State v. Kim

Summary

The Connecticut Supreme Court affirmed the defendant's convictions for third-degree sexual assault and third-degree assault of an elderly person, holding that the trial court abused its discretion in giving a consciousness of guilt instruction built on the defendant's equivocal statements to his employer — an instruction that adopted the state's pejorative 'changed his story' framing despite the evidence's minimal probative value — but that the error was harmless in light of the charge's limiting caveats, the strong physical corroboration, and the jury's split verdict. The court declined to abolish consciousness of guilt instructions categorically, citing trial-court gatekeeping discretion, the instruction's potential protective value for defendants, and stare decisis, but it invoked its supervisory authority to announce prospective rules: prosecutors seeking the instruction over objection must justify its necessity, any instruction given must be neutral and balanced, and courts should drop the 'flight, when unexplained' phrase and the 'consciousness of guilt' label. Justice Ecker concurred separately, agreeing that neither supervisory-authority limits nor stare decisis barred broader reform and qualifying his endorsement of the retained instruction. Justice D'Auria, joined by Justice McDonald, concurred in part and dissented in part, would have abolished the instruction outright or confined it to defense-invoked use, and lacked a fair assurance that the error did not substantially affect the verdict.