People v. WorthingtonPeople v. Worthington
Defendant was indicted on two counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree following the seizure of two unloaded firearms frоm his automobile during a traffic stop. After a jury trial, he was convicted as charged. Prior to sentencing, defendant moved to set aside the verdict pursuant to
We turn first to the challenged jury note, on which the jury foreperson informed County Court thаt the jury had “reached an agreement.” The back of the note included handwritten comments apparently by a juror deliberating in a previous, unrelated weapons case. The People concede that the form had been recycled from a previous case.2 Defendant maintains that he was denied a fair trial because the jury had access to writ
Absent consent by the parties,
Next, defendant maintains that the verdiсt is against the weight of the evidence since the evidence failed to establish that he knew the two guns were in his vehicle. Where, as here, a different verdict would not have been unreasonable, we “weigh the relative probative force of conflicting testimony and the relative strength of conflicting inferences that may be drawn from the testimony” (People v Bleakley, 69 NY2d 490, 495 [1987] [internal quotation marks and citation omitted]). “As relevant here, a person is guilty of criminal possession of a weapоn in the second degree when he or she knowingly possesses any loaded firearm outside of his or her home or place of business” (People v Scippio, 144 AD3d 1184, 1185 [2016], lv denied 28 NY3d 1150 [2017], citing
Both defendant and Woleslagle testified that the two had gone fishing the day before the arrest at a family member‘s cabin. Woleslagle testified that he borrowed the two guns from a friend, and defendant acknowledged that they used the guns for target shooting. Woleslagle testified that, later that evening, unbeknownst to defendant, he put the guns in the seat pockets. They then returned to defendant‘s house where Woleslagle‘s girlfriend picked him up because he was intoxicated. The next morning, Woleslagle realized that the guns were left behind and tried, unsuccessfully, to reach defendant by phone in order to retrieve the weapons. For his part, defendant testified that he was unaware that Woleslagle had placed the guns back in the car. He explained that he had forgotten about the sight, which he intended to put on his son‘s сrossbow. Relatedly, Matthews acknowledged that the Ruger had a common mounting system. Defendant also explained that he recovered loose rounds of ammunition on the ground and dropped them on the floor of his car or “the center console or little cubbyhole.” He pointed out that the shells were corroded and may have been left outside by his children. Matthews noted that some of the ammunition was in fact corroded. While Woleslagle also testified that he put leftover ammunition on the floor or in the back seat pockets, he did not place any ammunition near the steering wheel.
Notably, the jury was not charged as to the automobile
Finally, defendant maintains that he was deprived of the effective assistance of counsel, focusing on counsel‘s failure to move to suppress the evidence obtained during the search of his vehicle. A defendant‘s constitutional right to effective representation is met “[s]o long as the evidence, the law, and the circumstances of a particular case, viеwed in totality and as of the time of the representation, reveal that the attorney provided meaningful representation” (People v Baldi, 54 NY2d 137, 147 [1981]). The failure to request a suppression hearing does not necessarily constitute ineffective representation, but there are rare exceptions “where a defendant shows the absence of a strategic or legitimate explanation in counsel‘s strategy not to pursue a suppression motion” (People v Zeh, 144 AD3d 1395, 1396 [2016]).
Defendant maintains that thе length of the detention following the traffic stop was unjustified and that his eventual consent to the search of his vehicle was tainted by his unlawful detention. On this theory, defendant maintains that a suppression motion would have been successful, and the weapons suppressed—necessitating dismissal of the indictment. We disagree. We recognize that “[a] traffic stop constitutes a limited seizure of the person . . . [and,] to pass constitutional muster, the officer‘s action in stopping thе vehicle must be justified at its inception and the seizure must be reasonably related in scope, including its length, to the circumstances which justified the detention in the first instance” (People v Banks, 85 NY2d 558, 562 [1995] [citation omitted], cert denied 516 US 868 [1995]).
Matthews testified that he initiated the routine traffic stop after observing an obstruction in defendant‘s windshield, later determined to be a mountable cell phone holder. Defendant was driving and there was a female in the front passenger seat, with two dogs in the back. Upon request, defendant gave Matthews an insurance card and a registration for the vehicle,
While the predicate for the initial stoр—which defendant does not challenge in his brief—would warrant only a limited detention, defendant‘s failure to produce a license or other form of identification and his inability to identify his passenger, coupled with an inconsistent explanаtion as to his activities, provided a reasonable suspicion of criminality that justified Matthews’ continued questioning up to the point when defendant consented to the search of his vehicle (see People v Banks, 148 AD3d 1359, 1362 [2017]; People v Carter, 60 AD3d at 1104-1105). As such, it is our view that a suppression motion would not have been successful—an outcome that undermines defendant‘s ineffective assistance argument (see People v Caban, 5 NY3d 143, 152 [2005]). We also note the People‘s observation that, early in the case, defendant failed to appеar and a warrant was issued for his arrest. After being incarcerated in Pennsylvania for several months, defendant returned to New York. Thereafter, defendant waived a Huntley hearing in the hopes of keeping open a beneficial plea offer—a strategy that may have contributed to counsel‘s failure to request a Mapp hearing. Based on the totality of the record, in which counsel mounted a consistent, cogent defense that defendant was not aware that the weapons were in the vehicle, we find that defendant received meaningful representation.
McCarthy, J.P., Egan Jr., Devine and Clark, JJ., concur.
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed.