State v. Mitchell, 170 Conn. App. 317

On May 6, 2012, a cooperating witness (Savage) made a controlled purchase of crack cocaine from defendant Yuwell Mitchell within 1,500 feet of an elementary school; audio-video recording and drug testing corroborated the sale.
Defendant was arrested, charged with sale of a narcotic (§ 21a-278(b)) and sale within 1500 feet of a school (§ 21a-278a(b)), tried by jury, and found guilty.
Jury began deliberations May 27; on May 28 the jury sent a note saying it was unable to reach an agreement.
The court (substituted judge) instructed the jury briefly to continue deliberating, review the evidence and each juror’s position, and listen to one another; defense objected, seeking language to make clear jurors were not compelled to reach a verdict.
After further deliberation (about 5.5 total hours), the jury returned guilty verdicts; defendant appealed arguing the court’s instruction coerced the jury by failing to include the cautionary language required when encouraging minority jurors to defer to majority views.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (State)	Defendant's Argument (Mitchell)	Held
Whether the court’s instruction to "continue deliberations" coerced the jury	Instruction was a permissible, non-coercive suggestion to continue deliberations and review evidence	Brief instruction lacked O'Neil/Chip Smith cautionary language and therefore coerced jurors to surrender conscientiously held views to reach unanimity	Court: Instruction was non-coercive; no Chip Smith-type language used, so no cautionary reminder required; conviction affirmed
Whether the claim was reviewable despite no preservation at trial	State did not challenge reviewability	Mitchell failed to preserve claim at trial but argued constitutional error (Golding)	Court applied Golding; claim reviewable but fails on merits (third Golding prong)

State v. O'Neil, 261 Conn. 49 (Conn. 2002) (adopts the Chip Smith model instruction and requires balancing encouragement of unanimity with a cautionary reminder to jurors not to surrender conscientiously held views)
State v. Smith, 49 Conn. 376 (Conn. 1881) (early approval of instructing deadlocked juries to continue deliberations)
State v. Feliciano, 256 Conn. 429 (Conn. 2001) (upheld use of Chip Smith charges and explained distinction between brief non-coercive instructions and Chip Smith instruction)
State v. Golding, 213 Conn. 233 (Conn. 1989) (establishes test for reviewing unpreserved constitutional claims)
In re Yasiel R., 317 Conn. 773 (Conn. 2015) (modifies Golding framework for unpreserved claims)
State v. Daley, 161 Conn. App. 861 (Conn. App. 2015) (holding that requiring jurors to continue deliberating is not coercive in itself)