State v. Harvey

── State v. Harvey ── Court: Connecticut Appellate Court Date: June 02, 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. Harvey STATE OF CONNECTICUT v. RODNEY HARVEY (AC 46771) Alvord, Moll and Wilson, Js. Syllabus Convicted, after a jury trial, of various crimes, including assault in the second degree and assault in the second degree as an accessory, in connection with the stabbings of two victims, M and D, the defendant appealed. During an altercation in M’s residence, which lasted approximately one minute, the defendant stabbed M repeatedly while another man, H, attacked D, and, after the defendant yelled for help, H began stabbing M. Approximately two years after the incident, D sent M a newspaper article containing photographs of the defendant and H and indicating that they had been arrested in connec- tion with the stabbings. Several months later, the lead detective on the case contacted M and obtained a written statement from him indicating that the men in the newspaper article were the same men who had assaulted him and D. On appeal, the defendant claimed, inter alia, that his conviction of and subsequent punishment for both assault in the second degree and assault in the second degree as an accessory violated the constitutional prohibition against double jeopardy. Held: The defendant’s conviction of and subsequent punishment for both assault in the second degree and assault in the second degree as an accessory violated the constitutional prohibition against double jeopardy, as the evidence reflected that the stabbings arose from a continuous course of conduct, they were based on the same act or transaction for double jeopardy purposes and, thus, they implicated the prohibition against multiple punishments for a single act; accordingly, this court vacated the defendant’s conviction of assault in the second degree as an accessory. The evidence was sufficient to support the defendant’s conviction of assault in the first degree as an accessory with respect to the stabbing of D, as the evidence supported a finding that the defendant and H communicated with one another, traveled to the city in which M lived, and engaged in assaultive conduct in M’s residence as part of a criminal enterprise to steal certain drugs from M, and, thus, the defendant intentionally aided H to engage in the conduct that constituted the offense of assault in the first degree against D, and the jury reasonably could have found beyond a reasonable doubt that, because the defendant and H engaged in the coordinated stabbing attack against both victims in furtherance of their goal to steal illega