88 A.D.2d 694 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1982
Lead Opinion
— Appeal from a judgment of the County Court of Albany County (Harris, J.), rendered October 24, 1980, upon a verdict convicting defendant of the crime of sexual abuse in the first degree. On December 6, 1979, defendant was indicted on two counts of sexual abuse in the first degree following an incident on June 24,1979 on Jay Street in the City of Albany. The facts are essentially undisputed. On October 25, 1979, at about 1:30 a.m., Albany police officers investigated a complaint from a female resident in the Pine Hills section of the city that someone had left an obscene note under her door and had looked through her window. Shortly thereafter, the officers saw defendant walking on a nearby street. He matched the description. He gave permission to search his parked vehicle, in which the police found a note pad matching the paper upon which the obscene note was written. Defendant voluntarily accompanied the officers to the station where he was read his Miranda rights and admitted writing the subject note as well as a second note. He was charged with the crime of aggravated harassment and the violation of harassment. During the questioning, defendant admitted several sexual attacks on women in the city, including an attack on Jay Street on June 24,1979. This admission was made within one hour of the arrest based on the second obscene note. Lauren Smith, the complaining witness in the Jay Street incident, identified defendant from a photograph of a lineup. Defendant’s motion to suppress his oral confession was denied after a hearing. At trial, Miss Smith testified that she was attacked at about 3:30 a.m. on June 24,1979, when a man approached her from behind and knocked her to the ground. She identified this man as Maurice Patterson. Defendant was convicted of sexual abuse in the first degree and was sentenced to a term of imprisonment of from three and one-half to seven years. This appeal ensued. Defendant’s initial argument that his statement was involuntary is without merit. The People have the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt the voluntariness of a statement (People v Valerius, 31 NY2d 51, 55). In his brief, defendant concedes that he received timely and adequate admonitions of his Miranda rights, but contends that the duration and circumstances of the police interrogation rendered his statements involuntary. Examination of the “totality of the circumstances” confirms that the interrogation was neither of improvident length, nor marred by physical or mental coercion (cf. People v Anderson, 42 NY2d 35 [19 hours of continuous police interrogation]). To the contrary, the questioning here was interrupted, defendant had access to a phone and was accorded food and his basic human needs. On this record, we cannot say that the court erred in finding that the People had sustained their heavy burden of proof (see People v Jones, 85 AD2d 50, 54-55). Nor do we find error in the trial court’s ruling on defendant’s Sandoval motion. Admission of evidence of prior crimes or “bad acts” which reflect upon a defendant’s credibility presents a matter for the trial court’s discretion (People v Pollock, 50 NY2d 547; People v Sandoval, 34 NY2d 371). Here, the court ruled that defendant could be cross-examined as to 18 alleged “bad acts” (all theft related) dating back to 1963, and a 1967 conviction for third degree burglary, but precluded inquiry into the underlying basis of a 1980 conviction for first degree rape. Defendant’s
Dissenting Opinion
dissents and votes to reverse in the following memorandum. Levine, J. (dissenting). The record discloses that the prosecution’s case against this defendant rested almost entirely on the eyewitness identification by the victim from her momentary encounter with her assailant at 3:45 a.m. on June