State v. Wilkins

• Decision Date: 22 April 1997
• Docket Number: No. 15566,15566
• Citation: 240 Conn. 489,692 A.2d 1233
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Shawn WILKINS.

Page 1233

692 A.2d 1233

240 Conn. 489

STATE of Connecticut v. Shawn WILKINS.

No. 15566.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Jan. 16, 1997.

Decided April 22, 1997.

Glenn M. Conway, Certified Legal Intern, with whom were Timothy H. Everett and, on the brief, Geoffrey Stone, Certified Legal Intern, for appellant (defendant).

Judith Rossi, Assistant State's Attorney, with whom, on the brief, were James E. Thomas, State's Attorney, and Roseann Wagner, Assistant State's Attorney, for appellee (state).

Before BERDON, NORCOTT, KATZ, PALMER and McDONALD, JJ.

KATZ, Associate Justice.

The sole issue in this appeal is whether, under the circumstances of this case, the trial court properly denied the defendant's motion to suppress evidence found in his vehicle and on his person following a valid traffic stop. The defendant was charged by substitute information with one count of possession of a weapon in a motor vehicle in violation of General Statutes § 29-38, ¹ and one count of possession of a controlled substance in violation of General Statutes § 21a-279 (c). ² Following a two day hearing on the defendant's motion to suppress evidence, the trial court, Koletsky, J., denied the motion and the defendant entered written conditional pleas of nolo contendere, reserving the right to appeal the denial of the motion to suppress, pursuant to General Statutes § 54-94a and Practice Book § 4003(a). ³ Thereafter, the court, Dyer, J., sentenced the defendant on both counts to a total effective sentence of three years imprisonment, execution suspended after one year, and three years probation. This appeal followed. ⁴ In this appeal, the defendant claims that the trial court improperly denied his motion to suppress evidence found on his person and in his vehicle in violation of the fourth amendment to the United States constitution ⁵ and article first, §§ 7 and 9, of the Connecticut constitution. ⁶ Because we conclude that the officers acted reasonably in detaining the defendant, conducting a patdown of his person and searching his vehicle, we affirm.

The following facts are undisputed. ⁷ On September 18, 1994, shortly after 4 a.m., Officer Paul Ciesinski of the Hartford police department was on duty, driving northbound on Sigourney Street in Hartford, when he observed a red Nissan Maxima careen around a truck in the oncoming lane, cross the double yellow line and nearly hit his cruiser head-on. Ciesinski made a U-turn and followed the vehicle. Ciesinski did not call in for backup help because he was uncertain about whether he would be able to locate the vehicle. Furthermore, he believed no assistance was necessary because he was only contemplating a routine traffic stop. With Ciesinski in pursuit, the defendant drove into the parking lot behind an apartment building at 183 Sigourney Street. Ciesinski exited his cruiser and, after looking around for a few seconds, spotted the Maxima parked in the lot.

As Ciesinski approached the vehicle, he observed its two occupants "scrunching down" or "laying down" in the front seat of the car, as if trying to avoid detection. Concerned for his safety, Ciesinski drew his weapon as he approached from the rear of the vehicle. He then shouted to the occupants to sit up, and ordered them to raise their hands into his line of sight. Although both occupants sat up, the defendant disobeyed Ciesinski's repeated instructions to keep his hands in sight, twice dropping them down from the steering wheel out of the officer's line of vision.

Ciesinski believed the defendant may have been reaching down for a weapon. Aware that gunshots had been fired in the general area earlier in the evening, and concerned for his own safety, Ciesinski ordered the defendant to get out of the vehicle and into the rear seat of the cruiser, the door of which could not be opened from the inside. Ciesinski then ordered the passenger, subsequently identified as the defendant's brother, to get out of the Maxima and to stand against the trunk of the car, enabling the officer to call for backup without "running the risk of losing control of the situation." Up until this point, Ciesinski had believed it would not have been practical for him to call for backup on his portable radio. Within approximately five minutes of Ciesinski's call, Officer Michael Thomas arrived on the scene in his cruiser. After Ciesinski apprised Thomas of the situation, the officers removed the defendant from Ciesinski's cruiser and frisked both the defendant and the passenger for weapons. The defendant was then returned to Ciesinski's cruiser, and the passenger was placed in the rear of Thomas' cruiser. ⁸ Ciesinski then opened the front passenger door of the defendant's vehicle and observed "in plain view" on the floor of the car, toward the driver's side, a handgun, which was later identified as a .32 caliber revolver containing five live rounds and two spent rounds of ammunition. Ciesinski arrested the defendant for having a weapon in a motor vehicle and, incident to the arrest, he and Thomas then searched both the defendant and the vehicle. In the defendant's pocket, they found a small bag of marijuana.

