State v. Lawrence M.

── State v. Lawrence M. ── Court: Supreme Court of Connecticut Date: May 05, 2026 Author: Mullins 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. Lawrence M. STATE OF CONNECTICUT v. LAWRENCE M.* (SC 21032) Mullins, C. J., and McDonald, D’Auria, Ecker, Alexander, Dannehy and Bright, Js. Syllabus Convicted, in two cases, of two counts of sexual assault in the first degree and two counts of risk of injury to a child, the defendant appealed to this court. The charges in one case stemmed from the defendant’s alleged sexual abuse of his former girlfriend’s daughter, P, sometime between February, 2011, and December, 2012, and the charges in the second case stemmed from his alleged sexual abuse of his biological daughter, C, sometime between October, 2020, and June, 2021. The state filed a motion to join the two cases for a single trial, which the trial court granted on the ground that the evidence in each case would be cross admissible. During trial, the prosecutor called an expert witness, W, who testified generally regarding the typical behavioral characteristics of child sexual abuse victims and about a common pattern of behavior among their abusers known as “grooming.” The prosecutor also asked W to opine as to whether certain hypothetical facts, which closely resembled the facts in the cases involving P and C, were consistent with grooming behavior. Defense counsel objected to W’s testimony in response to the prosecutor’s hypothetical questions on the ground that it constituted improper bolstering of the testimony of P or C, and the trial court overruled the objection. Held: The defendant could not prevail on his claim that, in deciding the state’s motion for joinder, the trial court applied the wrong legal standard by improperly placing the burden of proof on him to demonstrate that joinder was not appropriate rather than requiring the state to prove that joinder was permissible. The trial court’s use of the phrase “eight or so years” to describe the approxi- mate time period between the alleged sexual abuse of P and C did not indicate that that the court had failed to view the facts in a light most favorable to the defendant when deciding the state’s motion for joinder, as the time gap between the alleged assaults was between about eight and ten years, which * In accordance with our policy of protecting the privacy interests of the victims of sexual abuse and the crime of risk of injury to a child, we decline to identify the victims or others through whom the victims’ identity may be ascertained. See General Statutes § 54-86e. Moreover, in accordance with federal law; see 18 U