State v. Payne
State v. Payne
Opinion of the Court
Opinion
The defendant, Frederick Payne, appeals from the judgment of conviction, rendered after a jury trial, of burglary in the third degree as an accessory in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a-103 and 53a-8 (a), larceny in the fifth degree as an accessory in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a-125a and 53a-8 (a), engaging the police in a pursuit in violation of General Statutes § 14-223 (b) and interfering with an officer in violation of General Statutes § 53a-167a (a).
The jury reasonably could have found the following facts. At approximately 4:25 a.m. on May 20, 2006, the defendant broke into a New Haven package store. The defendant removed alcoholic beverages and boxes of cigarettes from the store and placed them in the passenger compartment of an automobile parked nearby. After
Following the crash, the defendant exited the automobile and fled on foot into the backyard of the residence. The officer who was pursuing the defendant ordered the defendant to stop, but the defendant did not obey this command. The officer pursued the defendant on foot, and, following a brief struggle during which the defendant pushed and struck the officer, the officer physically restrained him. After searching the automobile driven by the defendant at the crash site following the defendant’s apprehension, police seized several unopened containers of alcoholic beverages and cigarettes, valued at $301.13, from the passenger compartment of the automobile. The defendant’s arrest followed.
I
First, the defendant claims that the court improperly denied his motion to suppress the evidence, including the alcoholic beverages and cigarettes, seized by the police following their warrantless search of the automobile he was driving. We conclude that the record is not adequate to review this claim.
The defendant filed the motion to suppress prior to the presentation of evidence, and, outside of the jury’s presence, the court held an evidentiary hearing on the
In an oral ruling following the hearing, the court denied the motion to suppress. The record contains the unsigned transcript of that ruling. The transcript reflects the court’s findings with regard to the circumstances surrounding the search and seizure generally, as well as the court’s conclusion that four independent bases supported the legality of the search and seizure. The court referred to its reliance on the plain view exception to the warrant requirement, the automobile exception to the warrant requirement, the inevitable discovery doctrine and “abandonment . . . .’’On appeal, the defendant challenges the court’s conclusion that any of these four principles applied to the search and seizure at issue. To prevail, the defendant must demonstrate that none of the four legal bases on which
Under our rules of practice, the trial court is required to state its decision, either orally or in writing, in ruling on motions to suppress evidence. Practice Book § 64-1 (a) (4). The decision of the trial court “shall encompass its conclusion as to each claim of law raised by the parties and the factual basis therefor. ...” Practice Book § 64-1 (a). “It is the responsibility of the appellant to provide an adequate record for review. The appellant shall determine whether the entire trial court record is complete, correct and otherwise perfected for presentation on appeal. . . .” Practice Book § 61-10.
As a preliminary matter, the form of the court’s decision that appears in the record is not proper; the defendant has not presented this court with a memorandum of the court’s oral decision that has been signed by the trial judge in accordance with Practice Book § 64-1 (a). The record does not reflect that the defendant attempted to remedy this defect in accordance with the procedure set forth in Practice Book § 64-1 (b). This defect in the presentation of the appeal, however, does not hamper our review of the present claim because we are able to identify readily the court’s decision, encompassing its findings, in the transcript before us. See, e.g., State v. Muhammad, 117 Conn. App. 181, 184 n.1, 979 A.2d 501 (2009).
With regard to its ultimate conclusion that “abandonment” was a ground on which to deny the motion to suppress, the court stated the following in its decision: “Counsel indicates for the state abandonment. Given the fact that the testimony reveals that upon attempting to elude the police and not responding to their call— to their stop, either in the automobile as well as on foot, that he, in fact, abandoned the property and therefore relinquished the knowing right to that property by his
The defendant claims that the court improperly relied on the abandonment doctrine as such doctrine is applied in search and seizure law. The defendant argues that the court impermissibly concluded as a matter of law that, by virtue of his flight from the automobile, that he had relinquished a right to privacy in the items seized from the automobile. Essentially, the defendant argues that the court improperly concluded that his flight from the automobile “equatefd] to the abandonment of a privacy right for purposes of search and seizure analysis.”
