Developments in Connecticut Criminal Law: 1992-1993
| Pages | 37 |
| Publication year | 2021 |
68 CBJ 37. Developments in Connecticut Criminal Law: 1992-1993
In the area of criminal law and procedure, the 1992-1993 term of our Supreme and Appellate Courts was highlighted by the decisions in State v. Joyner (fn1) and State v. Miller. (fn2) The opinion in Joyner represents nothing less than a watershed in how our Supreme Court has analyzed the meaning of the Connecticut Constitution. This opinion, written by Chief Justice Peters, makes it clear that the specific nature of the safeguards afforded by the 1818 constitution cannot be equated automatically with the common law protections that existed at the time of the adoption of this document. The Chief justice emphasized Connecticut's unique jurisprudence, which places natural law and legislative enactments alongside the common law as sources of constitutional meaning.
In Miller, our Supreme Court examined the search warrant requirement under the Connecticut Constitution and declined to extend the exception for automobile searches at the roadside to cars taken to police headquarters. What emerges from the court's analysis is not only a decided reluctance to grant exceptions to the search warrant requirement under the state constitution, but also an implicit conclusion that whenever the police are in a position readily to obtain a warrant, they should do so. This latter holding can now serve as a bright line rule for law enforcement officers.
The Supreme Court's complex approach to state constitutional analysis in Joyner was foreshadowed by its decision in State v. Defusco. (fn3) In Defusco, the court affirmed the Appellate Court's conclusion that article first, § 7 of the Connecticut Constitution did not prohibit the police "from conducting warrantless searches and seizures of garbage placed at the curb for collection." (fn4) Previously, the United States Supreme Court,
in California v. Greenwood, (fn5) had reached the same conclusion for purposes of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
In rejecting the contention that the state constitution furnishes greater protection than its federal counterpart in this area of jurisprudence, the Defusco court focused on the question of the "objective reasonableness of a person's expectation of privacy in garbage placed curbside for collection." (fn6) In its inquiry, the court declined to consider the historical circumstances surrounding the adoption of § 7 as one source of the meaning of this constitutional provision. The court explained that "the reasonable expectation of privacy analysis is peculiarly focused on current conditions." In so holding, the court put into practice what might have been overlooked in its earlier enumeration of various tools of state constitutional analysis - that some tools, such as the "historical approach," need only come into play "to the extent applicable." (fn8) While avoiding a mechanical constitutional analysis surely enhances the court's flexibility, the search for a modern social consensus in Defusco would have been greatly aided by an analysis of whether society's expectations of privacy have shifted over time.
In its analysis of "current conditions," the Defusco court emphasized the fact that "[w]hen the defendant placed his garbage at the curb in front of his house for collection by the garbage collector, a myriad of intruders, purposeful or errant, could legally have sorted through his garbage. (fn9) The court took note of contemporary Connecticut statutes that (1) authorize municipalities "to inspect the contents of garbage placed for collection" for the purpose of identifying recycling violators; and (2) oblige owners or operators of solid waste or resource recovery facilities to conduct periodic unannounced inspections of loads for the purpose of assessing recycling compliance. (fn10) It also pointed out that roadside garbage is subject to exposure by animals and intrusion from people who are bottle and coupon collecting, antique hunting, food searching, and snooping. (fn11) The
court declined to enact a rule that would allow a person to expect privacy from governmental intrusion, but not from other potential intruders. (fn12) According to Chief Justice Peters, who wrote the majority opinion, "[a] person either has an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy or does not; what is objectively reasonable cannot, logically, depend on the source of the intrusion on his or her privacy." (fn13)
In looking to contemporary statutes regulating garbage collection as one factor that illuminates the "attitudes and expectations" of Connecticut's citizenry concerning garbage, the DeFusco court made clear that these statutes neither defined nor were dispositive of the meaning of article first, § 7. (fn14) Rather, in the court's view, they were "useful" in determining "whether the defendant's state constitutional right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures was violated, because that determination turns ... on whether the defendant's expectation of privacy in curbside garbage was one that Connecticut citizens would recognize as reasonable." (fn15)
In the view of the dissent, written by Justice Katz and joined in by justice Berdon, Connecticut's citizenry would recognize a reasonable expectation of privacy in the interior of sealed garbage bags left at curbside because a search of their contents could reveal a variety of "intimate details" and "highly personal information." (fn16) Unlike the majority, the dissent would not permit a violation of privacy by unwelcomed intruders "to dictate how we as a society choose to live and what values we choose to protect." (fn17) The dissent also rejected the majority's reliance on recycling statutes to ascertain society's expectations of privacy. According to justice Katz, state statutes cannot serve as a legitimate basis for determining a constitutional right generally or for "defin[ing] the contours of our right to privacy under the Connecticut constitution" specifically. (fn18) In support of this contention, Justice Katz proffered language from "[t]he landmark case" of Marbury v. Madison (fn19) to the effect that
a constitution controls or is superior to legislation. (fn20) She then goes on to argue that proper constitutional analysis first must determine constitutional meaning and protections afforded before ascertaining the relevance of statutes and regulations. (fn21) Therefore, Justice Katz reasoned, the "majority violates the most basic tenets of jurisprudence when it holds that our constitutional right to privacy is circumscribed by recycling legislation." (fn22)
The dissent's argument is wide of the mark. It confuses the judiciary's prerogative to scrutinize the propriety of legislation based upon overriding constitutional principles, which was the subject of the decision in Marbury v. Madison, with one unexceptional facet of constitutional construction engaged in by the Defusco majority, which was looking to statutes that were not, in themselves, either under review or dispositive but only were serving as one means of gauging the prevailing social consensus on a matter. The dissent's suggestion that the Defusco majority established a nexus between statutory and constitutional meaning is incorrect.
The Court approached its consideration of Joyner with the groundwork it laid in Defusco. In Joyner, the court considered whether, pursuant to article first, §§ 8 and 9 of the state constitution, the principles of due process were violated by the legislature's decision to place the burden of establishing a claimed mental disease or defect on an accused. (fn23) The court rejected the defendant's claim that once he properly raised his mental status, that status, including both the intent to commit the crime charged and sanity, becomes an element of the crime upon which the state bears the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. (fn24) In reaching this conclusion, the Joyner court, like the court in Defusco, eschewed reliance on history and the common law as tools of constitutional construction. As the court indicated, the text of §§ 8 and 9 sheds no light on whether the general protections afforded to personal freedom by these provisions also mandate specifically that sanity is an essential element of a crime. The court pointed out as well that cases in temporal proximity to the adoption of the 1818 constitution are silent on this issue and, therefore, do not suggest any particular intent
onthe part of the constitutional framers. (fn25) In addition, cases decided since that time did not directly consider the issue. (fn26)
The Joyner...
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