State v. Griffin

Citations

• 217 Conn. App. 358

Syllabus

Convicted of assault of an elderly person in the second degree, the defendant appealed to this court. The defendant regularly sold illegal drugs to the victim, who was sixty-four years old. After the victim failed to pay off an outstanding debt, the defendant went to her residence and struck her multiple times on the head with a handgun. The victim reported the incident to the police, and, a few weeks later, in an attempt to apprehend the defendant, the police arranged for a confidential informant to con- duct a controlled purchase of illegal drugs from him. When the defendant arrived at the agreed upon location, the informant identified him to the police officers who were observing the transaction from unmarked vehicles. The officers arrested the defendant, handcuffed him, and placed him into a police car. At the time of his arrest, the defendant had a key fob to a vehicle in his pocket, and the police used it to find the vehicle the defendant had arrived in, which was parked in a visitor's spot of the parking lot of a nearby apartment building. One of the vehicle's windows was down, and the smell of marijuana emanated from it. The police officers determined that the vehicle was registered to the defendant's foster mother and then conducted a warrantless search of it, seizing illegal drugs, a scale, and a handgun. After finding clothing consistent with that worn by a suspect in an unrelated shooting that had occurred earlier that month, the police officers stopped their search, towed the vehicle to the police department, and subsequently obtained a warrant to seize the clothing and the handgun. The defendant filed a motion to suppress the evidence recovered from the vehicle, claiming that the police had lacked probable cause to search it. The trial court denied the motion, and the state introduced into evidence the handgun and a photograph of it. On the defendant's appeal to this court, held that the defendant was not entitled to a new trial because the trial court