Summary
In State v. Roy, 233 Conn. 211, 658 A.2d 566 (1995), our Supreme Court explained that a defendant need not invoke the guidelines of Golding to be entitled to review of unpreserved insufficiency of the evidence claims because “[i]t is an essential of the due process guaranteed by the [f]ourteenth [a]mendment that no person shall be made to suffer the onus of a criminal conviction except upon sufficient proof....” (Internal quotation marks omitted.)
Summary of this case from State v. LeeOpinion
(15040)
Argued April 19, 1995
Decision released May 16, 1995
Substitute information charging the defendant with the crimes of burglary in the first degree, larceny in the first degree, theft of firearms and conspiracy to commit those crimes, brought to the Superior Court in the judicial district of Middlesex and tried to the jury before Clifford, J.; verdict and judgment of guilty of the lesser included offense of burglary in the third degree, larceny in the first degree, theft of firearms and conspiracy to commit those crimes, from which the defendant appealed to the Appellate Court, Lavery, Landau and Heiman, Js., which affirmed the trial court's judgment, and the defendant, on the granting of certification, appealed to this court, which ordered the parties to appear and show cause why the judgment of the Appellate Court should not be summarily reversed and the matter remanded to that court for further proceedings. Reversed; further proceedings.
Daniel S. Blinn, for the appellant (defendant).
Nancy L. Gillespie, deputy assistant state's attorney, for the appellee (state).
In this criminal appeal, we granted the certification petition of the defendant, John Roy, to consider whether the Appellate Court; State v. Roy, 34 Conn. App. 751, 764-66, 643 A.2d 289 (1994); properly determined that the defendant was not entitled to appellate review of his challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence for his conviction. The state has conceded that such review is appropriate, despite the defendant's failure to invoke the guidelines set forth in State v. Golding, 213 Conn. 233, 239-40, 567 A.2d 823 (1989), for review of his unpreserved claim of constitutional error. In the circumstances of this case, we agree with the state. It is "an essential of the due process guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment that no person shall be made to suffer the onus of a criminal conviction except upon sufficient proof — defined as evidence necessary to convince a trier of fact beyond a reasonable doubt of the existence of every element of the offense." Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 316, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979).