Opinion
Argued November 1, 1979
Decision released December 11, 1979
Information charging the defendant with the crime of robbery in the first degree, brought to the Superior Court in Fairfield County and tried to the jury before Zarrilli, J.; verdict and judgment of guilty and appeal by the defendant to this court. No error.
E. Eugene Spear, public defender, with whom, on the brief, were Jerrold H. Barnett, public defender, and Robert Gorman and Thomas Ullman, law student interns, for the appellant (defendant).
Eugene J. Callahan, assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, were Donald A. Browne, state's attorney, and Frank S. Maco and Walter D. Flanagan, assistant state's attorneys, for the appellee (state).
In State v. Branham, 171 Conn. 12, 368 A.2d 63 (1976), we held that in the absence of controlling statutory provisions an accused is not entitled to an instruction to the jury that no adverse inferences are to be drawn from his failure to testify in his own defense. The defendant in this case asks us to reexamine and overrule Branham. The most recent expression by the United States Supreme Court on this subject appears in Lakeside v. Oregon, 435 U.S. 333, 98 S.Ct. 1091, 55 L.Ed.2d 319 (1978). Nothing in that case or in other cases cited by the defendant in his brief persuades us to come to a different conclusion.
Since the trial of this case General Statutes 54-84 has been amended to read, in pertinent part, as follows: "(b) Unless the accused requests otherwise, the court shall instruct the jury that they may draw no unfavorable inferences from the accused's failure to testify. . . ."