Northeastern Connecticut Council of Governments Animal Services ex rel. Hutchins v. Donovan

Syllabus

The defendant appealed from the trial court's judgment in an animal welfare proceeding brought pursuant to statute (§ 22-329a) that vested ownership of certain neglected animals in the plaintiff. The animals were seized pursuant to a warrant issued after an animal control officer viewed the conditions of the defendant's premises through a window during a welfare check. The defendant claimed, inter alia, that the court improperly denied her motion to suppress evidence procured by the search and seizure warrant as the fruit of the poisonous tree under the exclusionary rule because the judicial finding of probable cause for the warrant rested in part on the animal control officer's affidavit detailing observations she made by peering through the window and that such observations constituted an improper search of the curtilage of the defendant's home, which did not meet the plain view exception to the fourth amendment's warrant requirement. Held: The trial court properly denied the defendant's motion to suppress the evi- dence obtained as a result of the initial animal welfare check of the defendant's premises and arguably any other evidence obtained under the later search warrant, which was its fruit, as the exclusionary rule does not apply in a proceeding brought pursuant to § 22-329a because the minimal deterrent effect of applying the exclusionary rule was substantially outweighed by the societal interest in having otherwise reliable and relevant evidence concern- ing animal neglect and cruelty presented at an animal welfare proceeding seeking to remove the animals from such circumstances. The trial court did not abuse its discretion when it took judicial notice of the transcripts of a prior temporary custody hearing, as the court's taking of judicial notice was not improperly premised on a misapplication of § 2-1 of the Connecticut Code of Evidence, which permits courts to take judicial notice of facts not subject to reasonable dispute in the files of the trial cou