Defendant in trouble for missing one court date, then arriving late

Marcus T. Harvin, who is on trial for a May 2014 car crash in Ledyard that injured his two young daughters, one of them severely, was taken into custody when he arrived late in New London Superior Court Monday after missing court on Friday due to what he said was a medical emergency.

Harvin, 27, of New Britain, who has been free on bond while his case was pending, arrived at the courthouse clutching his stomach and complaining of nausea and diarrhea. He sat in the hallway and sent word in through his standby attorney, John Williams, that he was violently ill.

He limped into the courtroom after Judge Barbara Bailey Jongbloed ordered him to appear.

Prosecutor Sarah W. Bowman, noting that Harvin has shown a period of stalling and delaying while his case was pending, asked the judge to increase his bond to $50,000 cash. She said that he had been in the hospital Friday for “an unknown virus,” which said was likely a result of stress due to his current circumstances. She also read from Harvin’s Facebook page, where over the weekend Harvin posted photographs of himself and his two young daughters and wrote a message that said God had saved him and his daughters for a reason “now it is time to show the WORLD why.” He ended the post with several hashtags, including #thestate-cantseperatewhatgodpredes-tined.

Harvin said that by his statement, he meant that, “nothing can stop me from being their father.”

He produced a document proving he visited an emergency room on Friday and told the judge he had used the bathroom twice since arriving at court. Jongbloed, noting he had arrived “very late,” read aloud from the document that Harvin had been diagnosed with diarrhea and that the recommended treatment was to take Imodium.

“Under the circumstances, I do have some serious concerns about the defendant, and I am going to increase his bond to $50,000 cash,” Jongbloed said.

Harvin objected to the trial going forward, “because I am too sick,” but the judge told him they would continue the trial and that he could ask questions from his seat and should let the court know if he had an emergency. Judicial marshals took him into custody and searched him, and he was wearing leg shackles, which is customary for all incarcerated defendants, when the trial resumed.

With Lawrence + Memorial emergency room physician Bernard J. Ferguson on the witness stand, Harvin stood up and walked to the court officer’s desk to have a document marked. The prosecutor asked that the jury be sent from the room and once they left, Harvin said he had “heard something from the jurors” when they noticed his shackles. He moved for a mistrial, which Bowman said was ridiculous. The judge denied the motion, asked the marshals to take off the shackles and instructed jurors, upon their return, that they may have noticed the shackles but are not to speculate about them.

The state elicited testimony from chemist Joseph Voytek of the state forensic laboratory, who was about to testify that the 2.083 grams of green plantlike substance found in Harvin’s pocket after the crash tested positive for marijuana. When Harvin objected that he had not been charged with marijuana possession and that the prosecutor had specified in the charging information that he was under the influence of liquor, the judge sustained the objection and told the jury to disregard Voytek’s testimony.

The state rested after Mark Anderson, lead examiner for the state toxicology laboratory, testified that Harvin’s blood alcohol concentration, converted by the lab from a blood serum number provided by Lawrence + Memorial, had been calculated at 0.203. The legal limit for driving is .08.

Harvin said he plans to call defense witnesses, but that he would not be taking the witness stand on his own behalf. He argued again for a bond reduction so that he could prepare his defense, saying “I need to be free to fight for my freedom.” The judge changed the bond to $50,000 cash or surety, gave him time to talk to his standby attorney and his mother and told him to be prepared to go forward with his case Tuesday morning.