People v. Harris

Decision Date06 November 1986
Citation124 A.D.2d 472,507 N.Y.S.2d 823
PartiesThe PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Bernard HARRIS, Defendant-Appellant.
CourtNew York Supreme Court — Appellate Division

J.M.M. Soroko, New York City, for respondent. Bernard Harris, pro se.

Judgment, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Irving Lang, J.) rendered on April 29, 1985, affirmed.

All concur except SANDLER, J., who concurs in a memorandum with which WALLACH, J., concurs.

ASCH, J., concurs in a separate memorandum with which KASSAL, J., concurs.

ROSENBERGER, J., dissents in a memorandum, all as follows:

SANDLER, Justice (concurring).

It may be that the somewhat ambiguous hearing testimony would have supported a factual finding by the hearing court that the defendant was arrested under circumstances that did not violate Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639. I am unable to agree, however, that the hearing court's finding that such a violation occurred was erroneous as a matter of law or contrary to the weight of the evidence. Accordingly, the critical issue, in my view, is whether there was an adequate basis for the hearing court's further determination that there had been sufficient attenuation to justify the acceptance into evidence of the defendant's written stationhouse statement given after a renewal of the Miranda rights. Although the issue is a close one, and the dissenting opinion presents a cogent argument to the contrary, I am satisfied that there was an adequate basis for the trial court to conclude that the police station statement was "sufficiently an act of free will to purge the primary taint of the unlawful invasion." (Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 486, 83 S.Ct. 407, 416, 9 L.Ed.2d 441.) Although Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 45 L.Ed.2d 416, is relevant to the issue presented, I do not agree that it is as clearly determinative of that issue as suggested in the dissenting opinion. There is a difference between the issue presented here and that addressed by the Supreme Court in Brown that surely has significance in the balancing process required in determining whether challenged evidence must be suppressed as an exploitation of constitutionally invalid police behavior. Brown was concerned with a defendant who was arrested without probable cause, and who, at the time of his arrest, could not have been arrested anywhere in a manner consistent with constitutional requirements, and as to whom an arrest warrant could not properly have been then issued. Given the fact that there was here probable cause to arrest the defendant, a finding not disputed in the dissenting opinio we are confronted with an arrest that could have taken place lawfully anywhere except in the defendant's apartment. This major difference in the character of the underlying illegality surely has some relevance in determining whether or not the challenged statement represented an improper exploitation of the underlying illegal act. Significantly, in United States v. Johnson, 626 F.2d 753 (9th Cir.), affd. 457 U.S. 537, 102 S.Ct. 2579, 73 L.Ed.2d 202, an important decision understandably relied on in the dissenting opinion, the Ninth Circuit rested its determination to suppress the stationhouse statement on the conclusion (at 759) that the defendant "having given one statement which inculpated him in the crime, he had already committed himself; there was little incentive to withhold a repetition of it". In this case, however, the testimony strongly indicates that the defendant was expecting the police to come, was relieved when they arrived at his apartment, and had made a clear prior decision to admit his guilt. Accordingly, there is strong support in the record for the conclusion that the defendant gave his written statement at the stationhouse, not because he felt committed by what he had said at the apartment, but because of a considered decision made prior to the expected arrival of the police. One other fact distinguishing this case from Johnson should be noted. Johnson involved an arrest of a person charged with a nonviolent crime. In this case, the police had substantial reason to believe that they were concerned with a dangerously violent person who had abducted and raped the deceased some four days before he killed her. Although the arrest cannot be justified as having occurred under exigent circumstances in the normal meaning of that term, it seems clear that the police were acting under the pressure of a sense of urgency that the defendant should be taken into custody as soon as possible.

ASCH, Justice (concurring).

