State v. Baez

── State v. Baez ── 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. Baez STATE OF CONNECTICUT v. DANIEL BAEZ (SC 21003) Mullins, C. J., and McDonald, D’Auria, Ecker, Alexander, Dannehy and Bright, Js. Syllabus Convicted of murder in connection with the shooting death of the victim, the defendant appealed to this court. The victim had prearranged to meet with the defendant at a local park. The victim went to the park accompanied by four other individuals. After arriving at the park, the defendant and another individual with the defendant approached the victim and his group. The victim, who was not armed, asked the defendant, “what’s up,” to which the defendant did not respond. Instead, the defendant pulled out a gun and pointed it at the victim. The victim then told everyone in his group to run and also attempted to flee. As the victim was running away from the defendant, the defendant fired multiple bullets and killed the victim. At trial, defense counsel sought to establish the defendant’s claim of self-defense through cross-examination of the state’s witnesses, including the individuals in the victim’s group. After the trial court instructed the jury on self-defense, the duty to retreat exception to self-defense, and certain lesser included offenses, including reckless indifference manslaughter in the first degree with a firearm and reckless manslaughter in the second degree with a firearm, the jury rejected the defendant’s self-defense claim and found him guilty of murder. On appeal, the defendant claimed, inter alia, that the state had failed to satisfy its burden of disproving his claim of self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt. Held: The defendant’s claim that the state had failed to meet its burden of dis- proving his claim of self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt was unavailing. The evidence provided ample support for the jury to have concluded that the defendant did not reasonably believe that the victim was about to use deadly physical force or to inflict great bodily harm and that he needed to use deadly physical force to defend himself, as eyewitness testimony uniformly established that the victim was not armed and did not attack the defendant, and also established that the victim and the individuals in his group were running away from the defendant when the defendant started shooting. Moreover, even if the jury did find that the defendant had reasonably believed that the victim and the individuals in his group were about to use deadly physi- cal force or to inflict great bodily harm, it al