People v. MartinPeople v. Martin
Calendar Date: October 16, 2017
Amanda FiggsGanter, Albany, for appellant.
P. David Soares, District Attorney, Albany (Vincent Stark of counsel), for respondent.
Mulvey, J.
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
Appeal from a judgment of the County Court of Albany County (Lynch, J.), rendered December 3, 2015, convicting defendant upon his plea of guilty of the crime of attempted criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree.
Following a traffic stop of a vehicle in which defendant was a passenger at approximately 10:30 p.m. on June 18, 2014, defendant provided a false name and was arrested for false personation. A search of defendant‘s person after his arrest disclosed a quantity of cocaine and his parole identification card, and a computer search reflected that there was an outstanding bench warrant for his arrest. He was thereafter charged by indictment with criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third and fourth degrees. After a suppression hearing, defendant‘s motion, as relevant here, to suppress the tangible evidence seized from his person was denied. Pursuant to a negotiated plea agreement, defendant pleaded guilty to attempted criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree and was sentenced to the agreed-upon prison term of 4½ years followed by three years of postrelease supervision. Defendant appeals, challenging only the denial of his motion to suppress the physical evidence.
We affirm. Initially, while defendant signed a written waiver of appeal, he expressly reserved his right to appeal from the suppression ruling and, thus, he is entitled to raise that challenge (see People v Gonzalez, 97 AD3d 985, 985 [2012]). Addressing the merits, we give great weight to County Court‘s credibility and factual determinations and find that the court did not err in denying defendant‘s motion to suppress (see People v Wynn, 149 AD3d 1252, 1254 [2017], lv denied 29 NY3d 1136 [2017]). The court credited the testimony of a narcotics detective who, with others, had been conducting surveillance of a street he described as a “hotbed of narcotics activity.” The
The detective then approached the vehicle, identified himself as a detective and, upon his request, the driver provided the requested documents. When asked, the driver indicated that they had “just gone and gotten some food,” which was inconsistent with the detective‘s observations during surveillance, and that she was dropping a “friend” off, gesturing to defendant. Defendant was unable to provide any identification and gave a name and date of birth, but indicated that he did not know his Social Security number and became “extremely nervous.” When asked, the driver, who had represented that defendant was her friend, said that she did not know defendant‘s real name and supplied only his street name. At this point, the detective asked the vehicle occupants to exit the vehicle and separated them for further inquiry. This request was permissible, as “a police officer may, as a precautionary measure and without particularized suspicion, direct the occupants of a lawfully stopped vehicle to step out of the car” (see People v Garcia, 20 NY3d 317, 321 [2012]).
Defendant again provided a name and date of birth, and the detective called a patrol vehicle to verify this information as he did not have access to an operable computer. The detective advised defendant that it was illegal to misrepresent his identity to police and observed that defendant was “extremely nervous,” “pulled to the back” of the vehicle and began moving about in
After defendant was handcuffed, the detective was informed that the other occupants admitted to the other detectives at the scene that they did not know defendant and had picked him up around the corner. Contrary to defendant‘s claim, County Court correctly held that, considering all of the circumstances, the detective had probable cause to arrest defendant for false personation (see People v Smith, 151 AD3d at 1478; People v Isidro, 6 AD3d 1234, 1235 [2004], lvs denied 3 NY3d 659, 662 [2004]; see also Matter of Travis S., 96 NY2d 818, 819-820 [2001]; People v Ligon, 66 AD3d 516, 517 [2009], lv denied 14 NY3d 889 [2010])1. The factors supporting that conclusion include the surveillance observations consistent with illegal drug activity, defendant‘s entry from that location into a vehicle that drove around the block while he interacted with the driver, the driver‘s false responses to police and defendant‘s extreme nervousness, evasiveness and inability to produce identification. This information combined to justify a “reasonable belief” that defendant was providing a false name to prevent police from ascertaining his true identity and to evade the outstanding warrant (see People v Bigelow, 66 NY2d 417, 423 [1985]). Notably, “[p]robable cause does not require proof sufficient to warrant a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt but merely information sufficient to support a reasonable belief that an offense has been or is being committed” (id. at 423; accord People v Guthrie, 25 NY3d at 133; People v Fenger, 68 AD3d 1441, 1442 [2009]; see
Garry, J.P., Egan Jr., Rose and Rumsey, JJ., concur.
ORDERED that the judgment is affirmed.