56 Conn. App. 252 | Conn. App. Ct. | 1999
Opinion
The defendant, Christie Mikolinski, appeals from the judgment of conviction, rendered after a trial to the court, of operation of a motor vehicle while under the influence of liquor in violation of General Statutes § 14-227a.
The following facts are relevant to this appeal. “Between 11 p.m. on May 23, 1997, and 3 a.m. on May 24,1997, the Southington police department conducted a sobriety checkpoint of eastbound and westbound traffic in the area of 1199 Meriden-Waterbury Turnpike. Signs were posted in each direction alerting motorists to the checkpoint, and routes exiting the turnpike were available to motorists in each direction who chose not to enter the checkpoint.
“On May 24, 1997, at approximately 1:35 a.m., the [defendant] entered the checkpoint and stopped her vehicle. While the [defendant] was stopped, a police officer asked her a number of questions.” Mikolinski v. Commissioner of Motor Vehicles, 55 Conn. App. 691, 693, 747 A.2d 518 (1999). After the defendant admitted that she had been drinking alcohol, the officer “directed [her] to an adjacent parking lot where a second officer conducted a detailed investigation. Upon approaching the [defendant’s] vehicle, the second officer smelled a strong odor of alcohol on the [defendant’s] breath and noticed that her eyes were red and glassy. He administered several sobriety tests, all of which the [defendant] failed. The second officer then placed her under arrest for operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of liquor in violation of General Statutes § 14-227a.” Id.
I
The defendant first claims that the trial court improperly concluded that her detention at the sobriety checkpoint was constitutionally valid.
A
The defendant claims that her detention violates article first, § 7, of the constitution of Connecticut and federal constitutional principles in that the detention was an unreasonable seizure without a reasonable and articulable suspicion, and that the evidence obtained as a result thereof should have been suppressed. We disagree.
In its memorandum of decision, the court noted that the checkpoint was constitutionally valid, having found that the procedures used embodied the same neutral criteria as the checkpoint that was upheld in State v. Boisvert, 40 Conn. App. 420, 426, 671 A.2d 834, cert. denied, 237 Conn. 903, 674 A.2d 1332 (1996). “On appeal, it is the function of this court to determine whether the decision of the court is clearly erroneous.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Torres, 197 Conn. 620, 625, 500 A.2d 1299 (1985).
“It is well established law that even though stopping a vehicle at a checkpoint is a seizure under both the federal and state constitutions, such investigatory seizures and detention are permitted under both constitutions. Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444, 450, 110 S. Ct. 2481, 110 L. Ed. 2d 412 (1990); State v. Boisvert, [supra, 40 Conn. App. 426].” Mikolinski v. Commissioner of Motor Vehicles, supra, 55 Conn. App. 700. In State v. Boisvert, supra, 426, this court concluded
In the present case, the court found that the sobriety checkpoint was conducted according to guidelines established by the Southington police department that were substantially the same as the state police guidelines upheld in State v. Boisvert, supra, 40 Conn. App. 426. The court noted that the Southington police had established a method of operation approved by ranking officers, that a safe location had been chosen, that posted signs alerted drivers to the checkpoint’s existence and provided them with the opportunity to exit before entering the checkpoint, that every car was stopped and that the officers had been instructed to ask each motorist a specific set of questions. We hold that the trial court’s finding that the checkpoint embodied neutral criteria was not clearly erroneous, and, thus, that court properly determined that the checkpoint was constitutional under article first, § 7, of the constitution of Connecticut and under the federal constitution.
The defendant claims next that her detention violated article first, § 9, of the constitution of Connecticut, which provides that “[n]o person shall be arrested, detained or punished, except in cases clearly warranted by law.”
Article first, § 9, has generally been characterized as guaranteeing due process of law. State v. Lamme, 216 Conn. 172, 177, 579 A.2d 484 (1990). The text of article first, § 9, “indicates that the specific content appropriately to be assigned to the phrase ‘clearly warranted by law’ depends on the particular liberty interest that is at stake.” Id., 178. “[Section] 9’s separate inclusion of arrests and detentions counsels against finding an intent to impose a constitutional requirement for a parity of treatment between the greater intrusion on personal freedom represented by an arrest and the lesser intrusion represented by a detention.” Id.
In State v. Lamme, supra, 216 Conn. 172, the police had legally stopped the defendant for operating a motor vehicle without illuminated headlights and subsequently detected the odor of alcohol on his breath. His detention for sobriety testing, without probable cause for arrest, was found to be permissible because the
In the present case, however, the police did not have a reasonable and articulable suspicion to detain the defendant at the roadside sobriety checkpoint. The policy of the police at the checkpoint was to stop every car regardless of whether there was suspicion of illegal activity. The principles of due process, however, warrant the holding that this roadside sobriety checkpoint is permitted under article first, § 9, of the constitution of Connecticut.
