State v. Chaisson

• Decision Date: 31 December 1984
• Docket Number: No. 83-466,83-466
• Citation: 125 N.H. 810,486 A.2d 297
• Parties: The STATE of New Hampshire v. Carl J. CHAISSON.
• Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court

Page 297

486 A.2d 297

125 N.H. 810

The STATE of New Hampshire v. Carl J. CHAISSON.

No. 83-466.

Supreme Court of New Hampshire.

Dec. 31, 1984.

Gregory H. Smith, Atty. Gen. (Amy L. Ignatius, Concord, on brief and orally), for the State.

James E. Duggan, appellate defender, Concord, on brief and orally, for defendant.

BATCHELDER, Justice.

The defendant was convicted of theft by unauthorized taking, RSA 637:3; burglary, RSA 635:1; and conspiracy to receive stolen property, RSA 629:3, RSA 637:7. He appeals, alleging that the Superior Court (Wyman, J.) erred in upholding the validity of the search warrant and the defendant's arrest. We reverse and remand.

At trial the following facts were established. On March 27, 1981, the home of G. Jackson Jones was burglarized and a large quantity of silver and two guns were among the items taken. The next day, Harold Andrews, a coin and silver dealer, received word from Robert LaRue that a large quantity of silver was for sale. LaRue, Andrews and the defendant met later that day at an apartment on Franklin Street in Keene. At the meeting, the defendant showed Andrews some silver which the defendant said was "hot." Andrews told the defendant that the deal was "too big" for him and left.

Andrews then contacted Corporal O'Brien of the New Hampshire State Police, informing him of the meeting, giving him a detailed description of the apartment and naming the defendant as the man in control of the stolen property. Corporal O'Brien relayed this information to Sergeant Hardy of the Keene Police Department. Sergeant Hardy drafted an affidavit, in support of a search warrant, stating the location of the apartment as 49 Franklin Street, Apartment No. 2. The Keene District Court approved the search warrant, authorizing search of the apartment, the cellar under the house and the defendant.

The search, executed by four Keene police officers, commenced at 6:30 p.m. the same day the search warrant was issued. The defendant was not home at the time. In the cellar, the police found silver and firearms matching the description of items stolen from the Jone's residence. After these items were found and the rest of the apartment was searched, the search was terminated. Officer LaCoste, however, was instructed by his superior to remain behind at the apartment to wait for the defendant while the other officers returned to the police station with the seized items.

At approximately 8:00 p.m., the defendant knocked on the apartment door. When Officer LaCoste opened the door, the defendant backed away. The officer grabbed the defendant, brought him into the living room and placed him under arrest. At the police station, the defendant made incriminating statements and informed the police where additional items taken from the Jone's residence could be found.

The defendant first contends that the supporting affidavit filed by Sergeant Hardy with his application to the Keene District Court for a search warrant contained a material misrepresentation that was recklessly made. If the defendant's contention is correct, the search warrant was invalid, and all evidence obtained as a result of the search should have been suppressed. State v. Spero, 117 N.H. 199, 205, 371 A.2d 1155, 1158 (1977). The defendant bases his argument on the State and Federal Constitutions.

The defendant's argument focuses on the reference in the affidavit to the defendant's exact address, 49 Franklin Street, Apartment No. 2. The defendant argues that, contrary to the suggestion created by the affidavit, the informant did not give the police the exact address of the defendant's apartment. Rather, the informant gave a general description of the residence on Franklin Street and, with this information and the assistance of another officer, Sergeant Hardy supplied the exact address. By representing that the informant was the source of the defendant's exact address, the defendant claims that Sergeant Hardy recklessly misrepresented a material fact. The defendant contends that the misrepresentation as to the specificity with which the defendant's residence was described impermissibly bolstered the credibility and reliability of the informant.

