State v. Watson
| Decision Date | 19 December 1973 |
| Citation | 165 Conn. 577,345 A.2d 532 |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE of Connecticut v. Joseph D. WATSON. STATE of Connecticut v. George J. STROMAN. STATE of Connecticut v. Charies CARTER. STATE of Connecticut v. Charies EVANS. |
Edward F. Hennessey, Sp. Public Defender, for appellants (defendants).
Richard F. Banbury, Asst. State's Atty., with whom, on the brief, was John D. LaBelle, State's Atty., for appellee (state).
Before HOUSE, C.J., and SHAPIRO, LOISELLE, MacDONALD and BOGDANSKI, JJ.
The four defendants were tried and convicted by a jury on all counts of three-count informations charging each with robbery with violence in violation of General Statutes § 53-14; binding with intent to rob in violation of § 53-19; and possession of an unlicensed weapon in a motor vehicle in violation of § 29-38. The defendants have appealed, and their appeals were consolidated by leave of court.
The assignments of error are so interrelated that the issues presented by the appeal will be discussed as they were presented in the brief of the defendants.
In a preliminary hearing, the court ruled against the motion to suppress filed by the four defendants. This ruling was assigned as error and the court found the following facts with respect to it: On the night of June 25, 1970, Detective Anthony Albuquerque of the Windsor police department parked his unmarked vehicle in the parking lot of Carville's Restaurant for general surveillance purposes. South of the restaurant's main entrance is a takeout restaurant called the Ranch House, and southwest of the Ranch House is Carville's Motel. From where he was parked, Albuquerque's view included the southeast wing of the motel, the motel office and entrance, 90 percent of the motel rooms facing east, the cocktail lounge, the steak house, and the rear entrance of the property. Shortly after 11:30 p.m. he observed a white Rambler automobile enter the driveway of Carville's Motel and proceed in a westerly direction, passing within four feet of his vehicle. Albuquerque noted the registration number before the car stopped behind the Ranch House. After four persons got out of the Rambler, Albuquerque's attention was distracted by another driver's request for directions. When he looked back at the Rambler, he watched the car drive past his vehicle to a point near the entranceway from route 159 at the end of the parking lot. He checked the Ranch House but it had recently closed and only the employees were present, working. He then returned to his vehicle to check on the night clerk. Up to that point, his investigation had revealed nothing unusual. As he proceeded southwesterly in the parking lot toward the southeasterly wing of the motel, his headlights picked up four men walking hurriedly and cautiously, apparently from the rear of the motel. Before the Rambler left the lot with its five occupants, he radioed a marked police car to stop it. At this point. Albuquerque had a suspicion that they had committed, were committing, or were about to commit a crime.
Officer John Witkins of the Windsor police department received Albuquerque's call and stopped the Rambler on Windsor Street, about 500 feet south of the motel. There was a great deal of commotion in the Rambler as Witkins approached the vehicle. The occupants were twisting, turning and bending, and the defendant Evans, alias Moore, had bent down and then popped up again, looking out of the rearview window. Witkins approached the driver and asked him for his license and registration. The driver responded with foul language, and Witkins momentarily backed away. Albuquerque arrived at that time and took charge. He also saw Evans bend down toward the floor. As Witkins was having trouble obtaining the license and registration of the driver, Albuquerque asked the men to get out of the car. Sergeant Frank Andrusko arrived in a cruiser at about this time. The occupants of the Rambler exited from their vehicle. As three of the defendants exited from the rear seat, two credit cards fell on the car's doorsill. As he saw these cards, a shiny object partly under the front seat also caught Albuquerque's eye. He extended his head inside the car and saw that the shiny object was a watch, but did not disturb it. The defendants continued their verbal assault and rather than standing still a requested were shifting around, trying to circle behind the officers. Albuquerque asked the men what they were doing behind the motel and they denied being there. He then asked who owned the credit cards but no one answered. Since Albuquerque was standing two or three feet from the credit cards on the doorsill and had a flashlight, he could see that the gold letters on the Avis credit card read 'M. G. Ash.' As he picked up the credit cards, a radio dispatch came in regarding a disturbance in room thirty at Carville's Motel. On hearing the message, Albuquerque tole the officers at the scene to hold the five men and left for the motel. Thereafter a crowd gathered, cars stopped and the defendants continued their verbal barrage of foul language. To avoid a public incident, Andrusko asked the men to go to the police station. Reginald Smith darove his own vehicle and the four defendants rode in Officer Witkins' car. None of the defendants had been searched or physically restricted.