The defendant claims that the search of his person and his vehicle violated his rights under the federal and state constitutions. Specifically, he contends that his removal from the vehicle at gunpoint, his detention in a locked police cruiser, the patdown of his person, and the subsequent search of the vehicle were constitutionally unreasonable. ⁹ We disagree.

I

The federal law of search and seizure in this area is well settled. "The fourth amendment to the federal constitution, made applicable to the states through the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment, provides in relevant part that [t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.... State v. Floyd, 217 Conn. 73, 79-80, 584 A.2d 1157 (1991). Certain seizures are reasonable under the fourth amendment even in the absence of probable cause if there is a reasonable and articulable suspicion that a person has committed or is about to commit a crime. Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 498, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 1324, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983); Terry v. Ohio, [392 U.S. 1, 24, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1881-82, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968) ]; State v. Lamme, 216 Conn. 172, 184, 579 A.2d 484 (1990); State v. Anderson, 24 Conn.App. 438, 441, 589 A.2d 372, cert. denied, 219 Conn. 903, 593 A.2d 130 (1991)." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Kyles, 221 Conn. 643, 659-60, 607 A.2d 355 (1992).

When a reasonable and articulable suspicion exists, the detaining officer may conduct an investigative stop of the suspect in order to confirm or dispel his suspicions. Terry v. Ohio, supra, 392 U.S. at 24, 88 S.Ct. at 1881-82; State v. Federici, 179 Conn. 46, 51, 425 A.2d 916 (1979); State v. Acklin, 171 Conn. 105, 112, 368 A.2d 212 (1976). During the course of a lawful investigatory detention, if the officer reasonably believes that the detained individual might be armed and dangerous, he or she may undertake a patdown search of the individual to discover weapons. Terry v. Ohio, supra, at 24, 88 S.Ct. at 1881-82; State v. Williams, 157 Conn. 114, 118-19, 249 A.2d 245 (1968), cert. denied, 395 U.S. 927, 89 S.Ct. 1783, 23 L.Ed.2d 244 (1969). Additionally, under the federal constitution, an officer conducting a Terry stop of an automobile may search the passenger compartment of the automobile for weapons, limited to areas where the weapon might be hidden, if he or she reasonably believes the suspect is potentially dangerous. Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 1049, 103 S.Ct. 3469, 3480-81, 77 L.Ed.2d 1201 (1983).

"Reasonable and articulable suspicion is an objective standard that focuses not on the actual state of mind of the police officer, but on whether a reasonable person, having the information available to and known by the police, would have had that level of suspicion.... The police officer's decision ... must be based on more than a hunch or speculation.... In 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." (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Gant, 231 Conn. 43, 65, 646 A.2d 835 (1994), cert. denied, 514 U.S. 1038, 115 S.Ct. 1404, 131 L.Ed.2d 291 (1995).

"The determination of whether a reasonable and articulable suspicion exists involves a two-part analysis: (1) whether the underlying factual findings of the trial court are clearly erroneous; and (2) whether the conclusion that those facts gave rise to such a suspicion is legally correct. See State v. Cofield, 220 Conn. 38, 44, 595 A.2d 1349 (1991). The trial court's conclusions must stand unless they are legally and logically inconsistent with the facts.... Id.; see State v. Lasher, 190 Conn. 259, 267, 460 A.2d 970 (1983)." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Kyles, supra, 221 Conn. at 660-61, 607 A.2d 355. Because a trial court's determination of the validity of a patdown search implicates a defendant's constitutional rights, however, we engage in a careful examination of the record to ensure that the court's decision was supported by substantial evidence. See State v. Greenfield, 228 Conn. 62, 68-69, 634 A.2d 879 (1993); State v. Damon, 214 Conn. 146, 154, 570 A.2d 700, cert. denied, 498 U.S. 819, 111 S.Ct. 65, 112 L.Ed.2d 40 (1990); State v. Northrop, 213 Conn. 405, 414, 568 A.2d 439 (1990).

The defendant does not challenge as clearly erroneous the facts as set forth in the trial court's summary of the incident. Nor does he contest the legality of the initial stop, or Ciesinski's decision to order him out of the vehicle. See footnote 9. Rather, he argues that the circumstances and intensity of his detention exceeded the permissible bounds of a Terry...