale. In response, T filed, among other motions, several unsuccessful motions to dismiss, claiming that N Co. lacked standing to bring the foreclosure action because it was not the holder of the note, thus depriving the trial court of jurisdiction. T again moved to open the judgment and to extend the sale date, and, in 2017, the trial court again rendered a judgment of foreclosure by sale and extended the sale date. Approximately three months later, T filed a motion to open and vacate the judgment, again arguing that N Co. lacked standing to commence the action and that the court therefore lacked jurisdiction. The trial court denied the motion, finding, on the basis of an affidavit of debt filed by N. Co., that N Co. was the holder of the note and the mortgage. The Appellate Court upheld the trial court's denial of T's motion to open and vacate the judgment, concluding that that motion was an impermissible collateral attack on the judgment of foreclosure by sale that the trial court had rendered in 2016. Accord- ingly, the Appellate Court declined to consider T's challenge to the trial court's subject matter jurisdiction, affirmed the judgment of foreclosure, and remanded the case for the setting of a new sale date. On the granting of certification, T appealed to this court. Held: 1. The Appellate Court incorrectly concluded that T's motion to open and vacate the judgment constituted a collateral attack on the trial court's 2016 judgment of foreclosure by sale and, accordingly, improperly declined to consider T's challenge to the trial court's subject matter jurisdiction: Although this court has recognized that an impermissible collateral attack on a judgment may occur within the same action or proceeding in which it was obtained if the judgment has become final and the court that rendered the judgment no longer has jurisdiction to open it, a court that renders a judgment of foreclosure by sale retains jurisdiction to modify the judgment until the foreclosure sale is approved, and, when a court opens a judgment of foreclosure by sale to change the sale date or otherwise to modify the terms of the sale and then renders a new judg- ment, a new, statutory ((Supp. 2022) § 52-212a) four month limitation period for opening the judgment begins. In the present case, the 2016 judgment of foreclosure by sale was not a final judgment because the foreclosure sale had not been approved, that judgment was timely opened and modified several times, including in 2017, which triggered a new, four month limitation period under § 52- 212a during which the modified judgment could be opened, insofar as T filed his motion to open and vacate the judgment within four months of the 2017 judgment, the trial court had jurisdiction to open the judgment at that time, and, accordingly, T's motion was not a collateral attack on the trial court's 2016 judgment. 2. The judgment of the Appellate Court could not be affirmed on the alterna- tive ground that the trial court properly had denied T's motion to open and vacate the judgment on the basis that N Co. had standing to enforce the note: In order to establish that N Co. had standing to enforce the note and to foreclose the mortgage, N Co. was required to prove that it was either the holder of the note or otherwise entitled to enforce the note, and this court concluded that N Co. was not the holder of the note because, contrary to the findings of the trial court, the affidavit of debt indicated only that the loan servicer was in possession of the note and not that N Co. was the holder of the note. Accordingly, as a nonholder in possession of the note, which had been specially endorsed to J Co., N Co. was required to prove that it had acquired the rights of the holder to enforce the instrument by way of transfer, which, in turn, required a showing that the transferor delivered the note to N Co. intending to vest in N Co. the right to enforce the instrument. In the present case, because the question of N Co.'s standing turned on questions of fact, namely, whether it had been vested with the right to enforce the note, the trial court, instead of denying T's motion to open and vacate the judgment, should have conducted an evidentiary hearing to determine whether N Co. had standing to bring the foreclosure action, and, accordingly, this court reversed the Appellate Court's judgment and remanded the case for further proceedings. Argued September 9—officially released December 20, 2022

Convicted of manslaughter in the first degree with a firearm in connection with the shooting death of the victim, the defendant appealed to this court. The defendant, who had been serving probation for a prior convic- tion, was at a gambling club, where he and the victim engaged in a heated argument after the victim did not pay the defendant money he believed he was owed. Later that night, the victim called the defendant's phone, apologized, and suggested that they meet for drinks. The defen- dant then drove to a local bar and parked his car near the victim's car. After the defendant and the victim exited their respective vehicles, the defendant shot the victim multiple times. Before trial, the defendant moved to suppress, inter alia, statements that he had made to the police during two recorded interviews. The first interview took place several days after the shooting, right after the defendant attended a regularly scheduled meeting with his probation officer at the probation office. At the conclusion of that meeting, the probation officer told the defendant that some individuals who wished to speak with him were waiting in her supervisor's office, which was in a locked area of the building. The defendant then was escorted to that office, where he was interviewed for ninety minutes by two plainclothes police officers, without being advised of his rights pursuant to Miranda v. Arizona (384 U.S. 436). After the first twenty-one minutes of that interview, during which the defendant admitted to a version of events that placed him near the bar at the approximate time of the shooting, the officer told the defendant that he was free to leave and that he was not under arrest. The officers advised the defendant at least five more times that he was free to leave, but he did not terminate the interview or leave the room. The interview continued, and, after the officers pressed the defendant, he changed his story, implicated another individual, O, in the shooting, and used his cell phone to find O's phone number, which he read out loud to the officers. At the conclusion of the interview, the officers seized the defen- dant's cell phone and arranged to meet with him later that evening for the second interview, which took place in an interrogation room at the police station. The police advised the defendant of his Miranda rights at the outset of the second interview, and, at the end of that interview, the defendant left without being placed under arrest. In support of his motion to suppress, the defendant argued that his statements during the first interview should be suppressed on the ground that it was a custodial interrogation and that the police violated his rights by failing to provide him with Miranda warnings prior to the interview. The defendant challenged the admission of statements made during the sec- ond interview, contending that that interview violated the principle that the provision of Miranda warnings midstream, after a suspect has offered a confession