State of Connecticut v. Michael Fauci

Summary

The Supreme Court of Connecticut affirmed the Appellate Court's judgment sustaining Michael Fauci's convictions for three first-degree robberies and three conspiracies. Applying the two-step prosecutorial-impropriety framework, the court held that the prosecutor's remarks treating self-incriminating statements as inherently reliable, suggesting that two corroborating witnesses would not both lie to protect a third party, and describing testimony as 'the truth,' 'truthful,' and 'inherently reliable' were proper argument rather than vouching or personal opinion. The court identified a single impropriety — the prosecutor's assertion, on facts not in evidence, that Susan DeRosa was the 'mystery woman' alibi witness Dimitriadis refused to name — and concluded under the Williams factors that it did not deprive the defendant of a fair trial.