Sargent v. Smith

2 Citing cases

  1. State v. Ross

    873 A.2d 131 (Conn. 2005)   Cited 7 times
    Reviewing finding that Ross was competent to waive further challenges to his death sentence

    See Demosthenes v. Baal, supra, 495 U.S. 735; Rumbaugh v. Procunier, supra, 753 F.2d 399. Accordingly, we must determine whether the trial court's finding that the defendant was competent to waive further challenges to his death sentences was clearly erroneous. See Sargent v. Smith, 272 Conn. 722, 728, 865 A.2d 1129 (2005) (trial court's factual finding is reversible only if clearly erroneous). The only colorable claim of governmental coercion was the suggestion in earlier proceedings that the defendant might suffer from "death row syndrome."

  2. State v. Camacho

    92 Conn. App. 271 (Conn. App. Ct. 2005)   Cited 19 times
    Concluding that any Doyle violation was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, noting that jury may have found the defendant's alibi defense "weak" because "rebuttal witnesses could not give a consistent story," and stating that prosecutor's challenged remarks "were not used to attack the defendant's alibi"

    Questions of credibility are to be determined by the trier of fact, not by an appellate court on review. See Sargent v. Smith, 272 Conn. 722, 728-29, 865 A.2d 1129 (2005). On the basis of our review of the record, including the transcript of Taylor's testimony and the Mukhtaar hearing, we conclude that the court's findings of fact were not clearly erroneous and that the court properly concluded that the circumstances under which Taylor's written statement was taken did not render it unreliable.