People v. Daniels

• Decision Date: 30 October 1975
• Parties: , 339 N.E.2d 139 The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Ray DANIELS et al., Appellants.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 436

376 N.Y.S.2d 436

37 N.Y.2d 624, 339 N.E.2d 139

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Ray DANIELS et al., Appellants.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Oct. 30, 1975.

Theodore Krieger and Albert J. Krieger, New York City, for appellants.

Eugene Gold, Dist. Atty. (Barry Gene Rhodes, Roger Bennet Adler, Alan D. Rubinstein and Franklin L. Carroll, III, Brooklyn, of counsel), for respondent.

JASEN, Judge.

Appellants Ray Daniels, Alvin Cooper and Harriet Evans were each convicted, after a jury trial, of criminal possession of a dangerous drug in the third and fourth degrees and of two counts of criminally using drug paraphernalia in the second degree. A codefendant, John Bryant, was acquitted of the same charges. The Appellate Division, one Justice dissenting, affirmed the convictions, without opinion.

On October 22, 1971, at approximately 11:00 A.M., Sergeant Robert Race of the New York City Police went to a six-story apartment building located at 457 Schenectady Avenue, Brooklyn, and placed Ray Daniels' apartment under surveillance. At approximately 1:30 P.M., John Bryant was seen leaving Daniels' apartment. Approximately 45 minutes later, Donald James approached the apartment and, after conversing with one of the occupants, entered the apartment. At 3:05 P.M., Daniels and James left the apartment together. Race alerted other police officers to arrest the two men, and, after observing the arrest from a landing, began to approach the apartment. As he neared the apartment, he spotted John Bryant getting off the building's elevator. Bryant was taken into custody and Daniels and James were returned to the apartment. Appellant Alvin Cooper opened the door to the apartment. In the bedroom, the fourth defendant, Harriet Evans, was lying down in bed, undressed and under the blankets. On the kitchen table, the police found 1331 glassine envelopes, each containing a white powder. The envelopes collectively contained nearly four and one-half ounces of heroin. Two plastic bags, one containing white powder, the other holding gelatin capsules, a scale and three full boxes of cellophane tape were on top of the table. Nearby, there was an additional quantity of empty glassine envelopes and a box of rubber bands. All five suspects were brought into the living room and were arrested.

Donald James pleaded guilty prior to the trial and testified for the People. According to his testimony, Ray Daniels was his partner in the drug trade. They employed Bryant to sell the drugs, Evans to distribute drugs to sellers, and Cooper to handle telephone calls regarding the drugs.

The principal issue on this appeal concerns the statutory requirement that the testimony of an accomplice be corroborated. The appellants argue that the trial court erred in its charge to the jury on the point, and that, in any event, there was insufficient corroborating evidence to support their convictions. We disagree and would affirm the convictions.

Ordinarily, the trier of fact is solely responsible for determining the credibility of witnesses. However, the law looks askance at certain witnesses and, in order to insure fairness to the accused, requires that their testimony be supported by other proof if a conviction is to be had. This corroboration requirement exists to further considerations of public policy, and the amount of corroboration to be required varies with the policy sought to be served by the requirement.

For example, until recently, a defendant could not be convicted of most sexual offenses 'solely on the uncorroborated testimony of the alleged victim.' (Penal Law, former § 130.15; L.1972, ch. 373.) In this respect, the New York corroboration rule was considered the strictest in the country. (Hechtman, Practice Commentaries, McKinney's Cons.Laws of N.Y., Book 39, Penal Law, § 130.16, pp. 456--457; Study, Requirement of Corroborative Evidence for Conviction of Sex Crimes, 1962 Report of N.Y.L.Rev.Comm., pp. 645, 653.) It was necessary to produce additional proof, beyond the testimony of the complainant, that a sexual act had occurred, that the act was criminal in nature, and that the defendant was the person who committed the crime. (Younger, The Requirement of Corroboration in Prosecutions for Sex Offenses in New York, 40 Fordham L.Rev. 263, 268.) The corroboration had to extend to every material element of the crime. (People v. Radunovic, 21 N.Y.2d 186, 190, 287 N.Y.S.2d 33, 35, 234 N.E.2d 212, 214; People v. Croes, 285 N.Y. 279, 282, 34 N.E.2d 320, 321.) This requirement, which was the most stringent of all the corroboration requirements, was deemed necessary since charges of sexual misconduct could easily be made and would be difficult to disprove. (People v. Friedman, 139 App.Div. 795, 796, 124 N.Y.S. 521, 522; Note, Corroborating Charges of Rape, 67 Col.L.Rev. 1137.) In fact, the rule was so strict that it became nearly impossible to enforce the criminal statutes with respect to sex offenses (Ludwig, The Case for Repeal of the Sex Corroboration Requirement in New York, 36 Brooklyn L.Rev. 378) and the law was first amended (L.1972, ch. 373) and then repealed ¹ (L.1974, ch. 14, § 1).

