State v. Rivera, 150 A.3d 244

Background

Defendant Josue Rivera lived with victim Anthony Pesapane; victim last attended methadone clinic on June 4, 2012. Rivera stabbed Pesapane repeatedly; body was cleaned, rolled in a rug, placed in a U-Haul; defendant and his wife were stopped June 11, 2012 and body was found in truck.
Rivera gave a written and videotaped statement to police; he claimed self-defense at trial but did not testify. Charged with murder and tampering; acquitted of murder but convicted of first‑degree manslaughter and tampering; sentenced to 23 years.
On appeal Rivera raised (1) prosecutorial impropriety in closing (comments on silence, burden, facts not in evidence), (2) improper expert testimony by Detective Wuchek on body language/untruthfulness, (3) erroneous admission of postmortem photographs, and (4) exclusion of prior-knife-fight evidence proffered to support his subjective fear.
Trial court admitted the defendant’s out‑of‑court statements, allowed detective testimony about behavioral indicators (without opining on defendant’s specific credibility), admitted several autopsy and scene photos, and excluded the remote prior‑knife‑fight evidence as irrelevant.
Appellate court reviewed prosecutorial remarks in context, considered preservation of evidentiary objections, applied abuse‑of‑discretion standard to evidentiary rulings, and affirmed the convictions.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Prosecutorial impropriety in closing arguments (comments on defendant's silence, burden, and facts)	State: remarks referred to admitted out‑of‑court statements and reasonable inferences; rhetorical devices and appeals to common sense are permissible.	Rivera: prosecutor commented on his failure to testify, misstated burden on self‑defense, and argued facts not in evidence, depriving him of a fair trial.	No impropriety; statements read in context referred to the defendant's police statements, used permissible subsidiary inferences (possible/probable), and rhetorical appeals to common sense were allowed.
Admission of Detective Wuchek as expert on body language/untruthfulness	State: officer testimony was about interview techniques and general indicators, not a credibility opinion about this defendant; trial court did not abuse discretion.	Rivera: such testimony is inherently unreliable (police are poor lie detectors) and invades the jury's province to assess credibility.	Partly unpreserved: defendant failed to preserve the reliability challenge. On preserved claim (invasion of jury province), court did not abuse discretion because testimony was general behavioral indicators and did not opine on the defendant's specific truthfulness.
Admission of postmortem and scene photographs	State: photos were relevant to tampering charge, state of body when found, number/location of wounds, and defendant's state of mind; probative value outweighed prejudice.	Rivera: photographs of decomposition were gruesome, duplicative of other evidence, and unduly prejudicial.	No abuse of discretion: trial court reviewed photos in camera, balanced probative value against prejudice, and permissibly admitted them.
Exclusion of proffered evidence of defendant witnessing a fatal knife fight 14 years earlier	State: proffer was remote, lacked nexus to this victim/incident, and risked hearsay and confusion; not relevant to defendant's subjective belief about this specific encounter.	Rivera: prior exposure to a violent knife fight was evidence of his subjective fear and relevant to self‑defense belief.	Trial court acted reasonably: evidence was remote, lacked sufficient connection to the charged incident, and exclusion did not violate right to present a defense.

Key Cases Cited

State v. Fauci, 282 Conn. 23 (2007) (two‑step test for prosecutorial impropriety review)
State v. Ciullo, 314 Conn. 28 (2014) (latitude afforded prosecutors in closing argument)
State v. Parrott, 262 Conn. 276 (2002) (test for whether prosecutor's remarks constitute comment on defendant's silence)
State v. Felix R., 319 Conn. 1 (2015) (contextual review of ambiguous prosecutorial remarks)
State v. Niemeyer, 258 Conn. 510 (2001) (reasonable‑inference standard for jury conclusions)
State v. Favoccia, 306 Conn. 770 (2012) (limits on expert testimony that amounts to credibility opinion about a particular witness)
Prentice v. Dalco Electric, Inc., 280 Conn. 336 (2006) (standards for admitting expert testimony)
State v. Guilbert, 306 Conn. 218 (2012) (expert testimony admissibility and qualifications)
State v. Porter, 241 Conn. 57 (1997) (Porter hearing guidance for scientific expert evidence)
Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137 (1999) (Daubert gatekeeping extends to technical and specialized testimony)
State v. Williams, 204 Conn. 523 (1987) (factors for assessing whether prosecutorial impropriety denied a fair trial)
State v. O’Bryan, 318 Conn. 621 (2015) (pattern jury instruction language on subjective belief affirmed)