State v. Brown

• Citation: 503 A.2d 566,198 Conn. 348
• Court: Supreme Court of Connecticut
• Decision Date: 21 January 1986
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Judson BROWN.

Page 566

503 A.2d 566

198 Conn. 348

STATE of Connecticut v. Judson BROWN.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Nov. 12, 1985.

Decided Jan. 21, 1986.

Jon L. Schoenhorn, Sp. Public Defender, for appellant (defendant).

John M. Massameno, Asst. State's Atty., with whom, on the brief, were Austin J. McGuigan, Former Chief State's Atty., Jerome O'Malley, Former Asst. State's Atty., and John P. Zanini, legal intern, for appellee (state).

Before PETERS, C.J., and ARTHUR H. HEALEY, SHEA, SANTANIELLO and CALLAHAN, JJ.

PETERS, Chief Justice.

The principal issue in this appeal is whether the defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy, protected by the fourth amendment of the United States constitution ¹ and article first, § 7, of the Connecticut constitution, ² in a rented two-car garage. After a trial to the jury, the defendant, Judson Brown, was convicted of larceny in the first degree, in violation of General Statutes (Rev. to 1979) §§ 53a-119(2) and 53a-122(a)(2), ³ and of falsely reporting the theft of a motor vehicle, in violation of General Statutes § 14-198, ⁴ and was sentenced to a total effective term of imprisonment of from four to eight years. He appeals from this conviction.

The jury could reasonably have found the following facts. On the evening of January 11, 1980, a New Haven police officer discovered a partially stripped, white 1974 Mercedes Benz automobile abandoned in a parking lot. It was owned and had earlier been reported stolen by the defendant. At the time of its discovery, the car was missing a number of parts, including its two front doors and its marker plates. The defendant subsequently retrieved the recovered vehicle and filed a claim with his insurer, the Fireman's Fund Insurance Co. After inspecting the car, the insurance company deemed it a total loss, paid the defendant its fair value, and took possession of the car and its title. When the insurance company subsequently had the car sold at auction, the defendant submitted the highest bid to repurchase the car, but never took possession of it. In October, 1980, the police discovered a number of the missing car parts in a garage rented by the defendant. The defendant was subsequently arrested and convicted of larceny.

On appeal from his conviction, the defendant raises two claims of error. He claims that: (1) the evidence presented was insufficient to support the verdict of guilty of larceny; and (2) the trial court should have granted his motion to suppress evidence seized from his rented garage pursuant to a warrant because the seizure was the result of an earlier illegal search. We find no error.

I

The defendant's first claim of error is that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to support the jury verdict of guilty of larceny in the first degree. The defendant was charged by information with violating General Statutes §§ 53a-119(2) and 53a-122(a)(2) by obtaining over $2000 from the Fireman's Fund Insurance Company by fraud. The defendant concedes that there was sufficient evidence to establish that he had filed a claim with the Fireman's Fund Insurance Company and that it in turn had issued checks payable to him in excess of $2000. He argues, however, that there was no evidence that he ever actually received either the checks or the money. Since obtaining the money is an essential element of the crime of larceny in the first degree, the defendant claims that his conviction on this count cannot stand. The defendant properly raised this claim before the trial court by a timely motion for acquittal which was denied.

Appellate review of such a claim requires us to undertake a two step analysis. "We first review the evidence presented at the trial, construing it in the light most favorable to sustaining the jury's verdict. We then determine whether, upon the facts thus established and the inferences reasonably drawn therefrom, the jury could reasonably have concluded that the cumulative effect of the evidence established guilt beyond a reasonable doubt." State v. Sinclair, 197 Conn. 574, 576, 500 A.2d 539 (1985); State v. Cimino, 194 Conn. 210, 211, 478 A.2d 1005 (1984). In this analysis, we make no distinction in probative force between direct and circumstantial evidence. State v. Sinclair, supra, 197 Conn. at 576, 500 A.2d 539; State v. Stepney, 191 Conn. 233, 255, 464 A.2d 758 (1983), cert. denied, 465 U.S. 1084, 104 S.Ct. 1455, 79 L.Ed.2d 772, reh. denied, --- U.S. ----, 104 S.Ct. 2163, 80 L.Ed.2d 547 (1984). "It is not one fact, but the cumulative impact of a multitude of facts which establishes guilt in a case involving substantial circumstantial evidence." State v. Perez, 183 Conn. 225, 227, 439 A.2d 305 (1981).

