Background
James Brown was convicted of murder after a jury trial in Hartford Superior Court arising from a cold case investigation into the 2008 shooting death of Kennith Sullivan. The killing occurred during a street confrontation following a concert fight between members of two rival Hartford groups, “Money Green Bedroc” and “Sandz-Bridge,” with which the defendant and victim were respectively affiliated. After the victim challenged Brown to fight, Brown shot him multiple times; Sullivan died of a gunshot wound to the stomach. The case was resurrected when eyewitnesses gave sworn statements to police between 2013 and 2015, leading to murder charges. Brown was found guilty and sentenced to forty years in prison.
On the fifth day of evidence, the trial court learned that Juror 7 had told a court clerk she felt uncomfortable because trial attendees appeared to watch her walk to her car and a spectator had twice commented on her coat. The clerk reported that Juror 7 expressed reluctance to return if the defendant was present in the courtroom. When the court ordered Juror 7 to testify on the record, she recanted those concerns entirely. The court nonetheless excused her, then conducted individual canvasses of the remaining eleven jurors. Juror 1 confirmed he had overheard Juror 7’s safety concerns and identified Jurors 3 and 6 as having done so as well; all three, along with every other remaining juror, unequivocally affirmed their ability to be fair and impartial. Defense counsel moved for a mistrial, arguing that the canvass process itself had poisoned the jury and that Jurors 1, 3, and 6 should also have been excused. The trial court denied the motion.
On direct appeal, Brown raised two claims: (1) that the juror incident triggered the Remmer v. United States presumption of prejudice requiring a new trial, and that the trial court abused its discretion in denying a mistrial and declining to excuse additional jurors; and (2) that the prosecutor committed two acts of impropriety during witness examination—reading a “word on the street” hearsay sentence while refreshing witness Iran Harris’s recollection, and recounting the circumstances of witness Edward Rosado’s arrest on a capias warrant.
The Court’s Holding
The Connecticut Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice McDonald, affirmed the conviction on all grounds. On the juror issue, the court held that the Remmer presumption of prejudice did not apply because the alleged improper contact did not pertain directly to the merits of the case—it related at most to the trial topically. The only evidence of interference was a juror’s perception that spectators watched her walk to her car and one comment about her coat. Juror 7 denied ever having safety concerns when questioned, the trial court made no finding of threatening or intimidating conduct, and Juror 7 was excused for her own conduct rather than any proven intimidation. Without evidence shifting the burden of proof, the defendant was not prima facie entitled to the Remmer presumption.
The court further held that the trial court did not abuse its broad discretion in denying the mistrial. The canvass was meticulous: the court questioned each juror individually, observed their demeanor, and received unequivocal assurances of impartiality. As to Jurors 3 and 6, the court found any claim that those jurors harbored hidden safety concerns to be speculative in light of their sworn denials and the trial court’s credibility assessments. As to Juror 1, the court reasoned that his “not yet” and “so far” answers reasonably conveyed that he had no present safety concerns, not that he anticipated future ones, and he otherwise affirmed impartiality without equivocation. The defendant’s argument that Juror 1 was coerced into recanting was found to be entirely speculative and unsupported by the record.
On the prosecutorial impropriety claims, the court found no misconduct. Reading the hearsay sentence from Harris’s prior sworn statement was aimed at refreshing recollection, laying a foundation to treat Harris as a hostile witness, and supporting admission of his prior statement—not at introducing the hearsay as substantive evidence. The prosecutor complied with the court’s instruction not to refer to the hearsay again. As to Rosado’s capias arrest, the questioning was permissible impeachment of a witness who had disavowed his prior sworn statement, and was relevant to showing Rosado had a motive to recant to avoid being labeled a cooperator.
Key Takeaways
- The Remmer presumption of prejudice is triggered only when external interference with the jury relates directly to the merits of the case, not merely to the trial more broadly; a spectator commenting on a juror’s coat does not clear that threshold.
- A trial court’s thorough individual canvass of jurors—observing demeanor and receiving unequivocal impartiality assurances—is the proper tool for addressing potential juror bias and gives the court broad discretion to deny a mistrial.
- Equivocal-seeming phrases such as “not yet” and “so far” are not automatically disqualifying; courts may reasonably interpret them as expressing no present concern when the full context of the juror’s answers confirms impartiality.
- Impeachment of a recanting witness through the circumstances of that witness’s arrest is permissible prosecutorial conduct when it goes to the witness’s credibility and motive to change his story.
Why It Matters
This decision clarifies the boundary of the Remmer presumption in Connecticut, confirming that defendants bear the burden to produce evidence—not speculation—that alleged juror contact related to the substance of the charges rather than to logistical or atmospheric concerns. It signals that courts need not excise jurors merely because other jurors overheard a colleague’s anxiety, so long as a rigorous canvass establishes each juror’s continued impartiality.
For trial practitioners, the case underscores that a thorough, on-the-record juror canvass is both the trial court’s best shield against mistrial motions and the proper mechanism for preserving appellate deference. It also reinforces that timely compliance with a court’s evidentiary rulings mid-examination—and the opposing party’s own cross-examination choices—weigh against later claims of prosecutorial impropriety.