In deciding that a brief detention was permissible under article first, § 9, our Supreme Court noted in State v. Lamme, supra, 216 Conn. 184, that “[b]alancing the circumscribed nature of a Terry stop intrusion against the serious risks of criminal behavior, especially in the context of the risks associated with driving while under the influence of intoxicating liquor, we are persuaded that the defendant’s brief detention did not violate his due process rights.” Similarly, after balancing the limited detention involved with a roadside checkpoint against the risks of driving under the influence of alcohol, we conclude that the roadside sobriety checkpoint in this case did not violate the defendant’s due process rights. “The state has a vital interest in keeping intoxi
Our Supreme Court adopted federal constitutional precedents to illuminate the provisions of article first, § 9, of the Connecticut constitution. State v. Lamme, supra, 216 Conn. 184. We note particularly the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, supra, 496 U.S. 444, in which the court upheld roadside sobriety checkpoints under the fourth and fourteenth amendments
II
The defendant next claims that there was insufficient evidence presented to prove that she was the driver arrested at the roadside sobriety checkpoint. We disagree.
“The standard of review of an insufficiency claim is twofold. We first review the evidence presented at trial, construing it in the light most favorable to sustaining the facts expressly found by the trial court or impliedly found by the jury. We then decide whether, upon the facts thus established and the inferences reasonably drawn therefrom, the trial court or the jury could reasonably have concluded that the cumulative effect of
On the basis of the evidence and the inferences reasonably drawn therefrom, the court could have concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was the woman arrested May 24, 1997, for violation of § 14-227a. The court noted that both police officers who detained the defendant identified her by name during the trial and observed her presence in court. The first officer testified that he had a personal recollection of stopping the defendant at the sobriety checkpoint. He specifically recalled introducing himself to the defendant and her admission that she had just consumed a “few beers.” Likewise, the second officer testified that he recalled approaching the defendant’s car and smelling the alcohol on her breath. He also had a specific recollection of the defendant’s performance during the sobriety test. Although neither officer was requested to point to the defendant in court, both officers testified that they specifically recalled the defendant and her condition on the night of the roadside sobriety check stop. We conclude that there was sufficient evidence of identification for the court to have found beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was the woman arrested at the roadside sobriety checkpoint on May 24, 1997.
Ill
The defendant claims next that there was insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she was operating her motor vehicle on a public highway as required by § 14-227a.
The question of whether a roadway is a public highway is a question of fact. Ventres v. Farmington, 192
The judgment is affirmed.
In this opinion the other judges concurred.
General Statutes § 14-227a (a) provides: “No person shall operate amotor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor or any drug or both. A person commits the offense of operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor or any drug or both if he operates a motor vehicle on a public highway of this state or on any road of a district organized under the provisions of chapter 105, a purpose of which is the construction and maintenance of roads and sidewalks, or on any private road on which a speed limit has been established in accordance with the provisions of section 14-218a, or in any parking area for ten or more cars or on any school property (1) while under the influence of intoxicating liquor or any drug or both or (2) while the ratio of alcohol in the blood of such person is ten-hundredths of one per cent or more of alcohol, by weight.”
In Mikolinski v. Commissioner of Motor Vehicles, supra, 55 Conn. App. 691, the defendant appealed from the trial court’s judgment sustaining the decision of the commissioner of motor vehicles to suspend her operator’s license. In that case, this court set forth the facts and addressed many of the issues raised by the defendant in this appeal. Due to the different standards of review for an administrative license suspension and a criminal proceeding; see Kirei v. Hadley, 47 Conn. App. 451, 455, 705 A.2d 205 (1998); we must review similar issues raised in Mikolinski v. Commissioner of Motor Vehicles, supra, 691.
While the defendant in State v. Boisvert, supra, 40 Conn. App. 422, claimed that the roadside sobriety checkpoint violated article first, §§ 7 and 9, of the Connecticut constitution, this court declined to address the § 9 claim as it was raised for the first time on appeal. Id., 423 n.5. This court, did note, however, that if it were “to consider the defendant’s claims pursuant to article first, § 9, one of our state constitutional provisions that guarantees due process of law, we would be guided by our Supreme Court’s holding that a brief investigatory detention, even without probable cause, passes state constitutional muster.” Id., citing State v. Lamme, 216 Conn. 172, 184, 579 A.2d 484 (1990).
Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S. Ct. 1868, 20 L. Ed. 2d 889 (1968).
The fourteenth amendment to the United States constitution provides that no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law . . .
The Supreme Court stated in Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, supra, 496 U.S. 450-51, that “the instant action challenges only the use of sobriety checkpoints generally. We address only the initial stop of each motorist passing through a checkpoint and the associated preliminary questioning and observation by checkpoint officers. Detention of particular motorists for more extensive field sobriety testing may require satisfaction of an individualized suspicion standard.” Similarly, we are only addressing the initial stop of an individual at a roadside sobriety checkpoint. For the police to conduct the more detailed field sobriety tests, they must have a reasonable and articulable suspicion that the individual was under the influence of alcohol. State v. Lamme, supra, 216 Conn. 172.
The Southington police department is not bound by guidelines “promulgated in the department of public safety’s administrative and organizational manual . . . Mikolinski v. Commissioner of Motor Vehicles, supra, 55 Conn. App. 702 n.15.
See footnote 1.
A Southington police sergeant testified as follows:
“Q: On what street was this checkpoint set up?
“A: Meriden-Waterbury Turnpike, which is Connecticut State Route 322.
“Q: And, that is a public highway here in the state of Connecticut?
“A: Yes, it is.”