A high-profile murder case from 2015 was appealed to the Connecticut Supreme Court on Wednesday.
The appeal was heard by six justices and a room full of UConn law students as part of the court’s traveling “On Circuit” program.
Richard Dabate’s defense team argued that his client didn’t get a fair trial in 2022 when he was found guilty of murdering his wife, Connie Dabate, at their Ellington home in 2015.
Dabate was sentenced to 65 years in prison for the murder. He still maintains his innocence, saying it was a masked intruder who shot and killed Connie. But investigators found data from her Fitbit contradicted his timeline.
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State prosecutors at the time said the motive was driven by Dabate impregnating his mistress and not wanting to ruin his reputation.
“I’m hopeful that the justices will side with us,” Trent LaLima, Dabate’s defense attorney, said. “There were just certain questions we thought shouldn’t have been asked, or evidence that shouldn’t have come in, and eventually did come in, and some comments during summation that we thought harmed our client’s right to have a fair trial.”
LaLima would like to see the murder conviction overturned, pointing to the actions of the state’s prosecutor. Dabate's attorney claims the prosecutor engaged in a pattern of impropriety that denied Dabate a fair trial by failing to disclose evidence in advance of the trial, violating prior evidentiary rulings, asking the defendant to comment on the testimony of witnesses, seeking to elicit evidence of prior uncharged misconduct, commenting on the defendant's right to remain silent, and making improper emotional appeals to the jury, according to court documents.
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“Perhaps some of the most damaging would be the ticking time bomb question, which was 24 hours, almost exactly, after those notes had been excluded from the trial court. The state asked, ‘Did you feel like a ticking time bomb?' Ticking time bomb makes my client out to be a dangerous person. Some of these are bells that can’t be un-rung. Indicating the Cheshire murders twice – and not even attempting to rephrase it,” LaLima said.
“If this is not reversed, I will bet that other defense attorneys in the state, when they advise their clients whether to testify, they will tell them, you’re not gonna get treated like the other witnesses. You’ll be asked all kinds of crazy questions that maybe don’t have any basis,” LaLima said to the justices.
The state’s attorney said they do not concede any impropriety, but acknowledge it came close to crossing a line.
“I don’t think there’s anything improper at all about using the defendant’s own words, in a prior inconsistent statement, to impeach his testimony once he testifies,” state’s attorney Nathan Buchok said.
It could be months before the justices issue their decision.
