State v. Batts

• Decision Date: 20 March 2007
• Docket Number: No. 17724.,17724.
• Citation: 281 Conn. 682,916 A.2d 788
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Kareem R. BATTS.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

916 A.2d 788

281 Conn. 682

STATE of Connecticut v. Kareem R. BATTS.

No. 17724.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued January 11, 2007.

Decided March 20, 2007.

Ruth Daniella Weissman, special public defender, for the appellant (defendant).

Timothy J. Sugrue, senior assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, were John A. Connelly, state's attorney, and Cynthia Serafini, senior assistant state's attorney, for the appellee (state).

BORDEN, KATZ, PALMER, VERTEFEUILLE and ZARELLA, Js.

KATZ, J.

The defendant, Kareem R. Batts, appeals from the judgment of conviction, rendered after his conditional plea of nolo contendere, of two counts of possession of narcotics with intent to sell by a person who is not drug-dependent in violation of General Statutes (Rev. to 2003) § 21a-278 (a),¹ and one count of possession of narcotics with intent to sell in violation of General Statutes § 21a-277 (a).² The defendant contends that the trial court improperly denied: (1) his motion to suppress evidence seized incident to his arrest as a result of an unlawful investigatory detention; (2) his request for an evidentiary hearing pursuant to Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154, 98 S.Ct. 2674, 57 L.Ed.2d 667 (1978), to challenge the truthfulness of an affidavit supporting the search warrant for his residence; and (3) his motion to suppress evidence seized from his residence pursuant to that search warrant. The defendant contends that these improprieties infringed on his rights under the fourth and fourteenth amendments to the United States constitution³ and under article first, §§ 7 and 9, of the Connecticut constitution.⁴ We affirm the judgment.

The trial court, O'Keefe, J., reasonably found the following facts based on testimony at the hearings on the defendant's motions to suppress. On November 3, 2003, at 1:20 p.m., Waterbury police officer H. David Setzer and two other officers were on patrol in Waterbury. The officers were in an unmarked police car, but were in uniform. Setzer saw the defendant, whom he suspected of drug related activities, driving a car in a high crime area. Setzer knew that the defendant was on parole and had obtained information from the defendant's parole officer two to three weeks earlier that the defendant's motor vehicle operator's license had been suspended. The defendant pulled his car over to a stop, not due to any action by the officers. Setzer parked his vehicle, got out and approached the defendant, who remained in his car. The defendant then rolled down his window, and Setzer smelled the odor of marijuana coming from the car. Setzer asked the defendant for the marijuana, and the defendant handed Setzer a marijuana cigarette. The officers placed the defendant under arrest and then conducted a search incident to the arrest, which yielded crack cocaine and cash.

The record reveals the following additional facts and procedural history. Later that same day, Setzer and Waterbury police detective Robert Cizauskas applied for a search warrant for the defendant's residence at 2 Crestwood Road, apartment five, in Waterbury. In support of the warrant application, Setzer and Cizauskas submitted an affidavit attesting to information they had received from a confidential informant regarding drug activity by the defendant, including a controlled buy that the police had conducted during the week of October 17, 2003, between the confidential informant and the defendant. The affidavit also attested to the facts relating to the defendant's arrest earlier that day, specifically, that the search incident to the arrest had produced crack cocaine and $2827 in cash. The police obtained approval for the search warrant and thereafter seized various items from the defendant's apartment, including drug paraphernalia, three bags of powder cocaine totaling 451.1 grams, two bags of crack cocaine totaling 12 grams and $32,000 in cash.

The state filed a long form information charging the defendant with six counts of various drug related offenses. Thereafter, the defendant filed motions seeking to suppress the evidence seized incident to his arrest and to suppress the evidence seized from his apartment pursuant to the search warrant, claiming that both searches were illegal. He also requested the trial court to order the state to disclose the identity of the confidential informant relied upon in the affidavit in support of the search warrant and to allow him an evidentiary hearing pursuant to Franks v. Delaware, supra, 438 U.S. at 154, 98 S.Ct. 2674, to challenge the veracity of the allegations in the affidavit.

