State v. Santiago

• Decision Date: 09 February 1993
• Docket Number: No. 14518,14518
• Citation: 224 Conn. 494,619 A.2d 1132
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. John SANTIAGO.

Page 1132

619 A.2d 1132

224 Conn. 494

STATE of Connecticut v. John SANTIAGO.

No. 14518.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Sept. 24, 1992.

Decided Feb. 9, 1993.

Reversed and remanded with directions.

Borden and Berdon, JJ., filed dissenting opinions.

Rita M. Shair, Asst. State's Atty., with whom were C. Robert Satti, Sr., State's Atty., Peter McShane, Deputy Asst. State's Atty., and, on the brief, Mark J. Migliaccio, Law Student Intern, for appellant (state).

William T. Koch, Jr., Sp. Public Defender, for appellee (defendant).

Before PETERS, C.J., CALLAHAN, BORDEN, BERDON and F.X. HENNESSY, JJ.

FRANCIS X. HENNESSY, Associate Justice.

The principal issue in this case is whether the defendant's warrantless arrest in the doorway to his home, which is accessed by crossing a porch, violated the fourth amendment to the United States constitution. ¹ The state charged the defendant John Santiago, by substitute information with threatening in violation of General Statutes § 53a-62, possession of narcotics in violation of General Statutes § 21a-279(a), and possession of drug paraphernalia in violation of General Statutes § 21a-267. The defendant moved to suppress the evidence seized at the time of his arrest arguing that his arrest was illegal under the fourth amendment. After a hearing, the trial court, Koletsky, J., denied the defendant's motion. The defendant thereafter entered a plea of nolo contendere to the second and third counts conditioned on his right to appeal the trial court's ruling. ² He subsequently was sentenced to a four year term of imprisonment. His sentence was suspended and he was placed on probation for four years with special conditions. The defendant appealed to the Appellate Court, which reversed the judgment of the trial court. State v. Santiago, 26 Conn.App. 481, 602 A.2d 40 (1992). We thereafter granted the state's petition for certification to appeal. We reverse the judgment of the Appellate Court.

The following facts are not disputed. On March 25, 1989, in response to a report that the defendant had threatened a neighbor with a handgun, a New London police officer went to the housing complex where the defendant resided. After interviewing a neighbor and another person, the officer located the defendant's apartment and knocked on the door. The defendant opened the door, stood directly in the doorway and spoke with the officer. The defendant denied threatening the neighbor and refused to allow the officer to search his apartment. The officer then asked the defendant to remain where he was while the officer went to consult with his supervisor. After weighing the witnesses' and the defendant's account of the incident, the police officer decided to arrest the defendant for threatening. When the officer returned to the defendant's apartment, the door was still wide open and the defendant was still standing in the doorway. The officer arrested the defendant for threatening. During a subsequent search of the defendant's person, the police recovered a pipe containing the residue of narcotics. ³

The defendant moved to suppress the evidence seized at the time of his arrest claiming that it was removed from his person after he had been arrested in violation of his rights under the fourth amendment. The trial court, concluding that the arrest was proper because it was based on speedy information and probable cause, denied the defendant's motion.

The defendant appealed to the Appellate Court, which emphasized that the area in front of the defendant's apartment was a porch, and concluded that as such it "is intrinsically associated with both the sanctity of the home and the privacies of life." State v. Santiago, supra, 489, 602 A.2d 40. The Appellate Court held, therefore, that the porch was within the zone of fourth amendment protection and accordingly reversed the judgment of the trial court. Id., at 490, 602 A.2d 40.

We granted certification limited to three issues: (1) "Was the Appellate Court correct in not ruling that a defendant standing in the doorway of his home is in a public place, and may be arrested without a warrant?" (2) "Was the Appellate Court correct in holding that a porch is a part of the home, and is subject to fourth amendment protections?" (3) "Was the Appellate Court incorrect in reversing the trial court's factual finding that the defendant was in his doorway and instead engaged in fact finding to determine that the defendant was on a porch which was an extension of his home?" State v. Santiago, 221 Conn. 920, 608 A.2d 686 (1992). We disagree with the Appellate Court's resolution of the first and second issues and reverse its judgment. ⁴

I

The state first contends that the Appellate Court improperly ruled that, because the defendant was taken into custody while standing in the doorway of his home, he was illegally arrested. We agree.