The State acknowledges that the house number and apartment number were inserted by Sergeant Hardy and were not provided by the informant. The State disagrees, however, that this insertion constitutes a misrepresentation, in light of the fact that the informant gave the police a detailed description of the premises. The State points to testimony of the police who related that the informant gave them the following information: the street on which the house was located; the block within that street; the color and distinguishing characteristics of the exterior of the house; the location of the defendant's apartment within the house; the location of the driveway that led to the cellar where the stolen goods were stored; and a description of the cellar and the items stored in the cellar. The informant also stated that he would be able to recognize the building if he saw it again, and that the person who showed him the stolen goods at the apartment was the defendant.

The superior court found that the insertion of the actual address was not a material misrepresentation and, in any event, was not done recklessly. The questions whether an affidavit contains a misrepresentation and whether the misrepresentation was material are questions of law, for which this court is ultimately responsible, while the issue of the willfulness or recklessness of the misrepresentation is a question of fact for the trial court, which we will not overturn if the finding is supported by the evidence. See State v. Chaisson, 123 N.H. 17, 27-28, 458 A.2d 95, 101 (1983).

There was no misstatement of the fact of the exact address, as it is conceded that the address listed in the affidavit describes the premises the informant visited and the residence of the defendant. We agree with the defendant, however, that in ascribing the exact address to the informant's statement, Sergeant Hardy misrepresented the precision of the informant's statement and by extension the informant's credibility. We do not view this misrepresentation as material with respect to the issue of the informant's credibility because there remain in the affidavit sufficient recitals to attest to the informant's reliability and because an accurate rendition of the information supplied by the informant on this point would not have detracted from the informant's credibility. Cf. State v. Spero, 117 N.H. 199, 203-04, 371 A.2d 1155, 1158 (1977) (misstatement in affidavit of exact address found to be material where the informant's information was imprecise with respect to the defendant's residence).

Because we rule that the misrepresentation was not material, we need not address the question whether the misrepresentation was made recklessly. We hold under our State Constitution, part I, article 19, that the affidavit in question supplied a sufficient basis for a finding that the informant was reliable and that probable cause existed. See State v. Spero supra. The Federal Constitution does not dictate a different result. See Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983); Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154, 155-56, 98 S.Ct. 2674, 2676, 57 L.Ed.2d 667 (1978).

Next, the defendant contends that his warrantless arrest violated both the Federal and the State Constitutions and that the fruits of that arrest, therefore, should have been suppressed at trial. See Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 485, 83 S.Ct. 407, 416, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963). We, of course, address the State constitutional issues first. See State v. Ball, 124 N.H. 226, 232, 471 A.2d 347, 350 (1983). In construing the State Constitution, we refer to Federal constitutional law as only the benchmark of minimum constitutional protection. See State v. Osborne, 119 N.H. 427, 433, 402 A.2d 493, 497 (1979).

The defendant's claim arises under part I, article 19 of the New Hampshire Constitution and the fourth amendment of the United States Constitution. The New Hampshire Constitution provides that "every subject hath a right to be secure from all unreasonable searches and seizures of his person [and] his houses...." N.H. CONST. pt. I, art. 19. The fourth amendment provides that "the right of the people to be secure in their persons [and] houses ... against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated...." U.S. CONST. amend IV. Both of these provisions afford a citizen protection from unreasonable governmental interference with his person and from unreasonable governmental invasion of the privacy of his home. We review the facts before addressing the defendant's claim under these provisions.

The defendant encountered the police when he came home to his apartment. Upon his return, he knocked on his apartment door. The door was opened by Officer LaCoste, who had been waiting inside for the defendant to return. After seeing the officer, the defendant took a step backwards. The officer then reached through the doorway, took the defendant by the arm, and walked him inside into the living room. Once both were inside the apartment, Officer LaCoste advised the defendant that he was under arrest, conducted a pat down search of the defendant, handcuffed him, and called headquarters for assistance. The two remained in the apartment until the requested assistance arrived.

At the time of the arrest, the arresting officer was inside the threshold of the defendant's home, while the defendant was outside. Typically, it is the officer, not the suspect, whose knock on the door of a home sets the arrest process in motion. See, e.g., State v. Morse, 125 N.H. 403, 480 A.2d 183 (1984) (police arrested defendant when he responded to knock on his motel room door). We have neither found nor been directed to a factually analogous case. This unique configuration of facts presents us with a...