After hearing argument, the trial court rendered an oral decision denying the defendant's requests for the disclosure of the informant's identity and for the Franks hearing on the ground that the defendant had not met the legal threshold necessary to prevail on those requests. The trial court also made a preliminary ruling that the search warrant was supported by probable cause. After hearing testimony regarding the defendant's motion to suppress the evidence seized incident to his arrest, the trial court issued written memoranda of decision denying both that motion and the motion to suppress the evidence seized from the defendant's apartment pursuant to the search warrant. With respect to the evidence seized incident to the defendant's arrest, the court concluded that Setzer's conduct in walking up to the defendant's parked car and speaking to him did not constitute a stop under the fourth amendment and, even if it did, the officers legally had detained the defendant for operating his car while his license was suspended. With respect to the evidence seized pursuant to the search warrant, the court concluded that the warrant was supported by probable cause under the totality of circumstances: the information from the confidential informant; the controlled buy of narcotics observed by the police; and the facts surrounding the defendant's arrest.

The state then filed a substitute information charging the defendant with two counts of possession of narcotics with intent to sell by a person who is not drug-dependent in violation of § 21a-278 (a), and one count of possession of narcotics with intent to sell in violation of § 21a-277 (a). The defendant entered a conditional plea of nolo contendere pursuant to General Statutes § 54-94a, reserving his right to appeal from the denial of the motions to suppress. The trial court, Iannotti, J., rendered judgment of guilty in accordance with the plea and sentenced the defendant to a term of imprisonment of fourteen years. The defendant also entered a plea of nolo contendere to the charge of operating a motor vehicle while his license was suspended, and the court sentenced the defendant to an unconditional discharge for that conviction. This appeal followed.⁵

Two of the claims raised by the defendant on appeal challenge the trial court's decisions denying his motions to suppress evidence. Accordingly, "[a]s an initial matter, we note that [o]ur standard of review of a trial court's findings and conclusions in connection with a motion to suppress is well defined. A finding of fact will not be disturbed unless it is clearly erroneous in view of the evidence and pleadings in the whole record. . . . [When] the legal conclusions of the court are challenged, [our review is plenary, and] we must determine whether they are legally and logically correct and whether they find support in the facts set out in the court's memorandum of decision. . . ." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Brown, 279 Conn. 493, 514, 903 A.2d 169 (2006).

I

We begin with the defendant's claim that the trial court improperly denied his motion to suppress the evidence seized from his person in violation of his rights under the fourth and fourteenth amendments to the federal constitution and article first, §§ 7 and 9, of the Connecticut constitution. The defendant contends that, although he had pulled his car over without being instructed to do so by the police, Setzer's approach to his car constituted an investigatory detention under the state and federal constitutions because a reasonable person would have felt compelled to roll down his car window when approached by a police officer and he had a reasonable expectation of privacy when parked in a residential area. He further contends that the police had no reasonable and articulable suspicion of criminal activity to justify approaching him in his car because, contrary to the trial court's finding, the officers did not know about the defendant's suspended driver's license at the time of the investigatory detention. Finally, the defendant asserts that the real reason for the detention was racial profiling and, accordingly, urges this court to adopt a heightened standard that would require the police to show that they knew, as a matter of fact, rather than suspected, that the defendant had been operating his car while his license was under suspension. We conclude that, even if we were to assume, arguendo, that Setzer's approach to the defendant's car could constitute an investigatory detention that would fall within the ambit of the fourth amendment to the federal constitution and article first, §§ 7 and 9, of the state constitution, the trial court properly denied the motion to suppress.⁶

Setzer offered the following testimony at the hearing on the motion to suppress the evidence seized at the time of the defendant's arrest. He had become familiar with the defendant before November 3, 2003, because, on several occasions in the two to three weeks preceding that date, he had conducted surveillance of the defendant as part of a police investigation. In the course of that investigation, Setzer had received information from the defendant's parole officer, that the defendant's driver's license had been suspended. Setzer confirmed that information with the department of motor vehicles. Setzer approached the defendant in his car on November 3 because...