In reviewing the court’s ultimate conclusion that the doctrine of abandonment legally justified the search and seizure, we first must ascertain the factual and legal basis of the court’s decision. “Our standard of review of a trial court’s findings and conclusions in connection with a motion to suppress is well defined. A finding of fact will not be disturbed unless it is clearly erroneous in view of the evidence and pleadings in the whole record .... [Wjhere the legal conclusions of the court are challenged, we must determine whether they are legally and logically correct and whether they find support in the facts set out in the memorandum of decision . . . .” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Gonzales, 278 Conn. 341, 347-48, 898 A.2d 149 (2006).
Next, the defendant claims that the court’s consciousness of guilt instruction likely misled the jury because the court failed to tailor the instruction to the specific charges at issue in this case. We decline to review this claim.
The record reflects that, during a charge conference, the prosecutor asked the court to deliver a consciousness of guilt instruction. The court agreed to deliver the instruction and read aloud the instruction that it intended to deliver. The defendant’s attorney stated that he objected to the instruction and that he was unable to articulate at that time the ground of the objection. When the court raised the matter the following day, the defendant’s attorney stated that he did not object to the instruction. Moments later, the defendant’s attorney stated that he objected to the consciousness of guilt instruction but did not assert any ground for the objection. The court noted the defendant’s objection.
Dining its charge, the court delivered a consciousness of guilt instruction. Following the charge, the defendant’s attorney took an exception to the court’s consciousness of guilt instruction. He did not assert any ground for the exception, merely stating: “Consciousness of guilt, we take exception to that.”
“An appellate court shall not be bound to consider error as to the giving of, or the failure to give, an instruction unless the matter is covered by a written request to charge or exception has been taken by the party appealing immediately after the charge is delivered.
The defendant did not submit a written request to charge that included a consciousness of guilt instruction. Prior to the charge, the defendant’s attorney objected to the consciousness of guilt instruction. He also took an exception to that instruction following the charge. In neither instance, however, did the defendant’s attorney state a ground for the objection. The exception cannot be said to have alerted the court to any claim of error and, thus, did not satisfy the requirement of Practice Book § 42-16. This court “shall not be bound to consider a claim unless it was distinctly raised at the trial or arose subsequent to the trial. . . .” (Emphasis added.) Practice Book § 60-5. We decline to review the defendant’s unpreserved claim of instructional error.
The judgment is affirmed.
In this opinion GRUENDEL, J., concurred.
Although § 53a-167a (a) was amended in 2008; see Public Acts 2008, No. 08-150, § 52; those amendments have no bearing on the merits of this appeal. In the interest of simplicity, we refer to the current revision of the statute.
The court also found that the defendant’s criminal conduct violated a conditional discharge imposed following an unrelated criminal proceeding. The court imposed a total effective sentence of 126 months of incarceration.
It does not appear that the court addressed a state constitutional claim in its ruling, and, on appeal, the defendant does not analyze his claim independently under our state constitution. Accordingly, we will confine our analysis to the right against unreasonable search and seizure guaranteed by the federal constitution. See, e.g., State v. Dyson, 238 Conn. 784, 794, 680 A.2d 1306 (1996) (“[bjecause the defendant has failed to provide any independent analysis under the state constitution, we limit our analysis to the federal constitution”).
Apparently, the concurring opinion does not challenge our determination that the trial court’s legal analysis as to the abandonment issue is patently unclear and susceptible to multiple interpretations. The concurring opinion, reasoning that a clearly stated explanation of the court’s legal analysis is not a necessary predicate for appellate review of this constitutional issue, concludes that the record is adequate for this court to review the issue de novo. In so reasoning, the concurring opinion explicitly focuses on the objective reasonableness of the defendant’s expectation of privacy, ultimately concluding that “any subjective expectation of privacy held by the defendant was objectively unreasonable.”
Respectfully, we disagree with this approach for several reasons. One of the consequences of the trial court’s scant legal analysis of this claim is that the court failed to make factual findings consistent with a proper analysis of the abandonment issue. Thus, the trial court never set forth a finding concerning the issue that is central to our analysis—whether the defendant expected privacy in the automobile or its contents. A legally proper analysis of abandonment in the context of a fourth amendment claim requires a determination by the court as to whether a defendant who has claimed a fourth amendment privilege had abandoned a reasonable expectation of privacy in the invaded area. See State v. Oquendo, 223 Conn. 635, 658, 613 A.2d 1300 (1992); State v. Mooney, 218 Conn. 85, 108, 588 A.2d 145 (en banc), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 919, 112 S. Ct. 330, 116 L. Ed. 2d 270 (1991). If such a reasonable expectation of privacy is lacking, a defendant’s fourth amendment challenge to a search of the invaded area necessarily must fail. See State v. Morrill, 197 Conn. 507, 540-42, 498 A.2d 76 (1985).
A proper resolution of the issue presented requires more than a factual determination of the circumstances surrounding the search generally. It requires that the court make a finding of fact concerning the defendant’s subjective intent. Only after finding that a defendant expected privacy in the invaded area should the court determine as a matter of law whether such intent objectively was reasonable and, thus, worthy of fourth amendment protection. See United States v. Lee, 916 F.2d 814, 818 (2d Cir. 1990) (“In determining whether there has been an abandonment, the district court must focus on the intent of the person who is purported to have abandoned the property. . . . Since this inquiry is necessarily factual, we will uphold the district court’s finding unless clearly erroneous.” [Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.]); United States v. D'Avanzo, 443 F.2d 1224, 1226 (2d Cir.) (“Whether there has been an abandonment presents a question of intent. Like other factual findings by a district court we may disturb [the district court’s] finding that the defendants relinquished any interest they may otherwise have had in protecting the privacy of [the area invaded] only if the finding is clearly erroneous.”), cert. denied, 404 U.S. 850, 92 S. Ct. 86, 30 L. Ed. 2d 89 (1971). The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit aptly explained the relevant inquiry as follows: “[The] test of abandonment subsumes both a subjective and an objective component. . . . Findings of subjective intent are findings of fact, which we review
In the present case, the court did not determine whether the defendant expected privacy in the invaded area. The concurring opinion reasons that this omission is inconsequential because “that line of inquiry need not be addressed if any such expectation held by the defendant is objectively unreasonable.” Thus, the concurring opinion, reviewing atrial court decision that is devoid of a proper factual analysis of the claim, disposes of the claim on purely constitutional grounds. Even if we were to assume that the court’s analysis of abandonment properly was rooted in fourth amendment principles, as opposed to property law, it is patently unclear whether the trial court applied the doctrine of abandonment because it found that the defendant did not expect privacy in the automobile or its contents at the time of the search or whether the court applied the doctrine because it concluded as a matter of law that the defendant’s subjective expectation of privacy was not objectively reasonable.
“[W]e must be mindful that [t]his court has a basic judicial duty to avoid deciding a constitutional issue if a nonconstitutional ground exists that will dispose of the case.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Cortes, 276 Conn. 241, 253, 885 A.2d 153 (2005). Because there is no factual basis in the record that the defendant expected privacy in the invaded area, we question the propriety of the extensive constitutional analysis set forth in the concurring opinion. Such analysis supposes, absent any support in the record, that the defendant manifested an expectation of privacy in the invaded area. In light of the ambiguous record before us, it is consistent with this court’s proper role to avoid such an analysis and to assume that, if the court properly analyzed the fourth amendment issue, it properly resolved the issue adverse to the defendant by finding that the defendant merely did not expect privacy in the invaded area.
