State v. Lovejoy

315 A.3d 744

2024 ME 42

STATE of Maine

v.Nicholas P. LOVEJOY

Docket: Ken-23-43

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Argued: December 6, 2023

Decided: May 23, 2024

Scott F. Hess, Esq. (orally), The Law Office of Scott F. Hess, LLC, Augusta, for appellant Nicholas P. Lovejoy

Aaron M. Frey, Attorney General, and Katie Sibley, Asst. Atty. Gen. (orally), Office of the Attorney General, Augusta, for appellee State of Maine

Panel: HORTON, CONNORS, LAWRENCE, and DOUGLAS, JJ, and HUMPHREY, A.R.J.¹

LAWRENCE, J.

[¶1] Nicholas P. Lovejoy appeals from a judgment of conviction of intentional or knowing murder, 17-A M.R.S. § 201(1)(A) (2024), entered in the trial court (Kennebec County, Stokes, J.) on Lovejoy’s conditional guilty plea. He argues that the court erred when it denied his motion to suppress evidence that was obtained from an allegedly unlawful traffic stop and a subsequent search of his home without a warrant and without any applicable exception to the warrant requirement. Further, Lovejoy contends that the court abused its discretion in considering his mental state and post-crime conduct in step two of its sentencing analysis. We conclude that the court properly denied Lovejoy’s motion to suppress because the traffic stop was supported by reasonable, articulable suspicion and because the warrantless search of his home was, considering the totality of the circumstances, a reasonable response to what law enforcement knew, and had an objectively reasonable basis to believe at the time, to be an exigent circumstance. We also conclude that the court did not abuse its discretion in sentencing Lovejoy. We therefore affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

[1] [¶2] We view "the evidence in the light most favorable to the court’s order on the motion to suppress." State v. Akers, 2021 ME 43, ¶ 2, 259 A.3d 127. The following facts are supported by competent record evidence. See id.

[¶3] Lovejoy and the victim were longterm romantic partners and the parents of twin children. Lovejoy, the victim, and the children, who were eight years old at the time of the events in this case, lived together in an apartment in Waterville. On October 22, 2019, at around 6:45 p.m., a friend of the victim contacted the Waterville Police Department because she was concerned for the victim’s well-being. The friend told the police that she had not heard from the victim all day, which was unusual, and that there was a history of domestic violence between Lovejoy and the victim. Officers were dispatched for a welfare check and arrived at the family’s home at 7:13 p.m. The dispatcher advised the officers that Lovejoy had a history of possessing firearms.

[¶4] The officers did not observe anyone at the home and were unable to contact Lovejoy, the victim, or the victim’s friend, so they returned to the station. At around 8:00 p.m., two other friends of the victim went to the Waterville Police Department and expressed concern for the victim’s safety. At 10:30 p.m., Officer Codey Fabian and Sergeant Jason Longley returned to the home and observed lights on inside the residence and the victim’s car parked in the driveway.

[¶5] The officers knocked on the door. Lovejoy opened the door, and the officers stated their concern for the victim’s safety. Lovejoy responded that the victim had. left around 7:30 that morning to bring the children to the school bus stop, after which she came back to the residence, left to get coffee at the store, and after returning home with the coffee, then left the residence on foot at 9:00 a.m. Lovejoy stated that he did not know where she had gone and that she had not returned. The officers asked if they could enter the home, but Lovejoy declined because the children were asleep inside. The officers and Lovejoy talked for about forty-five minutes. At the end of the conversation, Lovejoy asked the officers whether he could leave the children asleep in the home while he went to look for the victim. The officers told him that the children were not old enough to be left alone in the home.

[¶6] After talking with Lovejoy, Sergeant Longley instructed Officer Fabian to remain and surveil Lovejoy’s home. Officer Fabian parked his police cruiser on the street around the corner from the home at a location where he could see the side of the home and the victim’s car parked in the driveway. Using a pair of binoculars, Officer Fabian watched Lovejoy through a window as he appeared to mop the floor of the kitchen. At 11:87 p.m., Officer Fabian observed Lovejoy exit the home and walk his dog around the property for twelve minutes.

[¶7] At 12:30 a.m., Officer Fabian observed Lovejoy exit the home and get into the victim’s car, pulling it out onto the street where the officer was parked. At 12:31 a.m., after noting that one of the two rear license plate lights was out on the victim’s car, Officer Fabian stopped Lovejoy about ten to twenty yards from the home.

