People v. Furrs, 149 A.D.3d 1098

On July 9, 2014, plainclothes officers in an unmarked car observed a vehicle commit minor traffic violations; a passenger (Furrs) exited while the car was moving slowly and appeared to adjust his waistband.
An officer from the patrol vehicle yelled "Police, stop," and Furrs ran; officers pursued on foot and by vehicle.
Officer Rizzo boxed Furrs in by pulling onto the sidewalk; Furrs then removed a gun from his waistband and threw it through a wrought-iron fence; he raised his hands holding a bag of marijuana and a cell phone and said he "just had weed."
Officers recovered the gun about two feet from where Furrs was stopped and arrested him; the trial court denied suppression of the gun, the marijuana, and Furrs's statement after a pretrial hearing.
Furrs was convicted by jury of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon and fifth-degree criminal possession of marijuana; he appealed challenging the denial of suppression.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether officers had reasonable suspicion to pursue Furrs after he exited the vehicle and fled	Flight plus observed conduct justified pursuit; officers pointed to waistband adjustment and traffic violations	Flight alone and waistband adjustment were not specific indicia of criminal activity sufficient for pursuit	Pursuit lacked reasonable suspicion; suppression required
Whether the gun was admissible as evidence despite the pursuit	The gun was discovered in the course of a lawful arrest and was independent of any illegality	The gun was the product of an unlawful pursuit and should be suppressed as fruit of the poisonous tree	Gun suppressed as precipitated by unlawful pursuit
Whether the marijuana and Furrs's statement were admissible	Statements and contraband were apparent and voluntarily abandoned/observed after lawful stop	Both were direct products of the unlawful pursuit and must be suppressed	Marijuana and statement suppressed as direct products
Whether convictions could stand absent the suppressed evidence	Evidence sufficed to convict regardless	Suppression of all physical evidence and statement leaves insufficient proof	Indictment dismissed for lack of legally sufficient evidence

People v. Clermont, 133 A.D.3d 612 (2d Dep't 2015) (flight plus specific corroborating facts required to justify pursuit)
People v. Holmes, 81 N.Y.2d 1056 (1993) (police pursuit significantly impinges liberty and must be justified by reasonable suspicion)
People v. Carmichael, 92 A.D.3d 687 (2d Dep't 2012) (flight alone insufficient to support pursuit; corroborating circumstances needed)
Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471 (1963) (fruit of the poisonous tree and attenuation principles govern admissibility of evidence obtained after illegality)
People v. Haynes, 115 A.D.3d 676 (2d Dep't 2014) (evidence thrown during unlawful pursuit is precipitated by the illegality and subject to suppression)