Thus, our resolution of the reviewability issue does not hinge solely on the lack of a coherent legal analysis by the trial court, but also on the lack of factual findings that are integral to a proper legal analysis. The claim may be resolved on a purely factual ground, and the defendant, who bears the burden of providing this court with a record adequate for review, has not demonstrated that the court’s ruling was not factually proper. By failing to demonstrate error, the defendant has left unchallenged a factual ground that we must presume exists and on which the court’s ruling may be affirmed. Thus, we disagree with the concurring opinion insofar as it states that our resolution of the reviewability issue cannot be harmonized with the doctrine set forth in State v. Golding, 213 Conn. 233, 239-40, 567 A.2d 823 (1989). It
Concurring Opinion
concurring. I agree with my colleagues that the conviction of the defendant, Frederick Payne, should be affirmed. I also agree with the analysis of the majority contained in part II of its opinion. I respectfully disagree, however, with the analysis in part I of the majority’s opinion, which concludes that the record is insufficient for us to review the defendant’s claim that the trial corut improperly denied his motion
As a preliminary matter, I am unable to reconcile our fourth amendment jurisprudence with the majority’s contention that the record is inadequate for our review because the trial court’s legal analysis of the abandonment issue is unclear. Our case law teaches that “when we determine that any of the issues raised on appeal present purely questions of law warranting plenary review, the issues may be reviewed despite the absence of a memorandum of decision or signed transcript because the legal analysis undertaken by the trial court is not essential to this court’s consideration of the issues on appeal.” State v. James, 93 Conn. App. 51, 57 n.6, 887 A.2d 923 (2006). It, therefore, bears emphasis that a “trial court’s ultimate constitutional conclusions [are subject] to plenary oversight.” United States v. Zapata, 18 F.3d 971, 975 (1st Cir. 1994); accord United States v. Fernandez, 559 F.3d 303, 330 (5th Cir.) (“we review
Having concluded that a determination of whether the record in this case is sufficient for review does not hinge on the trial court’s having articulated fully the legal reasoning underlying its abandonment analysis, I next consider whether the record is sufficient to review the defendant’s claim that whatever subjective expectation of privacy he had in his car was one that society would find reasonable as a matter of law. I conclude that the record is sufficient for our review.
Courts evaluating whether a person abandoned his or her expectation of privacy in an invaded area inquire (1) whether the presence of the police was lawful and
In the present case, the court stated both (1) that the police had a lawful reason to be where they were when they searched the defendant’s car because “based upon the evidence . . . [the defendant], identified as the person operating the vehicle, did not heed to the police warning to stop . . . [and] the car ran into the house” and (2) that “[g]iven the fact that the testimony reveals that upon attempting to elude the police and not responding to their call—to their stop, either in the automobile as well as on foot, that he, in fact, abandoned the property and therefore relinquished the knowing right to that property by his abandonment.” Thus, by concluding that the presence of the police was lawful, the court made a finding as to the first prong of the abandonment analysis. Moreover, by stating that the defendant abandoned his property by running from the police and then holding that its decision to deny the defendant’s motion to suppress was, in part, predicated on the abandonment doctrine, the court drew a legal conclusion that the defendant abandoned his car for purposes of the fourth amendment. I also note that both parties conceded during oral argument that the defendant fled on foot from police after crashing his car and that the undisputed evidence confirms that the car was unlocked when the police conducted their search. Thus, the record addresses several of the factors enumerated in Boyd that are relevant to ascertaining
Moreover, I believe this approach is further buttressed by our Supreme Court’s holding in State v. Torres, supra, 230 Conn. 372. In that case, the defendant appealed from his conviction on the ground that the trial court improperly denied his motion to suppress evidence seized in a warrantless search of his automobile. Id., 374. On appeal to this court,