When Albuquerque arrived at the motel, he obtained a key, went to the rear of the motel and found Michael Ash bound and gagged on the bed in room thirty. Ash told him that four or five Negro males had robbed him, that one had a gun and that his watch, wallet and ring were taken. Leaving another officer to aid Ash, Albuquerque left with his cruiser and rejoined the officers and the defendants who were en route to the station. After the vehicles stopped, he told the defendants that they were under arrest. Prior to this the defendants had not been told by anyone that they were under arrest. Without a warrant, Albuquerque entered the Rambler and conducted a search. He removed a loaded pistol from under the front seat and seized the watch.
The defendants assign as trial court error the finding of certain facts in the above summary and the refusal to find certain paragraphs of the draft finding. Two of the challenged findings state that the defendants were free to leave the presence of the police at any time unitl Albuquerque announced their arrest. These findings are not supported by the evidence and are deleted. Evidence supporting the balance of the findings attacked as unsupported can be found in the state's appendix and therefore those assignments of error are without merit. The paragraphs of the defendants' draft finding excluded by the court are neither admitted nor undisputed.
The defendants deny that the police had any legal authority to stop the Smith vehicle, to order them from the vehicle, to remove items from the vehicle or to detain them and therefore claim it was error to admit into evidence the credit cards, watch and pistol.
The fourth amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure is applicable to state action through the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment. Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523, 528, 87 S.Ct. 1727, 18 L.Ed.2d 930; Ker v. California, 374 U.S. 23, 30, 83 S.Ct. 1623, 10 L.Ed.2d 726; Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081, rehearing denied, 368 U.S. 871, 82 S.Ct. 23, 7 L.Ed.2d 72. The Connecticut constitution provides the same protection by article first, § 7. Many fourth amendment cases discuss stop and frisk searches or arrests but do not focus on whether the police initially have the right forcibly to stop or detain someone for questioning. A detention of a person against his will constitutes a seizure of his person, and the fourth amendment guarantee of freedom from 'unreasonable searches and seizures' is implicated. Cupp v. Murphy, 412 U.S. 291, 294, 93 S.Ct. 2000, 36 L.Ed.2d 900; Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 16, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889. As was stated in Davis v. Mississippi, 394 U.S. 721, 726-727, 89 S.Ct. 1394, 1397, 22 L.Ed.2d 676, '(n)othing is more clear than that the Fourth Amendment was meant to prevent wholesale intrusions upon the personal security of our citizenry, whether these intrusions be termed 'arrests' or 'investigatory detentions." This does not mean, however, that police can never detain a person without probable cause to arrest.
Police have the right to stop for investigation short of arrest 'where a police officer observes unusual conduct which leads him reasonably to conclude in light of his experience that criminal activity may be afoot.' Terry v. Ohio, supra, 392 U.S. 30, 33, 88 S.Ct. 1884. Furthermore, in Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 146, 92 S.Ct. 1921, 1923, 32 L.Ed.2d 612, the court held that '(a) brief stop of a suspicious individual, in order to determine his identity or to maintain the status quo momentarily while obtaining more information, may be most reasonable in light of the facts known to the officer at the time.' Effective crime prevention and detection underlie the recognition that a police officer may, in appropriate circumstances and in an appropriate manner, approach a person for purposes of investigating possible criminal behavior even though there is no probable cause to make an arrest. '(I)n justifying the particular intrusion the police officer must be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion.' Terry v. Ohio, supra, 392 U.S. 21, 88 S.Ct. 1880. An officer must act on more than a mere hunch. These facts upon which the stop is predicated and the suspicion which they arouse, in addition to forming the basis for a lawful stop, limit the scope of the officer's initial actions following the stop. Carpenter v. Sigler, 419 F.2d 169, 171 (8th Cir.); see ...
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