State v. Kendrick

314 Conn. 212

100 A.3d 821

STATE of Connecticut

v.Said KENDRICK.

No. 18914.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Oct. 21, 2013.

Decided Oct. 21, 2014.

Marjorie Allen Dauster, senior assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, were David I. Cohen, state's attorney, and David R. Applegate, assistant state's attorney, for the appellant (state).

James B. Streeto, assistant public defender, for the appellee (defendant).

ROGERS, C.J., and PALMER, ZARELLA, EVELEIGH, McDONALD and ESPINOSA, Js.

Opinion

ESPINOSA, J.

The sole issue in this certified appeal is whether the Appellate Court properly reversed the judgment of conviction of the defendant, Said Kendrick, of criminal possession of a firearm in violation of General Statutes (Rev. to 2007) § 53a–217 (a)(1),¹ on the basis of its conclusion that the trial court improperly denied the defendant's motion to suppress evidence obtained by the police as a result of their warrantless entry into a bedroom where the defendant was sleeping. Following our grant of certification,² the state appeals from the judgment of the Appellate Court, and claims that because the police officers reasonably believed that the warrantless entry into the bedroom was necessary to protect the safety of the officers and others on the premises, the entry did not violate the defendant's rights under the fourth amendment to the United States constitution. We agree and reverse the judgment of the Appellate Court.

The jury reasonably could have found the following facts. On the evening of May 12, 2008, Detective David Whipple, a police officer with the Somerset County Prosecutor's Office in New Jersey, informed officers in the Stamford Police Department that New Jersey police were investigating a homicide, and had reason to believe that a suspect, Malik Singer, was in the area of 239 Knickerbocker Avenue in Stamford. Sometime between 11 p.m. and midnight, after the Stamford police had received information causing them to focus on the third floor apartment of the building at that address, New Jersey and Stamford police officers proceeded to that third floor apartment, knocked on the door, and were invited into the apartment by the tenant, Blanca Valvo. After officers informed Valvo why they were there, she told them that two African–American males were in the rear bedroom of the apartment, along with her daughter, Andrea Valvo, and pointed to the bedroom door. The New Jersey officers immediately entered the bedroom, where the defendant was lying in bed with Andrea Valvo. A second man, James Spurgeon, was lying on a mattress that was on the floor at the foot of the bed. The officers ordered the bedroom occupants not to move, whereupon the defendant lunged toward an object on the floor near the bed. The police restrained and handcuffed the defendant and Spurgeon. After the two men were secured, Sergeant Louis DeMeo of the Somerset County Prosecutor's Office searched the area toward which the defendant had lunged and discovered a backpack that was partially opened. When he looked inside, DeMeo saw the handle of a revolver protruding from a pair of black sneakers inside the backpack. The Stamford police then took custody of the backpack, the defendant and Spurgeon. The defendant subsequently admitted to Whipple that he had received the backpack and revolver from Singer, who had asked the defendant to take them with him. The defendant further admitted that at the time that Singer gave him the backpack, the defendant knew that it contained the revolver.

The defendant was charged with criminal possession of a firearm in violation of § 53a–217 (a)(1). Following the court's denial of the defendant's motion to suppress, the parties stipulated to the defendant's previous felony conviction, and the case was tried to a jury. The jury found the defendant guilty, the court rendered judgment of conviction in accordance with the jury's verdict, and the defendant subsequently was sentenced to a two year mandatory term of imprisonment. State v. Kendrick, 132 Conn.App. 473, 475–77, 31 A.3d 1189 (2011).

The defendant appealed from the judgment of conviction to the Appellate Court, which held that the trial court had improperly denied the defendant's motion to suppress. Id., at 475, 31 A.3d 1189. Specifically, the Appellate Court concluded that, viewing the evidence under the totality of the circumstances, “it was unreasonable for the police to assume that Singer was present in the apartment or the bedroom and [posed] an imminent threat of harm to its occupants.” Id., at 486, 31 A.3d 1189. Therefore, the Appellate Court reversed the judgment of conviction and remanded the case with direction to grant the defendant's motion to suppress. Id., at 490, 31 A.3d 1189. This certified appeal followed.