Like the defendant in Torres, the defendant in the present case also appeals from his conviction on the ground that the trial court improperly applied the fourth amendment in denying his motion to suppress. Moreover, the respective fourth amendment questions at issue in both cases involved objective standards that are decided as a matter of law,
Although the majority cites State v. Canales, 281 Conn. 572, 583-84, 916 A.2d 767 (2007), for the proposition that this court will not review a claim unless it is based on a complete factual record developed by the trial court, I am not convinced that Canales is a useful analog to the present case. In Canales, the defendant sought review of a constitutional question for which evidence had never been adduced. Id., 582 (record inadequate because “the court was not provided with evidence upon which it could make a probable cause determination”). That is not the current situation, as the majority concedes that both the defendant and the state in the present case adduced evidence of abandonment during the suppression hearing, which was reflected by the transcript of that hearing. See majority opinion, 311 (“[t]he transcript reflects the court’s findings with regard to the circumstances surrounding the
In light of my conclusions (1) that an appellate court does not require for its plenary review of a constitutional claim an articulation of the trial court’s legal reasoning, (2) that the record in the present case contains a sufficient factual basis to allow for meaningful review of the defendant’s objective expectation of privacy, as guided by the factors enumerated in State v. Boyd, supra, 57 Conn. App. 188, and (3) that our Supreme Court has held in an analogous case that, notwithstanding a trial court’s failure to make specific factual findings or conclusions of law, this court should nevertheless reach the merits of a defendant’s constitutional claim if the record is sufficient for us to do so as a matter of law, I conclude that this case should be resolved on its merits. Accordingly, I next consider the defendant’s substantive argument that the court improperly denied his motion to suppress because he had abandoned his reasonable expectation of privacy in his automobile.
II
Invoking the fourth amendment, the defendant argues that the evidence recovered from the passenger compartment of his car should have been suppressed because the seizure of that evidence took place without a warrant.
In light of the tension in our jurisprudence regarding abandonment claims made under the fourth amendment,
In evaluating the second prong of this analysis, courts employ the seminal, two part subjective-objective test articulated in Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 361, 88 S. Ct. 507, 19 L. Ed. 2d 576 (1967) (Harlan, J., concurring) (Katz test).
The defendant next argues that even if he did abandon his car for some short period of time, the abandonment doctrine should not apply to cars because doing so “would mean that any time a car is in a car accident and the driver gets out, regardless of the circumstances, the doctrine of abandonment [would apply].” In this regard, the defendant additionally cautions that applying the abandonment doctrine to the facts presented in this case “would establish a movable and fluid line for determining when a constitutional right was abandoned.” I disagree.
As with any assessment of how reasonable a person’s expectation of privacy is in an invaded place, the evaluation of how reasonable a person’s expectation of privacy is in their vehicle at any given time necessarily requires “all the surrounding circumstances” to be considered. 1W. LaFave, Search and Seizure (4th Ed. 2004) § 2.5 (a), p. 646; see also State v. Mooney, supra, 218 Conn. 108 (“[t]he test is whether, under all the facts, the owner or possessor may fairly be deemed as a matter of law to have relinquished his expectation of privacy in the object in question” [emphasis added]). Consequently, quite to the contrary of the defendant’s concerns, our fourth amendment jurisprudence forbids any bright line rule that would allow for a vehicle to be deemed abandoned simply because the driver gets out of their car and leaves it unattended and instead requires the consideration of all circumstances to determine the reasonableness of any ongoing expectation of privacy.
For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully concur.
The fourth amendment to the United States constitution provides in relevant part: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated . . . The fourth amendment’s exclusionary rule is applicable to the states through the fourteenth amendment to the United States constitution. See Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 655, 81 S. Ct. 1684, 6 L. Ed. 2d 1081 (1961).
