Opinion ID: 2704
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Thomas Walczyk .(1) The Facial Challenge

Text: We reject as without merit Thomas Walczyk's contention that the challenged warrant affidavits, on their face, fail to state probable cause for his arrest or the search of his 28 Tunxis Street home. The facts alleged establish probable cause to believe (1) that Walczyk had violated Connecticut law by threaten[ing] to commit . . . [a] crime [of violence] in reckless disregard of the risk of causing . . . terror to another person, Conn. Gen.Stat. § 53a-62(a)(3), and (2) that Walczyk maintained in his residence firearms that, in light of past use, were relevant evidence that he intended to threaten violence and recklessly disregarded the threat's terrorizing effect. The facts reveal that, on August 30, 1999, Walczyk complained to Officer Hebert that the police were not taking the action necessary to avoid a bloodbath. A reasonable person would understand the bloodbath reference as a prediction of probable violence between Walczyk and Barberino. More to the point, a reasonable person would understand from other facts alleged in the affidavits that Walczyk would likely be the person initiating any such violence. A few months earlier, Walczyk had stated to Captain Rio that, if the police did not assist him in his property dispute with Barberino, he would take matters into his own hands, doing whatever he had to do to protect his property rights. Rio knew that what Walczyk frequently put into his hands to resolve disputes were loaded firearms that he stored in his home. In the past, Walczyk had brandished firearms retrieved from his home at various individuals, including Barberino workers on two occasions. On one of those occasions, the brandished weapon was a loaded automatic rifle and, [19] when police intervened, Walczyk initially defied their orders to put down the weapon and resisted arrest. Moreover, the affidavits demonstrated that Walczyk plainly knew how to fire his weapons; he had used them to kill a cat on his property. Rio further knew that Walczyk's efforts to vindicate his property rights peaceably through the courts had failed. Under the totality of these circumstances, the issuing magistrate certainly had a substantial basis to conclude that, when Walczyk told police that their continued failure to assist him in his property dispute with Barberino would result in a bloodbath, he was effectively threatening to employ violence against Barberino employees with reckless disregard for the terror such a threat would cause when communicated to the intended victim. We are, of course, mindful that a Connecticut appellate court has ruled otherwise. Observing that Walczyk's bloodbath statement was made to secure police assistance, that court concluded: A statement to a police officer that the police needed to act to avoid a `bloodbath' cannot be the basis of probable cause to believe that the defendant, at the time or in the immediate future, would engage in threatening behavior. State v. Walczyk, 76 Conn.App. at 181-82, 818 A.2d at 876 (emphasis in original). We respectfully disagree. Walczyk may have desired police assistance in his land dispute, but how he sought to compel that assistance was by threatening violence. Walczyk was, after all, the only person to have used an instrument of violence in connection with the land dispute. Given his prior brandishing of loaded firearms, it was certainly probable that Walczyk's bloodbath statement was a threat to use violence against Barberino workers if the police did not intervene in his favor (something they could not do in light of state court rulings). Whether Walczyk would, in fact, have acted on his threat is not determinative of whether it was probable that he had made the threat with reckless disregard of the terror it would cause Barberino. [20] We conclude that the affidavits, on their face, state facts reasonably supporting such a finding by the issuing magistrate. Walczyk submits that the search warrant affidavit nevertheless failed to demonstrate that there was any connection between his present lawful possession of firearms and the alleged crime of threatening. We are persuaded that the warrant affidavit states probable cause to believe that a search of Walczyk's home for firearms would produce evidence relevant to demonstrating that Walczyk had committed the offense of threatening. At the time the search warrant affidavit was prepared, Walczyk's apparent possession of firearms constituted relevant evidence which could suggest that his intent in making the bloodbath remark was, in fact, to threaten violence. See State v. Crudup, 81 Conn.App. 248, 260 n. 14, 838 A.2d 1053, 1062 n. 14 (Conn.App.Ct.2004) (discussing intent element of threatening). Specifically, a seizure of firearms from Walczyk's home could have shown that, at the time Walczyk made the bloodbath remark, he had the actual capacity to cause bloodshed. Moreover, such a seizure following the authorized search could have served to corroborate witness accounts that Walczyk had used weapons against Barberino workers and others in the past, which in turn could have helped establish his reckless disregard of the bloodbath remark's terrorizing effect. In sum, Walczyk's possession of firearms was evidence relevant to the mens rea element of the crime because a factfinder could reasonably infer from such possession and from Walczyk's past use of firearms that his bloodbath statement was not idle hyperbole, but an intentional threat of violence made with reckless disregard of its potential to cause terror. As the search warrant affidavit makes clear, the police were aware that Walczyk had previously used his home to store the firearms he brandished in confrontations with others, including Barberino workers, and thus they had probable cause to believe that evidence relevant to his alleged threatening would turn up in a search of his home. Accordingly, we hold that plaintiffs' facial challenge to the warrant affidavits in this case necessarily fails as a matter of law. [21]