Court decides whether spotlight from a Conn. cruiser. State Police can detain a person

HARTFORD, CT – When a car is parked in a dark part of a store parking lot at night and a police car parks 40 to 50 feet away, facing the side of the car, and shines a spotlight on it , is the driver of the car free? to leave?

That’s one of the key issues that will be debated Wednesday before three Court of Appeals judges when they meet at Classical Magnet School in Hartford for oral arguments by attorneys in two cases currently before the court.

Pupils from the school will sit in the audience as part of the court’s ‘on circuit’ programme, designed to expose them to the legal proceedings.

The parking lot encounter is at issue in the case against Nicolas A. Marciano, now 28, of Cedar Swamp Road in Mansfield, who was arrested in May in the parking lot of the Cumberland Farms store at the intersection of Routes 44 and 195 in Mansfield. 9, 2022.

When the case was heard in state Supreme Court in Vernon last year, Judge Corinne L. Klatt agreed with Marciano’s attorney that he was not free to leave after two state troopers spotlighted his car.

The judge also ruled that the troopers did not have “reasonable and articulable suspicion” to detain Marciano, as required by a U.S. Supreme Court decision.

As a result, the judge ruled that evidence that Marciano was driving the car under the influence of alcohol, which the troopers began discovering seconds after being spotlighted, could not go before a jury.

Unable to prove their case without that evidence, prosecutors asked the judge to dismiss the case and allow them to appeal her decision, which she did.

Portions of a video taken by Trooper Brandon Godwin’s body-worn camera were introduced into evidence during Klatt’s April 21, 2023 hearing on the admissibility of evidence from the investigation.

‘Locked in place’ by lights

“The video shows that the takedown lights spotlight the suspect and the vehicle in an intimidating manner,” Klatt wrote in her decision. “The defendant was essentially held in place by the lights. There was no doubt that the lights came from a clearly marked police cruiser.

“Within seconds, an armed police officer approached the suspect,” he continued, using his flashlight and signaling for him to roll down the window. “These actions clearly communicate to an individual: ‘Don’t leave because I want to talk to you.’

“From a law enforcement perspective, it is completely understandable that ‘takedown lights’ are necessary for officer safety,” the judge wrote. “However, the court’s analysis must be from the perspective of the receiving end of that action. That is, whether a reasonable person would feel free to leave under those circumstances.”

However, many courts across the country have reached a different conclusion when confronted with similar issues.

In his appeal brief, prosecutor Robert J. Scheinblum cited 16 decisions in which courts have held that shining spotlights or flashlights on people in or out of vehicles did not constitute detention. He cited two other cases in which courts did rule on arrest, but in both cases, police cruisers blocked a vehicle’s path while shining spotlights on it.

Public defender Nicole Van Lear also cited a number of decisions regarding the use of lighting in her statement. But at least ten of the cases she cited involved the use of ’emergency lighting’ instead of spotlights.

Sheinblum wrote in his response brief that courts have recognized “a crucial distinction between the way an ordinary citizen would respond to the red and blue emergency lights of a police car, as opposed to the spotlights of a police car.”

Godbout testified at the hearing for Klatt that he approached the car on the Cumberland Farms lot “solely for any options regarding medical issues,” according to a transcript of the hearing available in the court filings.

The police ‘took care of the community?’

As a result, the prosecutor argued, the troopers’ approach to the car was part of their “community care” function, and not part of a criminal investigation that falls under court decisions about detaining people.

But Klatt found that the circumstances did not warrant a conclusion that the troopers’ approach to the car was community concern.

“There was nothing about the way the vehicle was parked that indicated concern,” she wrote. “There were no complaints about that vehicle, no reports of criminal activity or accidents. There was nothing immediately noticeable about the vehicle itself, i.e. no flashing lights, extended hood, etc., that would give the impression that the driver needed assistance.

“The video evidence showed that the defendant, who was sitting upright, looked at the cruiser as soon as the ‘takedown lights’ illuminated him,” she continued.

As Godwin approached the car, the judge noted that he “turned his flashlight in a circular motion, signaling the driver to roll down his window.”

Marciano responded by turning the car on and “trying to roll down the window,” she continued. “When the window was not functioning, the individual partially opened the driver’s side door.”

When the officer reached the open door, the judge wrote, he smelled alcohol, noticed Marciano’s speech was slurred and asked Marciano to step out of the car “so he could perform certain tests.”

Previous decisions by the Connecticut Supreme Court have held that an intoxicated person sitting in the driver’s seat of a stationary vehicle with the key in the ignition is operating the vehicle while intoxicated.

The judge wrote that Marciano’s act of turning on the vehicle to comply with the trooper’s command “forms the basis for the element of operation” in the OUI charge against him.

Whether that is a good basis for such an accusation was not a question raised in her decision and is not addressed in the appeal. But it could come up later if the Court of Appeal revives the case.

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