The majority suggests that the trial court’s abandonment analysis is overly ambiguous because “it is unclear whether the court was referring to the defendant’s privacy interest in the property or his possessory interest in the property.” (Emphasis in original.) Majority opinion, 314. I am not persuaded. Although property law notions of abandonment are not dispositive in the fourth amendment context; see State v. Mooney, 218 Conn. 85, 107, 588 A.2d 145 (“[wjhether property has been abandoned, in this sense, does not depend on where legal title rests, or whether one asserting a Fourth Amendment right has a legally enforceable possessory interest in the property” [internal quotation marks omitted]), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 919, 112 S. Ct. 330, 116 L. Ed. 2d 270 (1991), citing Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 143, 99 S. Ct. 421, 58 L. Ed. 2d 387 (1978); I disagree with the majority’s suggestion that consideration of such concepts supports a conclusion that the trial court’s legal analysis was on the wrong track.
The court in Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 99 S. Ct. 421, 58 L. Ed. 2d 387 (1978), explained that, because it would “be merely tautological to fall back on the notion that those expectations of privacy which are legitimate depend primarily on cases deciding exclusionary-rule issues in criminal cases”; id., 144 n.12; reference to concepts of real or personal property law properly are considered to help legitimate expectations of privacy by providing a source outside of the fourth amendment. See id.; see also State v. Boyd, 57 Conn. App. 176, 188, 749 A.2d 637 (considering, inter alia, property interests to determine whether expectation of privacy is one society would deem reasonable), cert. denied, 253 Conn. 912, 754 A.2d 162 (2000). Consequently, while I do not believe it to be necessary for our plenary review of the constitutional question presently at issue to have a full articulation of
Although the defendant’s failure to request a memorandum of decision or a signed transcript of the trial court’s oral decision normally would result in an inadequate record for our review; see Bayer v. Showmotion, Inc., 292 Conn. 381, 405 n.10, 973 A.2d 1229 (2009); we previously have determined that a record may be adequate when an unsigned transcript contains a sufficiently detailed and concise statement of the trial court’s findings. See Watrous v. Watrous, 108 Conn. App. 813, 831 n.8, 949 A.2d 557 (2008).
In this respect, our case law is also clear that, while “[t]his court will not attempt to supplement or reconstruct the record, or to make factual determinations, in order to decide the defendant’s claim”; (internal quotation marks omitted) State v. Beliveau, 52 Conn. App. 475, 482 n.4, 727 A.2d 737, cert. denied, 249 Conn. 920, 733 A.2d 235 (1999); conclusions of fact may nevertheless be drawn on appeal in two circumstances: (1) where “the subordinate facts found [by the trial court] make such a conclusion inevitable as a matter of law”; Papcun v. Papcun, 181 Conn. 618, 621, 436 A.2d 282 (1980); or (2) where the undisputed facts or uncontroverted evidence and testimony in the record make the factual conclusion so obvious as to be inherent in the trial court’s decision. See State v. Wilson, supra, 111 Conn. App. 622 (inferring fact necessary to review denial of motion to suppress on merits as “so obvious as to be inherent in . . . court’s decision” [internal quotation marks omitted]). Accordingly, my reliance on the unsigned transcript of the court’s oral decision for findings of fact that the court clearly made and on the undisputed facts in the record that obviously inhered in the court’s decision is fully coterminous with the teaching of our relevant case law.
As I will more fully explain, our case law teaches that whether a person’s continued expectation of privacy was reasonable is ultimately an objective test that is decided as a matter of law. See part II of this concurrence. Moreover, while this test includes consideration of a defendant’s subjective expectation of privacy, that line of inquiry need not be addressed if any such expectation held by the defendant is objectively unreasonable. See id. Accordingly, in evaluating which facts must be included in the record of the present case for us to review the defendant’s abandonment claim, I focus on the requisite objective considerations because I determine in part II of my concurrence that any subjective expectation of privacy held by the defendant was objectively unreasonable.
