People v. Martinez

• Citation: 37 N.Y.2d 662,339 N.E.2d 162,376 N.Y.S.2d 469
• Parties: , 339 N.E.2d 162 The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Benny MARTINEZ, Appellant.
• Decision Date: 28 October 1975
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 469

376 N.Y.S.2d 469

37 N.Y.2d 662, 339 N.E.2d 162

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Benny MARTINEZ, Appellant.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Oct. 28, 1975.

Gregory G. Jones, New York City, for appellant.

Nicholas Ferraro, Dist. Atty. (Thomas A. Duffy, Jr., Jackson Heights, of counsel), for respondent.

GABRIELLI, Judge.

Defendant's conviction, following a jury verdict, of the crime of felony murder (Penal Law, § 125.25, subd. 3) has been affirmed by an unanimous Appellate Division. As we choose to frame it, the dispositive issue presented on this appeal may be posed as follows: did the illegality of the initial 'stop' of the automobile in which defendant was a passenger taint the arrest for illegal possession of a firearm and thus, perforce, the subsequent station house interrogation of the defendant concerning the homicide for which he was ultimately convicted. If this question is answered in the affirmative, the admissions made by him during the interrogation, as well as the incriminating evidence to which those admissions may have led, are subject to the exclusionary rule of Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383, 34 S.Ct. 341, 58 L.Ed. 652 (see, also, People v. Rodriguez, 11 N.Y.2d 279, 286, 229 N.Y.S.2d 353, 356--357, 183 N.E.2d 651, 653) held applicable to the States in Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081, and would then have been improperly admitted at trial. We are thus asked to delineate the scope of the exclusionary rule and to define the point at which evidence is sufficiently removed from any questionable police conduct as to survive the "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine set forth in Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 488, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441. (See, also, People v. Robinson, 13 N.Y.2d 296, 301, 246 N.Y.S.2d 623, 624--625, 196 N.E.2d 261, 262--263.)

On April 1, 1971, defendant was a passenger in an automobile, parked at the curb with its motor running, in front of a liquor store in a 'high crime' area in the Borough of Queens. Sometime after 11:00 A.M., two New York City police officers, Wilson and Quinlan, approached the vehicle and asked the driver for his license and registration. Later, at the hearing on the motion to suppress, Officer Wilson explained that he took such action because he suspected 'there was possibly something going on in reference to the liquor store.' He further stated that the 'time of day' and the 'dirty' and 'rogue-y' appearance of the vehicle's occupants formed the basis of his suspicions. When the driver made what Officer Wilson characterized as a 'quick' motion toward the glove compartment, he opened the door of the automobile and spotted a gun on the floor in the rear of the car. He seized the gun and arrested the occupants of the automobile.

Following defendant's arrest, Patrolmen Wilson and Quinlan took him to the 103rd Precinct. Shortly before noon, detectives investigating the robbery and homicide of one Leonid Manague, which occurred six days earlier near a Lafayette Radio Store in Queens, indicated to Officer Wilson that they wanted to ask defendant some questions about a 'homicide'. Appellant was adequately informed of his rights including the right to remain silent and the right to the assistance of counsel. During the course of the interrogation by the homicide squad detectives which followed, defendant admitted only (1) that on the night of the mugging he was out with one 'Geraldine Neal' and a fellow named 'Egghead' and (2) that he, 'Egghead' and Miss Neal were 'over by the Lafayette Radio Store' on that evening. Defendant did not make a confession but, in fact, explicitly denied involvement in the homicide. In that sense, his statements were intended to to exculpatory. After the interrogation at the 103rd Precinct, defendant was taken to night court for arraignment on the weapons charge for which he was arrested. On the day of defendant's arrest, Detective Green, a member of the homicide squad investigating the Manague murder, brought Miss Neal to the station house. ¹ She stated to the police that defendant 'told her he had stabbed a white fellow over by Lafayette and mugged him with an 007 knife'. The detectives also learned from her the address of the apartment where defendant often spent the night. When investigating detectives went to that address and gained entrance by consent of the occupants, they discovered a leather coat which was later identified as belonging to the victim. In the pocket of the coat a 'switchblade knife' was found. These items were introduced against defendant at trial along with the testimony of Miss Neal, her mother and sister to the effect that defendant had these items on the night of the mugging. Defendant's own station house admissions were also introduced against him.

