State v. Garrett

In State v. Garrett, 42 Conn. App. 507, 681 A.2d 362, cert. denied, 239 Conn. 928, 929, 683 A.2d 398 (1996), the Court examined certain remarks about the defendant's race that the prosecutor made during closing argument. The Court indicated the disapproval of the prosecutor's argument, but concluded that the remarks were not so egregious as to have violated the defendant's right to a fair trial. The Court held: "Our review of the record discloses that, although the prosecutor uttered the words 'black' and 'blackness' a total of six times and the word 'race' twice, the comments were restricted to a very brief segment of the state's entire closing argument. Thus, the improper remarks were relatively infrequent and did not pervade the entire trial. For these reasons, and because the comments were not intended to disparage the defendant, they were not representative of a blatant and egregious pattern of misconduct that either deprived the defendant of a fair trial . . . or otherwise implicated the fairness and integrity of and public confidence in the judicial proceedings." State v. Garrett, supra, 42 Conn. App. at 517.