We conclude that the evidence presented was sufficient to support the jury's verdict. At trial, the state presented the following evidence relevant to this issue. After the defendant's 1974 Mercedes Benz automobile had been recovered with parts missing, the defendant retrieved it, brought it to his home and filed a claim with his insurer. In settlement of the claim, the insurance company declared the car a total loss and issued checks payable to the defendant and to the first lienholder on the car in the aggregate amount of $12,265.50, the fair market value of the car. After paying the defendant's claim in full, the insurance company received title to the car from the defendant, took possession of the car, and, pursuant to its regular practice in such cases, turned it over to a salvage company.

In light of this evidence, we conclude that the trial court properly denied the defendant's motion for acquittal. The jury could reasonably have concluded that the checks issued to the defendant had been received by him, and that he would not have turned over the car and its title to the insurance company if he had not received payment for it. The fact that other, more direct evidence on this issue might have been produced by the state, as the defendant suggests, does not in any way diminish the validity of the jury's verdict. The jury considered the evidence as presented and drew a reasonable inference from it. Construed in the light most favorable to sustaining the verdict, the evidence was sufficient to support the jury's conclusion.

II

The defendant's next claim of error maintains that evidence seized from his rented garage pursuant to a search warrant should have been suppressed because the affidavit which supported the warrant had been tainted by an earlier illegal warrantless search. During the trial, the defendant moved to suppress this evidence. ⁵ Testimony which preceded this motion established the following relevant facts. In August, 1980, a state police officer investigating a matter unrelated to the present case went to the defendant's residence to interview him. At the time, the defendant was renting a second floor apartment in a two- family house. Another tenant lived in the first floor apartment. After receiving no answer at the fron door, the police officer walked to the rear of the house and knocked on the back door. Again receiving no response, the police officer walked to a two-car garage on the property located approximately thirty feet behind the house. After calling out the defendant's name and knocking on the garage door without receiving any response, the officer looked through one of the windows in the garage door to see if "there might have been somebody inside." Although he saw no one there, he did notice "several white doors that appeared to be from a Mercedes and other auto parts." The officer then left the premises. Approximately two months later, on October 21, 1980, after further investigation, the police officer prepared an application for a search and seizure warrant to search the defendant's garage. One fact used to establish probable cause in the application was the officer's earlier observation of the white doors and auto parts in the defendant's garage. ⁶

The defendant argues that the police officer's initial observation of the auto parts through the garage window violated the defendant's reasonable expectation of privacy in the interior of the garage and thus constituted a warrantless search without justification. Because the probable cause supporting the warrant was based in part on this illegal search, the defendant argues that all tangible evidence seized pursuant to the warrant should have been suppressed. At trial, in denying the defendant's motion to suppress this evidence, the trial court found that the defendant did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the garage. Such findings by a trial court will not be upset unless they are "legally or logically inconsistent with the facts found or unless they involve application of an erroneous rule of law material to the case." Dotson v. Warden, 175 Conn. 614, 619, 402 A.2d 790 (1978).

For the defendant to prevail on his claim we must resolve three issues in his favor: (1) that the defendant had a reasonable, constitutionally protected expectation of privacy in the two-car garage; (2) that the police officer's action in looking through the window violated that expectation and constituted an illegal search; and (3) that this illegality tainted the subsequent warrant. Because we conclude that the defendant cannot prevail on the first of these issues, we need not address the latter two.

The defendant's claim that he had a constitutional right to suppression of incriminating evidence depends upon a showing that the challenged search by the police violated the defendant's rights under the fourth amendment of the United States constitution or article first, § 7, of the Connecticut constitution. Because the constitutional prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures affords protection only against invasions of reasonable expectations of privacy; Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 143, 99 S.Ct. 421, 430, 58 L.Ed.2d 387 (1978), reh. denied, 439 U.S. 1122, 99 S.Ct. 1035, 59 L.Ed.2d 83 (1979...