See State v. Torres, 31 Conn. App. 443, 625 A.2d 239 (1993), aff'd, 230 Conn. 372, 645 A.2d 529 (1994).
I am aware that in Torres, our Supreme Court emphasized that the reasonable and articulable suspicion test does not focus on the actual state of mind of the police officer; State v. Torres, supra, 230 Conn. 379; which differs slightly from the test used to determine whether a person has abandoned his or her expectation of privacy in an invaded area. See Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 361, 88 S. Ct. 507, 19 L. Ed. 2d 576 (1967) (Harlan, J., concurring) (whether defendant had [1] subjective expectation of privacy and [2] it was one society would deem objectively reasonable) (Katz test). Nevertheless, Torres remains persuasive because the subjective prong of Katz need not be reached here; see State v. DeFusco, 224 Conn. 627, 633 n.9, 620 A.2d 746 (1993) (“whether the defendant possessed a subjective expectation of privacy ... is unnecessary to the resolution of [DeFusco] in light of our conclusion that the defendant has not satisfied the second part of the Katz test”); and because the underlying facts in this case provide a sufficient record for our review of the dispositive objective prong in Katz.
On appeal, the defendant does not assert a violation of our state constitution and has provided no independent state constitutional analysis. I thus limit my review to the defendant’s federal constitutional claims. See State v. Merriam, 264 Conn. 617, 631 n.17, 835 A.2d 895 (2003).
Our precedent concerning the application of the Katz test in the abandonment context appears to be inconsistent; some cases suggest that it is a factual determination that is subject to our clearly erroneous standard of review, while other cases state that it is ultimately an objective test that is to be decided as a matter of law. Compare State v. Oquendo, supra, 223 Conn. 660 (“The trial court concluded that the defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the duffel bag that he discarded during [a police officer’s] pursuit of him. This conclusion of the trial court was clearly erroneous.” [Emphasis added.]) with State v. Mooney, 218 Conn. 85, 108, 588 A.2d 145 (“[t]he test is whether, under all the facts, the owner or possessor may fairly be deemed as a matter of law to have relinquished his expectation of privacy in the object in question” [emphasis added]), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 919, 112 S. Ct. 330, 116 L. Ed. 2d 270 (1991). As I will, explain further, in light of the jurisprudential kinship that our fourth amendment abandonment and standing doctrines share, I harmonize this tension by concluding that the subjective inquiry is a factual determination, while the objective inquiry is a question of law.
As explained in footnote 2 of this opinion, while property law notions of abandonment are not dispositive in the fourth amendment context, they may nevertheless be considered properly in evaluating whether a defendant’s putative expectation of privacy is one society would deem reasonable.
As an initial matter, I note that our Supreme Court likewise has turned to the Katz test that it employs in the standing context to evaluate difficult questions of abandonment. See State v. Mooney, supra, 218 Conn. 110-13 (returning to “first principles” of standing jurisprudence to use Katz test in abandonment analysis). Moreover, reliance on the Katz test seems particularly appropriate in light of its foundational significance to our fourth amendment jurisprudence. See, e.g., Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 143, 99 S. Ct. 421, 58 L. Ed. 2d 387 (1978) (“Katz [test] . . . provides guidance in defining the scope of the interest protected by the Fourth Amendment”); see also Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 34, 121 S. Ct. 2038, 150 L. Ed. 2d 94 (2001) (Katz test used to determine whether use of thermal imaging scanner is “search” for fourth amendment purposes); State v. Gonzalez, 278 Conn. 341, 349-54, 898 A.2d 149 (2006) (Katz test used to determine standing); State v. DeFuseo, 224 Conn. 627, 633, 620 A.2d 746 (1993) (Katz test used to determine whether Connecticut’s constitution affords greater protection than federal law for specific type of warrantless search); see also 1 W.
