State v. Curet

Citations

• 346 Conn. 306

Syllabus

Convicted, on a conditional plea of nolo contendere, of the crime of posses- sion of narcotics with intent to sell, the defendant appealed to the Appellate Court, claiming that the trial court improperly had denied her motion to suppress certain evidence seized by the police following their warrantless entry into her apartment. Z, a police officer, had been dispatched to an apartment building in which the defendant resided in response to a 911 call from C, a resident of the building, reporting gunshots and an attempted burglary. C reported seeing a man in a hooded shirt exit a vehicle outside the building and then hearing an altercation and gunshots. C also reported that the man in the hooded shirt then exited the building's front door and fled in the vehicle, that a second man exited the building's back door and fled in a different vehicle, and that, after they had left, C found a knife with white paint chips on it in the building's laundry room. When Z arrived, C gave Z the knife and recounted the incident. C stated to Z that he had seen the man in the hooded shirt enter the building, that he heard loud banging on the defendant's door, and that an altercation then occurred in the hallway in front of the defendant's apartment. According to C, the alterca- tion moved into the laundry room, which was a few feet away from the defendant's apartment, before C heard gunshots and saw the man in 346 Conn. 306 MARCH, 2023 307 State v. Curet the hooded shirt run out of the front door. Z then proceeded to investigate the building and, upon entering the laundry room, found, among other things, a spent shell casing, what appeared to be a bullet fragment embedded in a wall, a bullet hole in the molding around the laundry room's back door, and a fresh, blood like stain on the wall next to it. In the apartment building hallway, Z observed footprints on the wall across from the defendant's apartment, indicative of a struggle, white paint chips at the base of the defendant's door, a