Opinion ID: 1979199
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: whether the lobby statements were the product of an illegal arrest

Text: The defendant first challenges the admissibility of the statements she made in the lobby of her apartment building on the ground that they were the product of an illegal arrest. Specifically, she argues that she was seized by the police from the moment that she exited her apartment and that the police officers who seized her lacked probable cause to justify her arrest at that time. The state responds that this claim should not be reviewed because it was not distinctly raised at trial and the record fails to satisfy the requirements for review of unpreserved claims pursuant to State v. Golding, 213 Conn. 233, 239-40, 567 A.2d 823 (1989). The state also argues that, even if the defendant had been under arrest when she made the statements in the lobby, her arrest was not illegal because the police possessed probable cause to arrest her at that time. We agree with the state that the defendant failed to preserve her claim that the statements she had made in the lobby were the product of an illegal arrest, and also conclude that the unpreserved claim is unreviewable under the first prong of Golding because the record is inadequate. The record reveals the following additional relevant facts and procedural history. On the evening of the murder, two Greenwich police officers and two Stamford police officers went to the apartment building where the defendant lived in order to detain her. Two officers waited at the end of the hallway into which the defendant's apartment door opened, while two other officers waited in the lobby of the building. When the defendant emerged from her apartment into the hallway, the officers at the end of the hallway began to move toward her, and followed her as she walked into the lobby. One of the officers informed the defendant that they were police officers and asked if she was Flora Canales. The defendant answered in the affirmative and then asked the officers, Why are you bothering me, because I'm a suspect in the Alicia [Mota-Kirkel]? At that time, the victim's name had not been released publicly. After the defendant made this statement, the officers patted her down and detained her in the lobby of the building for approximately three hours while arrest and search warrants were being prepared. During that time, the defendant was not handcuffed and she moved freely about the lobby, occasionally speaking to the officers or to people coming in and out of the building. The police officers did not interrogate the defendant during this time. While detained in the lobby, however, the defendant made several statements to the officers. She spontaneously informed them that she knew that they were investigating a shooting, that they were searching for a gun, and that she was a suspect. At one point during this detention, the defendant looked in a flower planter, which caused the officers to look in the planter. In response to the officers' action, the defendant told the officers that she knew they were looking for a gun and that they would not find it there. She stated: [K]eep looking and I will tell you when you get hot. During her detention in the lobby, the defendant also informed the officers that she knew the victim and that the victim was her enemy. The defendant filed a pretrial motion seeking to suppress, inter alia, the statements that she had made in the lobby. She argued that, when she made those statements, she was in police custody and had not received Miranda warnings and, therefore, the statements were not a voluntary, knowing and intelligent waiver of her fifth amendment right against self-incrimination. The motion claimed that evidence of these oral declarations . . . should be suppressed since it was taken in violation of the defendant's rights under [a]rticle [f]irst, [§] 8, of the Connecticut . . . constitution, and under the fourth, fifth, sixth and fourteenth amendments to the United States [c]onstitution. Despite the general reference to the fourth amendment to the United States constitution, the motion to suppress failed to raise any specific claim based on that amendment, including a claim that the lobby statements were the product of an illegal arrest. At the suppression hearing, the state presented witnesses whose testimony focused on the interactions between the defendant and the police officers and the circumstances under which she had made the statements at issue. The state did not present evidence concerning whether the police had evidence sufficient to establish probable cause for the defendant's arrest at the time of her detention in the lobby. Defense counsel also focused his cross-examination and argument on the circumstances surrounding the statements. He focused particularly on factors relevant to the Miranda claims, namely, whether the defendant was in custody, whether she had been informed of her Miranda rights, whether she had been interrogated, and whether the circumstances indicated that she had made a voluntary, knowing, and intelligent waiver of her rights. [5] Similarly, both the oral argument made by the state and the trial court's oral decision focused on whether the defendant's Miranda rights had been violated. Although the parties and the court indicated an interest in whether the defendant was in police custody during her detention in the lobby, neither the parties nor the court focused on whether the information available to the police when the defendant made the statements constituted probable cause to support an arrest. Our case law and rules of practice generally limit this court's review to issues that are distinctly raised at trial. See, e.g., Ajadi v. Commissioner of Correction, 280 Conn. 514, 550, 911 A.2d 712 (2006) (declining to consider claim not raised before habeas court); State v. Fagan, 280 Conn. 69, 85-89, 905 A.2d 1101 (2006) (declining to review claim not preserved at trial); Practice Book § 60-5 (court not bound to consider claim unless distinctly raised at trial). Only in [the] most exceptional circumstances can and will this court consider a claim, constitutional or otherwise, that has not been raised and decided in the trial court. (Internal quotation marks omitted.) River Bend Associates, Inc. v. Conservation & Inland Wetlands Commission, 269 Conn. 57, 82, 848 A.2d 395 (2004). Thus, because the defendant's motion to suppress failed to claim specifically that the statements she had made in the lobby were the product of an arrest for which the police lacked probable cause, and neither probable cause nor the legality of the arrest were the subject of any meaningful discussion at the suppression hearing; see footnote 5 of this opinion; we decline to review this issue unless it satisfies the requirements for review of unpreserved claims articulated in State v. Golding, supra, 213 Conn. at 239-40, 567 A.2d 823. In State v. Golding, supra, 213 Conn. at 239-40, 567 A.2d 