At the opposite end of the scale is the requirement that a defendant cannot be convicted solely upon his own confession or admission. It is necessary for the prosecution to come forward with 'additional proof that the offense charged has been committed.' (CPL 60.50.) The purpose of this rule is to guard against the possibility that a defendant might be convicted and jailed for a crime that never occurred. (People v. Reade, 13 N.Y.2d 42, 45, 241 N.Y.S.2d 829, 831, 191 N.E.2d 891, 892; People v. Lytton, 257 N.Y. 310, 314, 178 N.E. 290, 291.) However, the policy behind the statute is satisfied by the production of some proof, of whatever weight, that a crime was committed by someone. This additional evidence may be either direct or circumstantial. (People v. Cuozzo, 292 N.Y. 85, 92, 54 N.E.2d 20, 24; People v. Jaehne, 103 N.Y. 182, 199--200, 8 N.E. 374, 381--382.) The independent evidence need not even connect or tend to connect the defendant with the crime. The confession itself provides the means for understanding the circumstances of the transaction. (People v. Jennings, 40 A.D.2d 357, 362, 340 N.Y.S.2d 25, 29, affd. on opn. below 33 N.Y.2d 880, 352 N.Y.S.2d 444, 307 N.E.2d 561; People v. Sims, 37 N.Y.2d 906, 378 N.Y.S.2d 381, 340 N.E.2d 743 (decided herewith).)

The corroboration requirement with respect to the testimony of accomplices occupies a middle ground. The rule is that the required corroborative evidence must tend 'to connect the defendant with the commission of (the) offense.' (CPL 60.22, subd. 1.) This rule recognizes that accomplices may themselves be persons of disrepute, lacking the normal indicia of reliability. Moreover, as it is with Donald James, the accomplice may have purchased a reduced exposure to criminal liability by promising to implicate others. (People v. Kress, 284 N.Y. 452, 458--459, 31 N.E.2d 898, 901; People v. Dixon, 231 N.Y. 111, 116, 131 N.E. 752, 753.) Thus, the purpose of this aspect of the rule is to be sure that the facts, even matters which in themselves may be of 'seeming indifference', 'so harmonize with the accomplice's narrative as to have a tendency to furnish the necessary connection between the defendant and the crime.' (People v. Morhouse, 21 N.Y.2d 66, 74, 286 N.Y.S.2d 657, 663, 233 N.E.2d 705, 709; People v. Dixon, supra, 231 N.Y. at pp. 116--117, 131 N.E. at pp. 753--754.) It is not necessary to exclude to a moral certainty every hypothesis but that of wrongdoing. (People v. Kohut, 30 N.Y.2d 183, 193--194, 331 N.Y.S.2d 416, 424--426, 282 N.E.2d 312, 318--319.) All that is necessary is to connect the defendant with the crime in such a way that the jury may be reasonably satisfied that the accomplice is telling the truth. (People v. Malizia, 4 N.Y.2d 22, 27, 171 N.Y.S.2d 844, 846, 148 N.E.2d 897, 899; People v. Dixon, supra, 231 N.Y. at p. 116, 131 N.E. at pp. 753--754.)

With these considerations in mind, ² we turn to the issues presented to us on this appeal. Under the applicable rules, Donald James was an accomplice as a matter of law; he was an actual participant in the offense charged (CPL 60.22, subd. 2) and his testimony must be corroborated. The trial court charged the jury that if they believed the police testimony that there was contraband on the kitchen table when they entered Daniels' apartment, then the testimony of the accomplice had been sufficiently corroborated. ³ In light of the evidence presented in this case, this was ample corroboration. The court's instructions, which the dissenter at the Appellate Division found deficient, must be viewed in light of the entire record. It was Daniels' apartment in which the contraband was found and he was observed leaving it just prior to his arrest. Cooper and Evans were found inside the apartment. When narcotics are found in open view in a room on private premises, every person 'in close proximity' to the drugs at the time of discovery is presumed by statute to have knowingly possessed them. (Penal Law, § 220.25, subd. 2.) While this presumption is, of course, rebuttable, the jury...