The state argues that the Appellate Court improperly required that there be “direct evidence” that Singer was present in the apartment in order to justify the warrantless entry into the bedroom. Although we disagree with the state's characterization of the Appellate Court's rationale, we conclude that viewed under the totality of the circumstances, the police had a reasonable belief that exigent circumstances justified the entry into the bedroom. Specifically, on the basis of the facts known to the officers at the time that they entered the bedroom, the police reasonably believed that the entry was necessary to protect their own safety and the safety of the occupants.

The following additional facts are relevant to the resolution of this appeal. In connection with the shooting death of a victim whose body was discovered in New Jersey at 7 a.m. on May 11, 2008, New Jersey police officers obtained an arrest warrant for Singer, who police believed had fled the scene of the murder with a gun in his possession. At the time that New Jersey police were investigating Singer's whereabouts, they had reason to believe that Singer was using a cell phone that was registered to a person named Ann Marie Pettigrew.³ Specifically, the girlfriend of an alleged participant in the murder provided Pettigrew's cell phone number to the police, based on her belief that the cell phone belonged to Singer. Relying on that information, the police secured a subpoena ordering the cell phone company to “ping” the cell phone, a process that yielded a location defined by longitude and latitude.⁴ Whipple, who testified regarding the significance of the ping, initially indicated that a ping identifies “just a general area,” but later stated that the “general area” is “within a certain amount of degree of yards.”⁵ Based on the longitude and latitude, the ping was identified as originating from 239 Knickerbocker Avenue, a three-story multifamily home with several small apartments.⁶

After New Jersey police officers had conveyed this information to the Stamford Police Department, Sergeant Paul Guzda of the Stamford Police Department went to Knickerbocker Avenue to investigate. He spoke to the landlord of 239 Knickerbocker Avenue, who told him that on the third floor of the building lived a Hispanic woman whose daughter had been keeping company with an African–American man who fit Singer's general description.⁷

The police did not obtain either a warrant to search the third floor apartment at 239 Knickerbocker Avenue or a warrant for the arrest of the defendant. Instead, armed with the arrest warrant for Singer, shortly before midnight on May 12, 2008, a large presence of New Jersey and Stamford police officers reported to Knickerbocker Avenue, including Guzda's entire squad, numerous police officers from New Jersey, as well as a number of patrol officers with the Stamford Police Department. Guzda and Miriam Delgado, a Stamford police officer who spoke Spanish, ascended the outside staircase to the third floor, accompanied by numerous Stamford and New Jersey police officers.⁸ Although Guzda and Delgado were in plainclothes, both had their badges displayed.

Witness testimony regarding the interaction between the police officers and Valvo reveals that the details of that exchange were in dispute. Although the trial court made no specific findings regarding these details, in light of the trial court's ruling in favor of the state, it is logical to begin with the assumption that the court credited the testimony of the state's witnesses rather than that of the defendant's witnesses. Employing that presumption eliminates some, but not all, of the conflicting testimony, because the testimony of the state's witnesses was not internally consistent as to all of the details. Because, however, our review of the record reveals that the uncontroverted aspects of the testimony of the state's witnesses supports the ruling of the trial court, we need not speculate as to how the trial court might have resolved those inconsistencies, and we accordingly derive our summary of the facts solely from the internally consistent testimony of the state's witnesses.⁹

When one of the officers knocked, Valvo opened the apartment door. After the officers identified themselves and told her that they needed to speak to her, Valvo let them in to the kitchen area.¹⁰ The apartment was very small, with a bedroom toward the back, about ten to fifteen feet from where the officers were standing, and another room to the right. The door to the bedroom was slightly open and the bedroom lights were off. In response to police inquiries related to their investigation, Valvo pointed toward the bedroom and indicated that there were two African–American men in the bedroom with her daughter.¹¹

As soon as Valvo indicated that there were two African–American men in the bedroom, the New Jersey officers approached the bedroom door, then knocked and entered. Whipple was among the New Jersey police officers who entered the bedroom and identified themselves as law enforcement. As they entered the darkened bedroom, one of the officers turned on a light and Whipple saw the defendant in the bed with a Hispanic woman, and another...