Where appropriate, courts grappling with a defendant’s putative subjective or objective expectation of privacy may find helpful to their analyses the factors enumerated in Boyd. See State v. Boyd, supra, 57 Conn. App. 185 (considerations for determining subjective expectation of privacy include whether “[1] [defendant’s] relationship with the location was personal in nature, [2] his relationship with the location was more than sporadic, irregular or inconsequential, and [3] he maintained the location and the items within it in aprivate manner at the time of the search”); id., 188 (enumerating considerations for determining objective expectation of privacy).
I am aware that the court in DeFusco considered whether Connecticut’s constitution affords greater protection than federal law for a specific type of warrantless search and did not resolve a question of standing or abandonment. State v. DeFusco, supra, 224 Conn. 633. Nevertheless, in deciding that question, the court employed the same subjective-objective test articulated in Katz that guides our standing and abandonment analysis. See id., 633 n.10 (“[t]he reasonable expectation of privacy inquiry is essentially identical to the constitutional abandonment inquiry”). Accordingly, the application of the Katz test in DeFusco is instructive to my application of the same test in this case.
In footnote 3 of its opinion, the majority cites several cases to support its understanding that a court is required to make a finding of fact as to a defendant’s subjective expectation of privacy before it can consider whether that expectation was objectively reasonable. The approach adopted in DeFusco and Ramirez, however, suggests that the Katz test need not be applied so rigidly. Indeed, both DeFusco and Ramirez, as well as federal precedent, suggest that the record need only contain those findings of fact or undisputed facts necessary to resolve the objective prong of the Katz test if that analysis is dispositive. Thus, because I do not believe it is necessary to consider the subjective prong of the Katz test in every case, I believe that the record before us is adequate because it contains sufficient findings of fact and undisputed facts to resolve the objective Katz prong, which I believe to be dispositive.
As an initial observation, I note that the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has applied the Katz test by inquiring into the objective prong first, which suggests that the test need not be applied so rigidly. See, e.g., United States v. Perea, 986 F.2d 633, 639 (2d Cir. 1993) (“a defendant may establish that he had a right protected by the Fourth Amendment by showing [a] that he had an expectation of privacy that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable, and [b] that he had conducted himself and dealt with the property in a way that indicated a subjective expectation of privacy”).
Additionally, I find persuasive our federal case law that either states explicitly that it is not necessary to consider the subjective prong of Katz if a defendant cannot meet the objective prong or simply concludes that there is not a reasonable expectation of privacy without even considering the subjective prong. See, e.g., California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35, 39-41, 108 S. Ct. 1625, 100 L. Ed. 2d 30 (1988) (court assumed defendants had
In addition to the well settled line of cases holding that a vehicle is deemed abandoned when vacated for the purposes of fleeing from the police, I also note those cases holding that a person abandons his car when he vacates it to flee from the scene of an accident. See, e.g., State v. Anderson, 548 N.W.2d 40, 44 (S.D. 1996) (car deemed abandoned when driver fled accident scene on foot, leaving car disabled on public road with keys in it). Accordingly, because the defendant in the present case left his car unlocked and partially resting on a public sidewalk to flee the scene of an accident, this line of cases further buttresses my conclusion that he abandoned his car.
Although I agree with the court’s ultimate legal conclusion that the defendant abandoned his expectation of privacy in his automobile for the reasons set forth in this concurrence, I express no opinion as to the legal analysis that the court utilized to reach that conclusion. See generally State v. James, supra, 93 Conn. App. 57 n.6 (when issues raised on appeal present purely questions of law, “legal analysis undertaken by the trial court is not essential to this court’s consideration of the issues on appeal”); cf. Favorite v. Miller, 176 Conn. 310, 317, 407 A.2d 974 (1978) (even if correct result reached due to inaccurate legal analysis, this court not required to reverse ruling of trial court that nevertheless reached correct result).
Because I conclude that the defendant abandoned any reasonable expectation of privacy that he had in this automobile, I do not reach his other fourth amendment claims.
Reference
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