Stamford Gun And Drug Conviction Conviction Upheld

In a slam-dunk decision, the Supreme Court said earlier this week that the 2006 conviction of a Stamford man for drug and gun offenses would stand, even though the man's lawyers claim a Stamford judge wrongly allowed a jury to hear evidence from an illegal police search. [...] Urso held that the police needed a search warrant to look into the crawl space, which they did not have. A jury found Pierre guilty of criminal possession of a weapon and possession of marijuana with intent to sell and he was sentenced to 30 months in jail and finished his sentence in November 2008. The court said that tenants, visitors, delivery people and the landlord's agents freely entered the house and Pierre was not in a position from keeping them away from the crawl space where the gun and pot were found. Because of his lack of control over the crawl space, the court found Pierre could not have an expectation of privacy in the space that society would consider reasonable.