during a custodial interrogation, violates the constitutional requirements safeguarded by Miranda. The trial court denied the defendant's motion to suppress the statements that he made during his first and second interviews, concluding that the first interview was not custodial and, therefore, that the rule pertaining to midstream Miranda warnings was inapplicable with respect to the second inter- view. On the defendant's appeal from the judgment of conviction, held: 1. The trial court properly denied the defendant's motion to suppress the statements he had made during the first interview because, notwithstand- ing the coercive elements of that interview, a reasonable person in the defendant's position would not have believed that he was restrained to a degree associated with a formal arrest, and, therefore, the defendant was not in custody during that interrogation: The defendant was questioned in a coercive environment insofar as the interview was conducted by two armed police officers in a secured area of the probation office, immediately after the defendant's mandatory meeting with his probation officer, no one told the defendant that the individuals waiting to speak to him were police officers, the officers made it clear during the interview that the defendant was the prime suspect, and the officers seized the defendant's cell phone at the end of the interview, but a coercive environment, without more, does not estab- lish that the interview was custodial. In light of the totality of the circumstances, this court was persuaded that the coercive elements of the first interview were offset by other factors and did not rise to the degree of restraint associated with a formal arrest, as the record did not reveal that the probation officer had ordered the defendant to meet with the police officers, that the defendant had objected to the meeting, that the defendant had told the probation officer that he did not have time to attend, or that the defendant had asked the probation officer if he was obligated to go, and the simple fact that the defendant was on probation was insufficient to render any request from his probation officer coercive. Moreover, the application of the factors identified in State v. Mangual (311 Conn. 182) that a court should consider in evaluating whether an individual is in custody for Miranda purposes to the facts of the present case further supported the conclusion that the defendant was not restrained to a degree associated with a formal arrest during the first interview. Specifically, the nature, extent and duration of the questioning, as well as the length of the defendant's detention, weighed against a conclusion that he was in custody because the tone and tenor of the interview were cordial, insofar as the officers never raised their voices, and both the interview and the detention of the defendant lasted for only ninety minutes. The factors relating to the number of officers present during the inter- view, whether they were armed, displayed their weapons, or used force, and whether the defendant was physically restrained, when viewed together, weighed against a conclusion that the defendant was in custody because, although the interrogating officers displayed their badges and guns and had handcuffs, there were only two of them, they did not physically threaten or restrain the defendant, handcuff him, use force, or brandish their weapons, and the defendant presented no evidence that the circumstances surrounding the interview were akin to those surrounding the police station interrogations at issue in Miranda. The fact that, after the first twenty-one minutes of the interview, the police officers repeatedly advised the defendant that he was free to leave and that he was not under arrest, and the fact that the defendant chose to remain and never asked to leave, also weighed against a conclusion that the defendant was in custody, insofar as those facts suggested an exercise of free will, rather than restraint to a degree associated with a formal arrest, and, although the officer's advisements would have weighed even more heavily in favor of a conclusion that the defendant was not in custody if they had been given at the outset of the interview, a failure or delay to advise a defendant that he is free to leave or not under arrest does not necessarily result in a finding of custody, especially when the defendant in the present case left the interview without being placed under arrest. Although the facts that the police initiated the encounter by making arrangements with the probation office and that no one told the defendant that the individuals waiting to meet him were law enforcement officers weighed modestly in favor of a conclusion that the defendant was in custody, such a conclusion was undercut by the defendant's acquiescence to the meeting, and, although the defendant's probation officer had told the defendant that certain individuals wished to speak with him, she did not order the defendant to attend the meeting or use coercive language, and, thus, a reasonable person in the defendant's position would not have felt restrained to a degree associated with a formal arrest. The location of the interview in the probation office provided some support for the defendant's contention that he was in custody, insofar as the defendant needed to be escorted into the building in which the probation office was located and the secured areas therein, but there was no evidence concerning the character of the office in which he was interviewed or concerning whether any limitations were placed on the defendant's ability to leave the building or the secured areas therein. Furthermore, although the defendant's status as a probationer who was questioned in the probation office may have contributed to the coercive aspects of the interview, it did not transform a noncustodial interrogation into a custodial one, especially when the defendant was not ordered to meet with the police officers, the questioning occurred only after the mandated meeting with the probation officer had concluded, and the police officers informed the defendant that he was free to leave and was not under arrest. With respect to the degree to which the defendant was isolated during the interview, the fact that the police officers chose to conduct the interview in a secured area of the probation office was offset by the defendant's familiarity with the probation office and his failure to intro- duce evidence regarding the character of the building and how the proba- tion office was situated therein, and the fact that the defendant's cell phone was seized was of no consequence because he did not establish that it was seized prior to the final few minutes of the interview, and the record demonstrated that he used his cell phone during the interview to search for O's contact information rather than that he was prevented from using the phone to contact anyone. 2. The trial court properly denied the defendant's motion to suppress the statements that he had made during the second interview, that court having correctly determined that the defendant was not in custody during the first interview, and the defendant's challenge with respect to the second interview having been predicated on his claim that he was in custody during the first interview. (One justice concurring separately; two justices dissenting in one opinion) Argued January 20—officially released December 30, 2022