State v. Littlefield
| Decision Date | 05 December 1979 |
| Citation | 408 A.2d 695 |
| Parties | STATE of Maine v. Michael LITTLEFIELD. |
| Court | Maine Supreme Court |
David M. Cox, Dist. Atty., Gary F. Thorne, Asst. Dist. Atty. (orally), Bangor, for plaintiff.
Julio DeSanctis, III (orally), Bangor, for defendant.
Before McKUSICK, C. J., and POMEROY, WERNICK, ARCHIBALD, GODFREY, NICHOLS and GLASSMAN, JJ.,
Defendant was indicted for burglary, Class B, 17-A M.R.S.A. § 401 and theft, Class B, 17-A M.R.S.A. § 353. Prior to trial, defendant moved to suppress all evidence derived from a police surveillance of him on a public street in the vicinity of the crime. After hearing, the motion was denied.
Defendant appeals from the judgment of conviction on both counts entered in Superior Court upon a jury verdict.
Defendant contends on appeal that:
(1) the Justice presiding at the suppression hearing erred in denying the motion to suppress and
(2) the Trial Justice erred by excluding from evidence the proffered statement of a witness made to police.
We deny the appeal.
On December 20, 1978, two Bangor police officers patrolling a residential area in an unmarked car spotted the defendant and one Bradley Meader walking together. Meader was well known to the officers as an individual who had been recently charged with committing house burglaries and who was then on bail. The officers recognized the defendant as someone with whom they had dealt, although they were then unable to recall the defendant's name or to remember specific charges against him. Because a large number of house burglaries had recently occurred in the area, the officers turned the car around and followed the pair several blocks. Losing sight of them when they crossed the street and apparently cut between some houses, the officers thereupon called a cruiser and directed that it be positioned on the street behind the houses. The dispatcher was told to put out a general broadcast to be on the lookout for the two individuals. The officers got out of the car to check the four houses in the area. When no evidence of a break was discovered, the officers departed.
That afternoon a burglary of one of the four houses was reported. A general broadcast was made for the arrest of the defendant and Meader. That same afternoon, the defendant and Meader entered a pawn shop where defendant unsuccessfully attempted to pawn a ring which matched the description of one stolen that day, and a Timex watch. A Bangor patrolman present in the pawn shop arrested Meader, but allowed the defendant to leave. Defendant was arrested that evening at his apartment, which he shared with Linda Burbee.
Defendant originally claimed that he had been at home all day, but on December 21, 1978, the day following his arrest, he made statements essentially confessing the crime to the police. Ms. Burbee corroborated defendant's story that he had been home all day, and, in a statement to police, described details of the burglary and of prior thefts by Meader. At Meader's probable cause hearing, however, she testified that the defendant had been involved, and that Meader and the defendant had actually planned the burglary in her presence.
Defendant filed a motion to suppress the statements he had made to the police. A hearing was held on the motion and it was denied.
Defendant argues before this Court that the presiding Justice erred in denying his motion to suppress because the general police surveillance of him on the street was an unreasonable intrusion on his expectation of privacy in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. It is apparent, however, that no "Search " or "Seizure " occurred within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. Defendant was observed while walking along a public street. "What a person knowingly exposes to the public . . . Is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection." Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d, 567, (1967). Since the "Surveillance " did not infringe upon a...
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