At the hearing on the motion to suppress the gun seized pursuant to the initial stop, the statement made by the defendant during the interrogation and the knife and coat, the court ruled that all the evidence was admissible. The Trial Judge found that the initial stop ² and arrest were justified. With respect to the statements made by defendant, he concluded that the defendant had been informed of his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694, and that he knowingly and intelligently waived these rights. The court also concluded that the statements were voluntary and not the product of a coercive interrogation.

In Wong Sun v. United States (371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441, Supra), the Supreme Court recognized the applicability of the exclusionary rule to the verbal fruits of an unauthorized arrest. In that case, the court also held that the Fourth Amendment did not require the summary exclusion of all evidence connected with alleged illegal police conduct and, in terms somewhat opaque, also said that the relevant question is whether the evidence was obtained by exploitation of the illegality or by means 'sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint.' (Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 488, 83 S.Ct. 407, 417, 9 L.Ed.2d 441, Supra). The court reasoned that the statement of defendant Wong Sun was admissible because it was made voluntarily several days after arraignment following defendant's release on his own recognizance, and thus could be characterized as an act of 'free will' (p. 486, 83 S.Ct. 407). On the other hand, the statements of defendant Toy were held inadmissible because they were made under coercive conditions, minutes after Federal agents forced their way into his home.

More recently, faced with the precise issue raised in this case, the Supreme Court added further content to the 'attenuation' doctrine articulated in Wong Sun. Dealing with a custodial statement made subsequent to an unlawful arrest, the court, in a narrow holding, said that Miranda warnings 'alone and Per se, cannot always make the act sufficiently a product of free will to break, for Fourth Amendment purposes, the causal connection between the illegality and the confession' (Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 603, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 2261, 45 L.Ed.2d 416). Three factors were deemed relevant in determining whether a confession or admission was produced by exploitation of an illegal arrest: (1) '(t)he temporal proximity of the arrest and confession'; (2) 'the presence of intervening circumstances' and (3) 'the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct.' (Brown v. Illinois, supra, 422 U.S. 590, 603--604, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 2262, 45 L.Ed.2d 416.)

In the intervening period between the Wong Sun and Brown decisions, many of the lower Federal courts focused upon the purpose and character of the challenged police activity in determining whether evidence gleaned from such activity was subject to the exclusionary rule. Thus, in Collins v. Beto, 5 Cir., 348 F.2d 823, the court held that a confession should be suppressed where the police had absolutely no reasonable basis for arresting the defendant for a vagrancy charge and the arrest was merely a ruse to detain defendant for questioning. The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit suppressed a confession pursuant to an illegal detention, lasting 44 hours, which was aimed at enabling police officers to build a case against the defendant (United States ex rel. Gockley v. Myers, 3 Cir., 450 F.2d 232). In United States v. Edmons, 2 Cir., 432 F.2d 577, the pretext of arresting defendant for Selective Service Act violations was utilized to enable government agents to identify the defendants for another crime and the court held that such a sham arrest could not provide the basis for the detention, and the confession obtained thereby was excluded under the 'fruit of the poisonous tree' doctrine.

Our own court has had occasion to condemn the device of the sham arrest in the context of the right to counsel. In People v. Jackson, 22 N.Y.2d 446, 451, 293 N.Y.S.2d 265, 269, 239 N.E.2d 869, 871, Chief Judge Fuld wrote that 'statements taken from a defendant after he has been subjected to a sham arraignment, usually for vagrancy, are inadmissible'. (See, also, People v. Robinson, 13 N.Y.2d 296, 301, 246 N.Y.S.2d 623, 624, 196 N.E.2d 261, 262, Supra; People v. Malloy, 22 N.Y.2d 559, 293 N.Y.S.2d 542, 240 N.E.2d 37.)

The requirements that a defendant's statement be voluntary and that Miranda warnings be given have, of course, been deemed essential for the admissibility of a defendant's custodial statements. ³ These requisites satisfy the demands of the Fifth Amendment privilege against self incrimination, but also serve the purposes of the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. However, under Brown v. Illinois (supra), Miranda warnings are not in themselves sufficient to enable custodial statement to pass Fourth Amendment muster when the propriety of official conduct is in question. We hold today that in addition to the dictates of Miranda and the standard of...