Defendant's contentions that his arrest was not supported by probable cause and that his written confession, which was given after a Miranda warning, should have been suppressed are without merit. Erika Jones, the daughter of murder victim Thelma Staton, reported to the police a conversation she had had with her mother prior to her death. Erica stated that her mother had told her that she had been kidnapped by the defendant, at knifepoint, from the home of her boyfriend, Herbert Stultz, and then raped by defendant, four days before the murder. Staton's diary had an entry for that date to the same effect. Moreover, a friend and co-worker of the victim had informed the police that Staton had told her of the abduction. The police were also told that defendant had installed the lock on Staton's bedroom door. It had been locked from the outside after the crime and only defendant and the murder victim had keys. Staton's boyfriend, Stultz, told the police that a window had been broken in his apartment on the day of the abduction. Staton had refused to disclose the identity of the perpetrator to Stultz, out of concern for his safety. The day before she died, Staton told Stultz she was scared to death of defendant. With this background of incriminating evidence, the police went to defendant's apartment. Defendant invited them in and told them he was glad they had come for him. After being informed of his Miranda rights and told by Detective Rivers that they were there with respect to Staton's death, the defendant poured himself a glass of wine and admitted he had slit her throat with a knife. He was arrested and taken to the station house. As the hearing court found, there was ample probable cause for his arrest. About one hour later, he was again read his Miranda rights and he once more gave a statement to Detective Rivers. It was taken down by the officer and signed by defendant. In it, defendant admitted the facts of the crime in detail. After the Huntley hearing, the court found that the police entry into the apartment without a warrant constituted a violation of the holding in Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639, and, therefore, suppressed the confession given in the apartment. However, because of the passage of time between the first and second confessions and the re-reading of the Miranda rights, the court found that there was an attenuation which removed the taint of the Payton violation. We find, however, based upon the uncontradicted evidence before the court, that the entry of the police into the apartment was legal and not in violation of the dictates of Payton v. New York, supra. The testimony at the hearing was unequivocal that defendant voluntarily admitted the police officers, inviting them in and, in fact, even telling them he was "glad" they had come for him. He also told them, "Have a seat while I fix myself a glass of wine." In Payton, the United States Supreme Court held that "the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment ... prohibits the police from making a warrantless and nonconsensual entry into a suspect's home in order to make a routine felony arrest" (Payton v. New York, supra, at 576, 100 S.Ct. at 1374, citations omitted). As noted, there was clearly consent on defendant's part to the police entry. Defendant's conduct in admitting the police and inviting them to sit down while he had a glass of wine negated any inference of coercion. Even if the hearing court was correct in its determination that the initial arrest was illegal, the second written confession was not obtained by "exploitation of the illegality" but "by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint" (Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 487-488, 83 S.Ct. 407, 417, 9 L.Ed.2d 441; see also, People v. Rogers, 52 N.Y.2d 527, 439 N.Y.S.2d 96, 421 N.E.2d 491). The hearing court, in any event, found, as we do, that any "taint" resulting from an illegal arrest was removed by the lapse of time between the statements and the re-reading of the Miranda warnings before defendant made his second confession. Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 45 L.Ed.2d 416, cited by the dissent, is inapposite, even assuming the illegality of the arrest. There, the Supreme Court held that the reading of the Miranda warnings by themselves would not per se break the causal connection between the illegality and the confession. Also, contrary to the facts of Brown, the arrest in this case was not made solely for questioning or investigation. The police had investigated the murder fully and had ample probable cause to arrest defendant at the time that they went to his apartment.

ROSENBERGER, Justice (dissenting).

I dissent and would reverse the judgment appealed from and remand the matter to Supreme Court for a new trial. Defendant was arrested in his apartment, without a warrant, by police officers who entered the apartment with drawn guns while another officer was at a window on the fire escape. Police officers and detectives had gone to the defendant's apartment. When there was no response to...

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3 cases
  • People v. Harris
    • United States
    • New York Court of Appeals
    • February 12, 1991
  • New York v. Harris
    • United States
    • United States Supreme Court
    • April 18, 1990
    ...... In none is the zone of privacy more clearly defined than when bounded by . Page 28 .           the unambiguous physical dimensions of an individual's home—a zone that finds its roots in clear and specific constitutional terms: 'The right of the people to be secure in their . . . houses . . . shall not be violated.' That language unequivocally establishes the proposition that '[a]t the very core [of the Fourth Amendment] stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable ......
  • People v. Harris
    • United States
    • New York Court of Appeals
    • October 20, 1988
    ...cause. The trial court found the entry and arrest were not consensual and that finding, undisturbed by the Appellate Division, 124 A.D.2d 472, 507 N.Y.S.2d 823, is binding on this court. Accordingly, the issue before us is limited to whether the causal connection between the illegality and ......

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