Christopher Calhoun.
Should a Church Street South murder conviction be thrown out because a trial judge didn’t explicitly tell jurors that two key witnesses were “jailhouse informants”?
That question looms over a decade-old New Haven homicide case that will be heard by the state Supreme Court this Thursday.
The case posed for reconsideration centers on the 2011 death of New Havener Isaiah Gantt at the now-demolished Church Street South housing complex.
A jury found fellow New Havener Christopher Calhoun guilty of that slaying in July 2020. A state judge then sentenced Calhoun to 45 years in jail.
Calhoun’s family and friends, meanwhile, are convinced of his innocence. They’re also convinced that the original trial court judge erred when he decided not to tell Calhoun’s jury that two of the key witnesses in the case were “jailhouse informants” — even though those witnesses were incarcerated at the time that they struck deals with state prosecutors that led to them testifying against Calhoun.
The judge instead identified them as “cooperating witnesses” not jailhouse informants, because only one of those witnesses shared a specific confession allegedly made to him by Calhoun, and because both claimed to be eyewitnesses to the murder and were subsequently subjected to comprehensive cross-examination.
That key legal definitional debate around jailhouse informants and cooperating witnesses will be taken up by the state Supreme Court Thursday as defense attorney Norm Pattis argues that the original trial court judge erred in his jury instructions, while Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Nancy Chupak will get her chance to defend the murder conviction and the process by which it was reached.
Click here and here to read more about the Supreme Court case. Click here to read Pattis’s full legal brief on behalf of Calhoun, and here to read Chupak’s full legal brief on behalf of the state.
Pattis has said that the original murder trial relied too heavily on two “highly suspicious” witnesses. Without those two witnesses, he’s said, there “would be no case” against Calhoun. He accused the original trial court of failing to procedurally ensure that the jury had all the information they needed to properly assess the informants’ statements.
2018 Arrest For 2011 Murder
City police didn’t make an arrest in Gantt’s murder until 2018, seven years after the shooting death took place.
They made that arrest after two witnesses came forward in 2016 and 2017, respectively, to testify that they had seen Calhoun kill Gantt — at a time when both witnesses said they were involved with Calhoun and Gantt in competing drug dealing enterprises.
Those two witnesses, Jules Kierce and Eric Canty, both testified under oath to having watched Calhoun shoot Gantt after Gantt had supposedly accused Calhoun of stealing his customers.
Canty, who was just 16 at the time, also said Calhoun later confessed to him about having committed the homicide.
The witnesses did not share any of that information until brought into contact with police after receiving prison time themselves for unrelated crimes.
Calhoun, who was 19 at the time of Gantt’s death and is 31 today, was held responsible for having shot Gantt two times in the back and twice in the head. A jury found him guilty of one felony count of murder. He was sentenced to 45 years in prison.
“This is a cold-case prosecution entirely dependent on the testimony of two young men who were, at the time of the shooting, self-proclaimed criminal confederates of the defendant’s in drug sales,” Pattis wrote in his arguments against the state.
"Jailhouse Informant"? "Cooperating Witness"?
While Pattis’s legal argument covers several different concerns around how the original trial played out, his key concern is with the judge’s turning down of a special request by Calhoun’s defense team at the time to identify the witnesses as “jailhouse informants” and provide the jury with specialized instructions to examine their statements with greater scrutiny.
Jailhouse informant testimony has been cited as one of the leading contributing factors of wrongful convictions across the nation.
Connecticut General Statutes Section 54 – 86o defines a jailhouse informant as: “A person who offers or provides testimony concerning statements made to such person by another person with whom he or she was incarcerated, or an incarcerated person who offers or provides testimony concerning statements made to such person by another person who is suspected of or charged with committing a criminal offense.”
Pattis maintains that the witnesses should have been identified as jailhouse informants because they testified to Calhoun’s alleged criminal behavior while they were incarcerated.
State prosecutors, however, have argued that Kierce and Canty were “cooperating witnesses,” not jailhouse informants. That’s because only Canty shared a specific confession made to him by Calhoun, and because both men were eyewitnesses and subjected to comprehensive cross-examination.
