People v. FarnsworthPeople v. Farnsworth
The People of the State of New York, Respondent, v Jennifer L. Farnsworth, Appellant. [22 NYS3d 612]—
Lynch, J. Appeal from a judgment of the County Court of Saratoga County (Scarano, J.), rendered October 7, 2014, upon a verdict convicting defendant of the crime of driving while intoxicated.
In August 2013, Daniel Bornt, a State Trooper, responded to a dispatch call regarding a suspicious vehicle on a residential street in the Town of Malta, Saratoga County. Bornt discovered defendant’s car, with its head and brake lights turned on, pulled over to the right side of the road but obstructing the traffic flow. After pulling over behind defendant’s car and activating his emergency lights, Bornt approached defendant’s car, knocked on her window and gestured for her to roll it down. He observed that defendant’s eyes were “bloodshot[,] watery [and] droopy,” the vehicle smelled of alcohol, there was a quantity of unopened beer on the passenger seat and one open bottle of beer on the passenger side floor. When asked, defendant advised that she had consumed two beers at a party. Bornt asked defendant to step out of the vehicle and administered
Initially, we find that County Court properly denied defendant’s suppression motion. At the pretrial hearing, Bornt recalled the above encounter with defendant, who did not testify. We reject defendant’s claim that she was illegally “seized” once Bornt activated the emergency lights. “It is well settled . . . that police officers may approach an individual for basic inquiry provided there is an objective credible reason to do so, not necessarily indicative of criminality” (People v Story, 81 AD3d 1168, 1168 [2011] [citations omitted]). Here, Bornt testified that there had been a number of recent burglaries in the area. That, together with the 911 call reporting a “suspicious vehicle,” provided the requisite rationale for Bornt to approach defendant’s vehicle that was already stopped on the side of the road (see People v De Bour, 40 NY2d 210, 220 [1976]; People v Wallgren, 94 AD3d 1339, 1340 [2012]; People v Story, 81 AD3d at 1168). The legality of the encounter with defendant’s already stopped vehicle is not affected by the fact that Bornt activated his lights first. Rather, by doing so, he properly alerted defendant and presumably other motorists to his presence on the roadway (see People v Wallgren, 94 AD3d at 1341 n 1).1 In our view, Bornt’s observations after he approached defendant and the results of the field sobriety testing provided probable cause for defendant’s subsequent arrest (see People v Fenger, 68 AD3d 1441, 1443 [2009]).
Next, although defendant’s general motion to dismiss at the close of the proof failed to preserve her challenge to the legal sufficiency of the evidence (see People v Hawkins, 11 NY3d 484, 491 [2008]), we will consider the evidence as part of her claim that the jury verdict was not supported by the weight of the evidence (see People v Sydlar, 106 AD3d 1368, 1369 [2013], lv dismissed 21 NY3d 1046 [2013]). Generally, a driving while intoxicated verdict must be supported by evidence that defendant was in an intoxicated condition when he or she operated
Although defendant contends that there was not sufficient proof that she was operating the vehicle while intoxicated, we disagree. Bornt testified that when he approached defendant, she was sitting in the driver’s seat of her car, the keys were in the ignition and the head and brake lights were on. For purposes of
McCarthy, J.P., Egan Jr. and Devine, JJ., concur. Ordered that the judgment is affirmed.