State v. Gonsalves

── State v. Gonsalves ── Court: Connecticut Appellate Court Date: April 14, 2026 Author: Alvord Category: General ************************************************ The “officially released” date that appears near the beginning of an opinion is the date the opinion will be published in the Connecticut Law Journal or the date it is released as a slip opinion. The operative date for the beginning of all time periods for the filing of postopinion motions and petitions for certification is the “officially released” date appearing in the opinion. All opinions are subject to modification and technical correction prior to official publication in the Connecti- cut Law Journal and subsequently in the Connecticut Reports or Connecticut Appellate Reports. In the event of discrepancies between the advance release version of an opinion and the version appearing in the Connecticut Law Journal and subsequently in the Connecticut Reports or Connecticut Appellate Reports, the latest version is to be considered authoritative. The syllabus and procedural history accompanying an opinion that appear in the Connecticut Law Journal and subsequently in the Connecticut Reports or Connecticut Appellate Reports are copyrighted by the Secretary of the State, State of Connecticut, and may not be reproduced or distributed without the express written permission of the Commission on Official Legal Publications, Judicial Branch, State of Connecticut. ************************************************  State v. Gonsalves STATE OF CONNECTICUT v. FRANK GONSALVES (AC 47606) Alvord, Suarez and Palmer, Js. Syllabus Convicted, after a jury trial, of the crimes of, inter alia, assault in the first degree as an accessory, conspiracy to commit assault in the first degree and conspiracy to commit robbery in the first degree, the defendant appealed. The charges stemmed from an incident in which, after four individuals entered a house to commit a robbery, one of the perpetrators shot and seriously injured an occupant of the house, C. The defendant claimed, inter alia, that the evi- dence was insufficient to support his convictions of all three offenses. Held: This court reversed the defendant’s conviction with respect to the charge of assault in the first degree as an accessory, as there was no evidence from which the jury could have inferred, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant intended to cause serious physical injury to C, or that he intentionally aided the perpetrator who did shoot C, which were required elements of the charge. This court reversed the defendant’s conviction with respect to the charge of conspiracy to commit assault in the first degree, as there was no evidence to establish that the defendant had the intent to cause C serious physical injury or that he intended that a deadly weapon would be used to injure C, thus, the state necessarily failed to prove that the defendant planned or conspired to cause C serious physical injury with a deadly weapon. This court reversed the defendant’s conviction with respect to the charge of conspiracy to commit robbery in the first degree, as there was no evidence that the defendant ever formed the specific intent that C would suffer a serious physical injury during the commission of the robbery and, consequently, there was also no evidence that the defendant agreed with any other perpetrator of the robbery to cause serious physical injury to any nonparticipant in the robbery, including C. Argued May 20, 2025—officially released April 14, 2026 Procedural History Substitute information charging the defendant with the crimes of assault in the first degree, conspiracy to commit assault in the first degree, robbery in the first degree and conspiracy to commit robbery in the first degree, brought to the Superior Court in the judicial district of Fairfield and tried to the jury before Pavia, J.; verdict and judgment of guilty, from which the  Sta