Pattis has called the state’s reasoning limited to a “highly formalistic” definition, asserting that harm was done by failing to follow the precedent of another case in which the jury was provided thorough instruction to be cautious of the reliability of such testimony.
State prosecutors, meanwhile, have defended the court’s decision to draft a special credibility instruction at the trial’s close to remind the jury to scrutinize both men’s testimony with extra care given that they were “cooperating witnesses,” or witnesses who agreed to testify in exchange for benefits through a cooperation agreement.
The defense had asked for jurors to be granted specific guidelines for judging testimony from jailhouse informants. Those instructions would have recommended that jurors consider four key things: “(1) The extent to which [the jailhouse informant’s] apparent motive for falsifying his testimony was brought to the attention of the jury, by cross-examination or otherwise; (2) the nature of the court’s instructions on witness credibility; (3) whether [the information’s] testimony was corroborated by substantial independent evidence; and (4) the relative importance of [the informant’s] testimony to the state’s case.”
On Thursday, Pattis and the state will argue over the definition of a jailhouse informant and whether these witnesses fit that definition; whether or not the court would have been required to provide the jury special instructions if the witnesses were jailhouse informants; and whether a lapse in such instruction could have led to a wrongful outcome.
“Given the centrality of the testimony of these two men,” Pattis wrote, “jurors should not have been left without particular guidance about what factors on which to focus.”
The state insists that it gave the jury enough information — including instructing the jury as part of its “general charge on credibility” to consider the witness’ interest in the case, when the witness came forward, how reasonable the witness’ testimony was, and whether the witness contradicted their own testimony or another’s — to properly guide the jurors’ decision making.
Calhoun's Parents: "It's A Raggedy Case"
Calhoun with three of his five children.
“It’s a raggedy case,” Calhoun’s father, James, told the Independent in a recent phone interview. One that he does not believe should have led to the imprisonment of his son. “We thought it would be a mistrial,” he said.
“Forty-five years,” he recited, his voice choking. “To me, that’s life. It’s almost like somebody dying. It’s a lot — knowing that your son’s not thinking he’s ever gonna come home and is wondering how this happened to him…. I’m a man but tears is coming out of my eyes just even thinking about him.”
Chris Calhoun first moved to New Haven at age 18 to live with his father, who still lives in Fair Haven. Before his arrest, he had four children. A fifth was born after Calhoun was incarcerated. Because of the pandemic and disallowance of in-person prison visits, he has yet to meet his three-year-old daughter.
“He was a father more than anything,” James stated. “Running around with his children, teaching them how to fish.”
Calhoun’s mother, Denise Meade, spoke similarly of her son. “He’s a family man. He has five children. He takes care of his kids. He’s a good father,” she said.
“He was raised right. He was taught to love. And he’s a man of God.”
She recalled when she heard the trial verdict: “I broke down in tears. I was completely devastated. I was in disbelief because all the facts were there — the two jailhouse witnesses lied, the testimonies had discrepancies, there was prosecutorial misconduct,” she said.
“My son is innocent,” she said.
Meade lives in Long Island, but will be traveling to Hartford on Thursday to watch Pattis argue against her son’s conviction.
“Once you are in the system and you are innocent, unless you have money to get a paid attorney and fight against the system, it’s a very difficult challenge to fight for your innocence,” she said.
Calhoun and mother, Denise Meade.
In addition to worrying about their son’s well-being while imprisoned in the Cheshire Correctional Institution, Calhoun’s parents said they have had to pitch in to pay for defense attorneys while helping to support Calhoun’s children and missing job opportunities to make meetings and court hearings in hopes of overturning their son’s conviction.
“And then you have to deal with thinking about the conditions [in prison],” she said. “It’s inhumane. It’s inhumane what they go through.”
In between fielding regular phone calls from his son and attempting to connect Chris with his children, James Calhoun shared that he is also raising three young daughters.
Today, he said he fears even letting them get on the bus.
“I lost my brother when he was 16. He got hit by a car,” Calhoun said. “Everybody always says I’m an overthinker. But when my kids leave the house, I’m just already thinking… something could happen.”
