People v. GonzalesPeople v. Gonzales
APPEARANCES OF COUNSEL
Richard A. Brown, District Attorney, Kew Gardens (John M. Castellano, Johnnette Traill and Suzanne H. Sullivan of counsel), for respondent.
OPINION OF THE COURT
BALKIN, J.
The police arrested the defendant inside his home. They did not have a warrant, the defendant had not consented to their entry, and the defendant had remained inside his home since before the police arrived. The straightforward issue on this appeal is whether the Supreme Court erred in denying that branch of the defendant‘s omnibus motion which was to suppress the statement he made in his home after he was arrested. We conclude that precedent from the United States Supreme Court and the New York Court of Appeals requires that we reverse the judgment and remit the matter to the Supreme Court, Queens County, for a new trial.
According to the testimony at the defendant‘s suppression hearing, the police received a call regarding a “possible sexual assault in progress” at a specified address. They went to that address and saw the complainant waiting for them outside. After she told them that her cousin‘s boyfriend had assaulted her in a basement apartment at that address, the police, accompanied by the complainant, went to the door of that apartment and knocked. When the defendant opened the door, the police asked the complainant if he was the person who had assaulted her, and she said yes. The defendant, who had never left the apartment, even partially, tried to close the door, but the police pushed their way inside and handcuffed him. Minutes later, still inside the apartment, the defendant made an inculpatory statement.
“Here‘s where I will hold this is not a Payton violation. The door opened. [The defendant] was visible in the doorway, the open doorway of the apartment, and identified almost instantaneously by [the complainant] as the alleged perpetrator of the criminal act.
“Okay. Once this happened [the defendant] attempted to close the door unsuccessfully. It‘s akin to the hot pursuit exception to the Payton rule. A suspect fleeing the police cannot go into the home in order to avoid apprehension. That‘s what happened here in my opinion. That‘s why it‘s not a Payton violation.
“You had probable cause when the complainant said, ‘that‘s him.’ And, basically, he was—[the defendant] was visible to the officers by virtue of the open door. And the officers had the right to go in without a warrant to effect his arrest based upon the hot pursuit. He started closing the door. The officers could not allow that to happen.
“If you want to go under [the] [r]ubric [of] exigency, once identified there was flight, the officers had a right to pursue. That created exigency at that moment.”*
The court also held that the police had not subjected the defendant to custodial interrogation. The court, therefore, denied that branch of the defendant‘s omnibus motion which was to suppress his statement.
The branch of the defendant‘s omnibus motion which was to suppress his statement should have been granted.
In Payton v New York (445 US 573 [1980]), the United States Supreme Court announced a clear and easily applied rule with
Certainly, if the defendant‘s encounter with the police had begun outside his home, or even on the threshold of it, the defendant could not have avoided arrest by fleeing into his home (see United States v Santana, 427 US 38, 43 [1976]). But, contrary to the hearing court‘s characterization, the defendant‘s attempt to close his door was not “akin” to “fleeing“; he had never left the constitutionally protected interior of his home in the first place, even partially, so he did not flee “into” his home (see People v Levan, 62 NY2d at 144-145; cf. People v Reynoso, 2 NY3d 820, 821 [2004], affg 309 AD2d 769, 770 [2003]).
Our dissenting colleagues and the People rely on United States v Santana for the proposition that the doorway of a home is a “public place” for the purposes of a
First, it is clear that, unlike the defendant in Santana, the defendant here was always in the interior of his home. This distinction is determinative. Four years after deciding Santana, the United States Supreme Court decided Payton and its companion case, Riddick v New York. In Payton and Riddick,
In People v Levan (62 NY2d 139 [1984]), our Court of Appeals recognized the limit Payton and Riddick had placed on the broad Santana language. In Levan, a neighbor knocked on the defendant‘s door and, when the defendant opened it, the police, who were waiting nearby, rushed inside and arrested the defendant. The Court of Appeals expressly rejected the People‘s reliance on Santana. It held that Payton required suppression and that Santana was inapposite: ”Santana furnishes no support for the actions of the police in this case, given the Supreme Court‘s pronouncement in Payton that ‘the
Our dissenting colleagues contend that in People v Reynoso (2 NY3d at 821), the Court of Appeals upheld an arrest “in the doorway” of a defendant‘s home (infra at 154), but that case only highlights the constitutional significance of the literal meaning of “threshold.” In Reynoso, the police testified that the defendant had voluntarily left his home upon their request that he come outside (309 AD2d 769, 770). The defendant, by contrast, contended that, after he “put [his] head[ ] outside the door jamb to see who was calling at this late hour” (309 AD2d at 771 [McGinity, J., dissenting]), the police reached in and pulled him out. Thus, in both versions of what had transpired, the defendant had voluntarily emerged, at least in part, from his home. By doing so, he surrendered the enhanced constitutional protection of the home. In this case, by contrast, the undisputed evidence is that the defendant did not leave his home at all. Accordingly, Reynoso did not blur the clear constitutional demarcation, or “firm line” (Payton v New York, 445 US at 590), that the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals recognized in Payton and Levan.
Our dissenting colleagues would replace that firm line with an inquiry into a suspect‘s “intentions and expectations” (infra at 156). That amorphous inquiry would depend on how far the defendant opened the door, how far into the home the police intruded without a warrant, and how long the police have had probable cause to arrest the defendant. Even aside from the fact that the approach proposed by our dissenting colleagues runs afoul of the constitutional significance accorded the physical boundaries of the home, it cannot be practically applied. For example, how far does the door have to be opened to constitute a surrender of
The rule announced in Payton and applied in Levan is clear and easily understood: a person enjoys enhanced constitutional protection from a warrantless arrest in the interior of the home, but not on the threshold itself or the exterior. As the United States Supreme Court recently observed, “[o]ne virtue of the
In sum, because the police arrested the defendant in his home, without a warrant and in the absence of exigent circumstances, the arrest violated the
In light of our determination, we need not address the defendant‘s remaining contentions.
Accordingly, the judgment is reversed, on the law, that branch of the defendant‘s omnibus motion which was to suppress his statement to law enforcement officials is granted, and a new trial is ordered.
ANGIOLILLO, J.P. (dissenting). In our view, the police officers acted lawfully at all stages of their encounter with the defendant. We would hold that the officers properly investigated this matter and appropriately followed through with an immediate arrest inside the doorway of the defendant‘s apartment, without infringing upon his constitutional rights. Therefore, we respectfully dissent.
At the suppression hearing, the officers testified that they received a radio run of a possible sexual assault in progress and, upon their arrival at the residence, spoke with the complainant, who was standing outside on the sidewalk and appeared frazzled, upset, and shaken. The complainant told the officers
Under these circumstances, the officers acted properly and did not violate the defendant‘s constitutional rights when they approached and knocked on the door of the defendant‘s private residence in order to investigate the complaint (see People v Kozlowski, 69 NY2d 761, 762-763 [1987]). At that point, the defendant voluntarily opened his door, exposing himself to the view of persons outside of his residence. It is undisputed that, upon the complainant‘s identification of the defendant, the officers had probable cause to arrest him.
Had the defendant not attempted to close the door, the officers properly and constitutionally could have effected an immediate arrest of the defendant in his doorway. Several cases decided after Payton v New York (445 US 573 [1980]) have held that an arrest “at the doorway” or “in the doorway” to a private residence is lawful and constitutional (see People v Reynoso, 2 NY3d 820, 821 [2004] [“the arrest occurred either after defendant exited his home voluntarily or while he stood in his doorway“], affg 309 AD2d 769, 770 [2003] [“upon being requested to come outside, the defendant either voluntarily exited his house, or stood behind his mother, in the front doorway, and stuck his head out of the door” and “either version supports the conclusion that the arrest was legal“]; People v Ashcroft, 33 AD3d 429, 429 [2006], lv denied 8 NY3d 843 [2007], cert denied 552 US 829 [2007] [the defendant “voluntarily opened his door” and the police “reached in and pulled him out as he stood in close proximity to his doorway“]; People v Burke, 24 AD3d 129, 130 [2005] [the defendant was arrested “in the doorway of his apartment“]; People v Francis, 209 AD2d 539, 539 [1994] [the defendant‘s arrest “at the doorway of his apartment did not violate Payton“]; People v Rosario, 179 AD2d 442, 442 [1992] [“arrest at the doorway of his apartment did
We would hold that, since the officers were authorized to arrest the defendant at his doorway shortly after he opened his door, the defendant was not entitled to thwart a lawful arrest by closing the door and retreating into the constitutionally protected area of his home (see United States v Santana, 427 US at 42; People v Wheatley, 55 AD3d 947, 948 [2008]; People v Mitchell, 290 AD2d 518, 519 [2002]; People v Harris, 193 AD2d 757, 757 [1993]; People v Thomas, 164 AD2d 874, 874-875 [1990]).
Our colleagues in the majority note that, “if the defendant‘s encounter with the police had begun outside his home, or even on the threshold of it, the defendant could not have avoided arrest by fleeing into his home,” but conclude that the arrest was unlawful here because the defendant “never left the constitutionally protected interior of his home” (supra at 150). This approach rests on a literal interpretation of the term “threshold” which defines the constitutionally protected area precisely according to the line within the doorframe which separates the outside from the inside. We find this approach neither warranted by the constitutional rationale underlying Santana, nor at all practical as a guideline to inform law enforcement officers in their conduct.
Santana was premised upon the rationale that “[w]hat a person knowingly exposes to the public . . . is not a subject of
As a practical matter, a resident inside his or her abode who opens the door inward will often be standing several inches within the residence. For example, in Reynoso, the Court of Appeals upheld the arrest as constitutional (2 NY3d at 821) despite evidence that the defendant‘s body was not on the threshold but inside the home (309 AD2d at 770 [“the defendant . . . stood behind his mother, in the front doorway, and stuck his head out of the door“]; 309 AD2d at 771 [McGinity, J., dissenting] [“While standing within their home, both the mother and son, the defendant, put their heads outside the door jamb to see who was calling at this late hour“]). We would not rest the outcome of a Payton challenge on such a measurement. A police officer investigating a complaint of a recently committed crime will not be focusing on the suspect‘s precise position in the open doorway when making the necessary judgment call as to the suspect‘s constitutional rights, and the cases upholding arrests “in” or “at the doorway” have not been premised upon such evidence. Instead, distinctions based upon behavior communicate a suspect‘s intentions and expectations far more readily than distinctions based upon inches or feet inside or outside a doorway. We do not agree with our colleagues in the majority that the discernment of a suspect‘s intentions and expectations presents an impractical or unworkable guideline. Law enforcement officers are routinely called upon in every stop, frisk, and arrest situation to make judgments based upon a suspect‘s behavior, and
Accordingly, we would agree with the trial court that the defendant‘s arrest was lawful and does not provide a basis for suppressing his statements to law enforcement officials. Further, we would affirm the conviction, as we find the defendant‘s remaining contentions to be without merit.
Lott and Austin, JJ., concur with Balkin, J.; Angiolillo, J.P., dissents in an opinion in which Roman, J., concurs.
Ordered that the judgment is reversed, on the law, that branch of the defendant‘s motion which was to suppress his statement to law enforcement officials is granted, and a new trial is ordered.