[¶8] Other officers arrived, including Sergeant Longley. Officer Fabian spoke to Lovejoy at the driver’s-side window. Sergeant Longley, who had walked around to the opposite side of the car, observed a shotgun, with a loaded magazine, sitting on the front passenger seat. Lovejoy admitted that the gun was loaded and told the officers that he was on the way to the store and had the gun for self-defense. Lovejoy was arrested for having a loaded firearm in a motor vehicle (Class E), in violation of 12 M.R.S. § 11212-A(2) (2024), and for endangering the welfare of a child (Class D), in violation of 17-A M.R.S. § 554(1)(C) (2024). During the arrest, officers told Lovejoy that they would be entering his home to check on the safety of the children. The officers did not ask for consent to search the home, and Lovejoy did not give consent for a search.

[¶9] After taking nearly thirty minutes to organize and confer about what to do next, officers, including Officer Fabian and Sergeant Longley, used a spare key to open the front door of Lovejoy’s home.² They entered the first floor of the residence and observed, inter alia, a piece of cardboard on the porch with stains that appeared to be blood, red or brown stains on the toe of a boot, red or brown stains on a roll of duct tape, a bottle of ammonia in the bathroom, and a mop in the kitchen sink. The officers also smelled an odor of cleaning solution and the floors appeared to have been recently mopped. The officers were on the first floor for about two minutes and did not locate the children.

[¶10] The officers attempted to go up the stairs but encountered an aggressive dog. A sergeant of the Maine State Police arrived and suggested that the officers call out to the children; there was no response to those calls. The dog was secured, and the officers located the children sleeping in their second-floor bedroom. About thirty minutes elapsed between the officers’ entry into the home and their discovery of the children. During this period, the officers notified the Department of Health and Human Services of the situation. The Department later took responsibility for the children.

[¶11] Because Lovejoy’s motion to suppress did not contest the legality of the officers’ actions in the home after their entry, the evidence presented at the suppression hearing did not address the officers’ subsequent activity in the home, including a further search that led to the discovery of the victim’s body.³

[¶12] On November 22, 2019, the State charged Lovejoy by indictment with one count of intentional or knowing murder, 17-A M.R.S. § 201(1)(A), in connection with the death of the victim alleged to have occurred on October 22, 2019. On November 1, 2021, Lovejoy filed a motion to suppress (1) all observations and evidence resulting from the October 23, 2019, motor vehicle stop on the grounds that the stop was not supported by reasonable, articulable suspicion; (2) all observations, evidence, and "fruit of the poisonous tree" of the warrantless entry into and search of Lovejoy’s home on October 23, 2019, on the grounds that the entry was unreasonable and not justified by an exception to the warrant requirement; and (3) statements Lovejoy made in custody at the Kennebec County Jail on the grounds that the statements were made involuntarily or in violation of his Miranda rights. See Miranda, v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 467-79, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966).

[¶13] The court held a hearing on the motion on January 21, 2022. Officer Fabian, Sergeant Longley, and Maine State Police Detective Joshua Birmingham testified. The court admitted in evidence video footage of the night’s events from Lovejoy’s personal surveillance cameras, the Maine Motor Vehicle Inspection Manual, and a diagram of Lovejoy’s home. After the hearing, the parties submitted memoranda in support of their positions. On April 1, 2022, the court heard oral argument by the parties on the motion to suppress. In an order entered on April 7, 2022, the court granted the motion in part, suppressing Lovejoy’s statements but not suppressing any evidence gained as a result of the motor vehicle stop and the warrantless entry.

[¶14] The court held a Rule 11 hearing on May 4, 2022, at which Lovejoy entered a conditional plea of guilty to one count of murder. See M.R.U. Crim. P. 11. Following the hearing, the court sentenced Lovejoy to a term of forty-two years of incarceration and ordered him to pay $4,500 as restitution to the Victims’ Compensation Program. Lovejoy timely appealed from the judgment of conviction. See 15 M.R.S. § 2115 (2024); M.R. App. P. 2B(b)(1). Lovejoy also filed an application for leave to appeal the sentence, which the Sentence Review Panel granted. See 15 M.R.S. § 2151 (2024); M.R. App. P. 20; State v. Lovejay, No. SRP-23-44 (Me. Sen. Rev. Panel Apr. 19, 2023).

IL DISCUSSION

A. Traffic Stop

[2] [¶15] Lovejoy argues that there was no reasonable, articulable suspicion, as required by the United States Constitution,⁴ to support the traffic stop because (1) the vehicle had a functioning license plate light, which met...