823, this court set forth four conditions [6] that a defendant must satisfy before he may prevail, on appeal, on an unpreserved constitutional claim. Because a defendant cannot prevail under Golding unless he meets each of those four conditions, an appellate court is free to reject a defendant's unpreserved claim upon determining that any one of those conditions has not been satisfied. . . . Indeed, unless the defendant has satisfied the first Golding prong, that is, unless the defendant has demonstrated that the record is adequate for appellate review, the appellate tribunal will not consider the merits of the defendant's claim. . . . We note, moreover, that Golding is a narrow exception to the general rule that an appellate court will not entertain a claim that has not been raised in the trial court. The reason for the rule is obvious: to permit a party to raise a claim on appeal that has not been raised at trial  after it is too late for the trial court or the opposing party to address the claim  would encourage trial by ambuscade, which is unfair to both the trial court and the opposing party. . . . Nevertheless, because constitutional claims implicate fundamental rights, it also would be unfair automatically and categorically to bar a defendant from raising a meritorious constitutional claim that warrants a new trial solely because the defendant failed to identify the violation at trial. Golding strikes an appropriate balance between these competing interests: the defendant may raise such a constitutional claim on appeal, and the appellate tribunal will review it, but only if the trial court record is adequate for appellate review. The reason for this requirement demands no great elaboration: in the absence of a sufficient record, there is no way to know whether a violation of constitutional magnitude in fact has occurred. Thus, as we stated in Golding, we will not address an unpreserved constitutional claim [i]f the facts revealed by the record are insufficient, unclear or ambiguous as to whether a constitutional violation has occurred. . . . (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Brunetti, 279 Conn. 39, 54-56, 901 A.2d 1 (2006). It is well established . . . that parties must affirmatively seek to prevail under State v. Golding, [supra, 213 Conn. at 239-40, 567 A.2d 823] . . . and bear the burden of establishing that they are entitled to appellate review of their unpreserved constitutional claims. (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Reid, 277 Conn. 764, 781, 894 A.2d 963 (2006). The state argues that the defendant's claim fails to satisfy the first prong of Golding, which requires that the record be adequate for review. Id. Specifically, the state claims that the record is inadequate because the trial court made no factual findings concerning probable cause. The defendant counters that, when the trial court made explicit findings concerning the defendant's detention status for purposes of the Miranda claim, it implicitly found that the defendant's arrest was legal because, if the trial court had concluded that the arrest of the defendant was illegal, it would have said so. We agree with the state that the record is inadequate for review because the court was not provided with evidence upon which it could make a probable cause determination. In order for a warrantless felony arrest to be valid, it must be supported by probable cause. . . . The determination of whether probable cause exists under the fourth amendment to the federal constitution, and under article first, § 7, of our state constitution, is made pursuant to a totality of circumstances test. . . . Probable cause exists when the facts and circumstances within the knowledge of the officer and of which he has reasonably trustworthy information are sufficient in themselves to warrant a man of reasonable caution to believe that a felony has been committed. (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. James, 261 Conn. 395, 415, 802 A.2d 820 (2002). In this case, because the defendant did not argue at the suppression hearing that the arrest lacked probable cause, the state did not offer evidence concerning probable cause, and the trial court was not called upon to determine whether probable cause to arrest existed when the defendant made the statements in the lobby. Thus, the record of the suppression hearing is devoid of evidence that would allow this court to examine whether the police had probable cause to arrest the defendant at that particular time. Accordingly, the defendant fails to satisfy the requirement of the first prong of Golding that the record be adequate to review the alleged claim of error. As a result, she cannot prevail on this unpreserved constitutional claim. We disagree with the defendant's argument that the trial court's determination that she was in police custody for the purposes of Miranda satisfies the first prong of Golding. Two conditions . . . give rise to the requirement of advice of rights under Miranda: (1) the suspect must be in the custody of law enforcement officials; and (2) the suspect must be subjected to interrogation. State v. Medina, 228 Conn. 281, 289, 636 A.2d 351 (1994); see also State v. Kirby, 280 Conn. 361, 393, 908 A.2d 506 (2006). Because the defendant argued that her Miranda rights had been violated, the trial court focused on the two conditions relevant to a Miranda claim, namely, custody and interrogation. The defendant did not ask the court to determine the legality of the arrest, [7] the state presented no evidence concerning its legality, and the trial court did not make any factual findings or explicit conclusions concerning the issue. In fact, any such findings or conclusions by the trial court, either explicit or implicit, concerning whether the police possessed probable cause to arrest the defendant at the time of the lobby statements would have been manifestly improper, given that no evidence was proffered at the hearing on which to base such determinations. This court recently has reiterated the fundamental point that [i]t is incumbent upon the [defendant] to take the necessary steps to sustain [his] burden of providing an adequate record for appellate review. . . . Our role is not to guess at possibilities . . . but to review claims based on a complete factual record developed by a trial court. . . . Without the necessary factual and legal conclusions furnished by the trial court . . . any decision made by us respecting [the defendant's claims] would be entirely speculative. (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Brunetti, supra, 279 Conn. at 63, 901 A.2d 1. The defendant's failure to raise this issue at trial has resulted in a record that is wholly inadequate to allow this court to review this issue on appeal. Accordingly, we cannot review the defendant's unpreserved constitutional claim that the lobby statements were the product of an illegal arrest and, therefore, were admitted improperly into evidence at trial.