CASE-INFO: April 27, 2004. Connecticut Supreme Court [SC 17045]
On April 12, 2000, the Shelby County, Tenn. sheriff’s office notified the Stamford police department it had intercepted a Federal Express parcel with 27 pounds of marijuana. The parcel was addressed to Sylvia Sloan, at 16 Lipton Place in Stamford, Conn. The Stamford police noted that the address appeared to be that of a multi-family house.
The police replaced five pounds of the marijuana and conducted a controlled delivery. Detective Frederick Caruso, dressed as a Federal Express employee, rang the bell and knocked on the front door. The defendant opened the door, took the package, went inside and closed the door. He went outside without the package and looked up and down the street.
Police officers approached him in the doorway. They brought the defendant into the common hallway, where they observed the parcel on a shelf and arrested the defendant, although he denied that he knew about the parcel’s contents. The officers noted that the defendant’s door on the second floor was open. They asked if anyone was in the apartment. The defendant didn’t respond.
Two officers entered and observed, in plain view, a homemade crack pipe and a plate with crack cocaine residue. The defendant was charged with possession of one kilogram or more of a cannabis-type substance, with intent to sell, and possession of narcotics.
At trial, he filed a motion to suppress. The trial court denied the motion, citing a 1990 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Maryland v. Buie. The jury found the defendant guilty of narcotics possession. The state Supreme Court agreed that the search wasn’t a first or second tier protective sweep under Buie. A first tier sweep allows officers, without probable cause or reasonable suspicion, to search closets and other spaces that adjoin the arrest area, if an attack could be launched from them.
In this case, the defendant was arrested in the first-floor common hallway, at the bottom of a stairway, and about 12 to 14 steps away from his second-floor apartment. The apartment didn’t immediately adjoin the place of arrest. Therefore, the search wasn’t justified as a first-tier protective sweep. The search also wasn’t justified as a second-tier protective sweep, which encompasses searches of areas beyond the spaces immediately adjoining the place of arrest.
There must be articulable facts and rational inferences, so that a reasonably prudent officer could believe an individual who might be dangerous is in hiding. Here, the defendant’s silence might have resulted from a decision to invoke his Miranda rights.
The general possibility that an unknown, armed person might be lurking isn’t enough to permit a protective sweep. The Supreme Court concluded the search wasn’t reasonable and that the evidence should be suppressed, as the fruit of a warrantless search.
It reversed and remanded.
[Dissenting, Justice Borden stated the facts suggested that someone armed and dangerous might be in the defendant’s apartment, and that a second-tier protective sweep was reasonable.]