General Statutes § 54-1f(a) authorizes police officers to arrest an individual without a warrant, "for any offense in their jurisdiction, when the person is taken or apprehended in the act or on the speedy information of others...." Additionally, a warrantless misdemeanor arrest must be supported by probable cause. State v. Elliot, 153 Conn. 147, 152-53, 215 A.2d 108 (1965); State v. Kaplan, 20 Conn.App. 183, 186, 565 A.2d 11 (1989).

Even where there is probable cause to arrest a suspect on the speedy information of others, however, "the fourth amendment prohibits the police from making a warrantless ... entry into a suspect's home in order to make a routine ... misdemeanor arrest." State v. Brosnan, 221 Conn. 788, 795, 608 A.2d 49 (1992), citing Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980), and State v. Gallagher, 191 Conn. 433, 437 n. 4, 465 A.2d 323 (1983). In Payton, the United States Supreme Court stated that "[t]he Fourth Amendment protects the individual's privacy in a variety of settings. In none is the zone of privacy more clearly defined than when bounded by the unambiguous physical dimensions of an individual's home.... In terms that apply equally to seizures of property and to seizures of persons, the Fourth Amendment has drawn a firm line at the entrance to the house. Absent exigent circumstances, that threshold may not reasonably be crossed without a warrant." Payton v. New York, supra, 445 U.S. at 589-90, 100 S.Ct. at 1381.

It is undisputed in this case that the police had probable cause, based on speedy information, to arrest the defendant. The relevant inquiry, therefore, is whether the threshold to the defendant's house is public for the purposes of the fourth amendment to the United States constitution or whether it is entitled to the privacy afforded the home by the fourth amendment. The United States Supreme Court has decided this issue.

In United States v. Santana, 427 U.S. 38, 96 S.Ct. 2406, 49 L.Ed.2d 300 (1976), the United States Supreme Court considered the legality of a warrantless arrest of a defendant who was standing in her doorway when approached by the police. In Santana, the defendant was standing directly in the threshold: "one step forward would have put her outside, one step backward would have put her in the vestibule of her residence." Id., at 40 n. 1, 96 S.Ct. at 2408 n. 1. As the police neared her house, she retreated into her home where the police arrested her. Id., at 40, 96 S.Ct. at 2408. The defendant moved to suppress the evidence seized at the time of her arrest, claiming that the warrantless arrest in her home had been illegal. The court held that because the defendant had been standing in the threshold of the doorway to her house, she had been in a public place and therefore had been legally arrested. Id., at 42, 96 S.Ct. at 2409, citing United States v. Watson, 423 U.S. 411, 96 S.Ct. 820, 46 L.Ed.2d 598 (1976).

In determining that the open doorway was a public place, the court reasoned that " '[w]hat a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own house or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection.' " United States v. Santana, supra, 427 U.S. at 42, 96 S.Ct. at 2409, quoting Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 351, 88 S.Ct. 507, 511, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967). The court further noted that the defendant "was not merely visible to the public but was as exposed to public view, speech, hearing, and touch as if she had been standing completely outside her house." United States v. Santana, supra, citing Hester v. United States, 265 U.S. 57, 59, 44 S.Ct. 445, 446, 68 L.Ed. 898 (1924).

The reasoning in Santana is applicable to the federal constitutional issue raised in this case. It is undisputed that the defendant was standing in the doorway at the time of his arrest. The record establishes that the defendant voluntarily came to the threshold in response to a knock on his door by a police officer. There is no claim that the officer forced his way into the defendant's residence, or indeed that the officer in any manner concealed his identity from the defendant or otherwise coerced him into coming to his door. There is equally no claim that the defendant, while on his threshold, was not in full public view; the defendant's doorway was only a few feet from the road, and visibility was not obstructed by the overhang from the first floor apartment, which covered the porch. ⁵ At the officer's request, the defendant consented, for an indefinite period of time, to remain on his threshold, in full public view, while the officer consulted with his supervisor. The officer then returned to arrest the defendant while he was still standing on the threshold. As a result of a subsequent search, incriminating evidence was thereafter seized not from the defendant's residence but from his person.

These undisputed facts place this case, as a matter of federal law, squarely within the precedent established by Santana unless Santana has been impliedly limited by the subsequent decision of the United States Supreme Court in Payton v. New York, s...