An attorney for the man accused of killing three members of the Lindquist family and burning down their home during a Dec. 20, 2017, crime spree in Griswold said he plans to seek a change of venue for Sergio Correa's trial, which has been postponed indefinitely due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Attorney Joseph E. Lopez, addressing New London Superior Court Judge Hunchu Kwak on Thursday at the conclusion of a suppression hearing, said he'd be filing a change of venue motion, but didn't specify where he would like the trial to take place.
Correa, 29, has been demanding a speedy trial on charges that he killed Janet, Kenneth and Matthew Lindquist and set fire to their home at 70 Kenwood Estates.
The Judicial Branch is trying to find a way to accommodate jury trials while maintaining a safe environment. The trial was scheduled to take place at the Judicial District Courthouse on Huntington Street in New London prior to the pandemic, but the location may not be suitable for a large trial involving 18 to 20 jurors, teams of lawyers for the state and defense, the judge and court staff and multiple witnesses and spectators.
Lopez said Thursday that he also may challenge the "jury array," or list of jurors eventually summoned to appear for jury selection in Correa's case. The Judicial Branch is enabling potential jurors to opt out of service if they meet Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for being at risk of severe illness from COVID-19. That could limit the court's ability to provide a diverse pool of jurors.
A suppression hearing that began earlier this month continued Thursday.
Correa's attorneys are attempting to convince Judge Kwak that Correa's phone and its contents were seized illegally by state police and should not be admissible as evidence at trial. The detectives didn't get search warrants for the phone and its contents until after they seized it, but the state contends the detectives had probable cause the phone had been an instrument in the commission of the crime.
Earlier this month, state police Eastern District Crime Squad Detectives Frank Cuoco and David Bennett had testified about the early days of the investigation, when they had not yet found Matthew Lindquist's body and considered him a suspect in the murders of his parents. Lindquist's car was found burning in Glastonbury within a short time of first responders being called to the Griswold fire, and his cellphone was pinging in the area of the Sands apartment complex in Hartford, where Correa lived.
Correa was not yet a suspect in the homicides in early January 2018, but detectives knew he had multiple phone contacts with Lindquist hours before the crimes. When a New London judge refused to sign a search warrant for Correa's apartment, the detectives arranged for what the defense alleges was an "alleyway" search of Correa's apartment by the Department of Adult Probation.
Nothing was found at the apartment, but Cuoco said he became suspicious of Correa during an interview at Hartford police headquarters that afternoon and decided to seize his iPhone before Correa could wipe out its contents.
Correa locked the phone seconds before the detectives grabbed it, delaying for months the state police's ability to access the phone's contents. The detectives sent it to a vendor, Cell Brite, which was unable to unlock it and sent it back months later. By the time it was returned to detectives in the spring of 2018, the FBI had gained the capability to unlock certain encrypted Apple phones.
On Thursday, Correa attorney Corey Mainville questioned crime squad Detective William Utermark, the evidence officer in the case, about the chain of custody of the phone and about records indicating the phone had been "powered up" twice in January 2018. Utermark testified that while preparing to send the phone to Cell Brite, he took it out of a secure evidence closet at the crime squad's headquarters at Troop C in Tolland and plugged it in twice, while keeping it in the secure metallic bag it was being stored in. His intent was to maintain a good battery life before sending it out, Utermark said.
He said he also plugged the phone into a computer to get its serial number for the vendor, a process that took seconds and did not give him access to any of the phone's contents, Utermark testified. He testified that none of the detectives tried to unlock the phone while it was in their custody.
"As far as I knew, it was passcode protected, and no one could access it," he testified.
Also testifying Thursday was Robert LaPlant, a chief probation officer from Hartford who assisted with the search of Correa's apartment. Correa was on probation for crimes he committed as a teen, and his apartment and car were subject to being searched by the Department of Adult Probation.
Lopez said he may be calling one more witness. The attorneys for both sides then are expected to file briefs on the phone issue, and Kwak eventually will rule on whether certain contents of the phone can be admitted.
The suppression issue is not expected to inhibit the state's ability to present cell tower locations of Correa's phone on the night of the crimes or the content of text messages he exchanged with Matthew Lindquist through an application called "Text Now."
The information the defense is attempting to suppress involves content that was extracted by the FBI, some of which has not yet been made public.
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Change of venue motion, jury challenge ahead in Griswold triple murder case - theday.com
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