People v. Harris

• Decision Date: 20 October 1988
• Citation: 72 N.Y.2d 614,532 N.E.2d 1229,536 N.Y.S.2d 1
• Parties: , 532 N.E.2d 1229 The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Bernard HARRIS, Appellant.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 1

536 N.Y.S.2d 1

72 N.Y.2d 614, 532 N.E.2d 1229

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Bernard HARRIS, Appellant.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Oct. 20, 1988.

Certiorari Granted April 17, 1989.

See 109 S.Ct. 1741.

Bernard Harris pro se.

Paul T. Gentile, Dist. Atty. (Karen Swiger and Billie Manning, New York City, of counsel), for respondent.

OPINION OF THE COURT

SIMONS, Judge.

Defendant has been convicted after trial of murder, second degree, for the stabbing death of his former girlfriend. The evidence against him included a statement he made in the police station approximately an hour after the police arrested him in his apartment without a warrant. Defendant contends that the statement should have been suppressed because it was obtained in violation of constitutional guarantees against illegal searches and seizures (see, N.Y. Const., art. I, § 12; U.S. Const. 4th Amend.). The People contend that the entry and arrest were consensual but maintain that even if illegal under Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639, the confession was admissible because it was sufficiently attenuated from the illegality. This is particularly so, they claim, because at the time of the arrest the police were acting on probable 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 the confession was attenuated.

Ordinarily, questions of attenuation are mixed questions of law and fact that we may review only to ascertain whether there is support in the record for the determination of the lower courts (see, People v. Borges, 69 N.Y.2d 1031, 1033, 517 N.Y.S.2d 914, 511 N.E.2d 58; People v. Conyers, 68 N.Y.2d 982, 984, 510 N.Y.S.2d 552, 503 N.E.2d 108; People v. Bastidas, 67 N.Y.2d 1006, 1007, 503 N.Y.S.2d 315, 494 N.E.2d 446). In this case however, we must look to the legal sufficiency of the evidence, particularly the weight to be attributed to probable cause in cases involving Payton violations. We conclude defendant's statement should have been suppressed on Fourth Amendment grounds and therefore reverse the order of the Appellate Division and order a new trial.

On January 11, 1984 the police found the dead body of Thelma Staton in her apartment and investigation quickly developed probable cause to believe that defendant Bernard Harris was the killer. Five days later, on January 16, 1984, three police officers went to his apartment, without an arrest warrant, to take him into custody. The officers knocked on the apartment door but there was no response so one officer went down a fire escape to the window of the apartment, knocked on it, and said "Police". As he did so, the other two officers, with guns drawn and at their side, again knocked on the front door. Defendant looked out the peephole of the door and one officer displayed his badge. Defendant then opened the front door and allowed the officers to enter. One of the officers testified that as he did so defendant stated that he was glad the police had come for him. The police then read defendant his Miranda rights. He acknowledged that he understood them and stated that he was willing to answer their questions. The officers told defendant that he was suspected of murdering Thelma Staton and the officers testified that after they did so defendant poured himself a glass of wine and then admitted that he had killed the victim with a knife. He was arrested, taken to the station house where he was again given Miranda warnings, and made the written inculpatory statement to the police which was received at trial and is the subject of this appeal. Subsequently, defendant was given Miranda warnings a third time, just prior to the making of a videotaped interview with an Assistant District Attorney. However, this time when asked whether he wanted to speak about the death of Thelma Staton, defendant answered that he was tired and stated: "Well, I really don't know what to say right now * * * I have said all I can say." Nonetheless, a full statement was videotaped in which defendant again admitted that he had murdered Staton.

After a Huntley hearing, Supreme Court suppressed the first statement, given in defendant's apartment, as the product of an illegal arrest and it suppressed the third videotaped statement given to the Assistant District Attorney, because it was taken after defendant had stated that he did not wish to be questioned further. It denied the motion to suppress the second statement finding the Miranda warnings had been repeated and defendant waived his rights before making the statement. The court's findings, undisturbed by the Appellate Division, included findings that the police had probable cause to arrest defendant at the time they entered his apartment, that they went there with the intention of making a warrantless arrest in his home and that defendant opened the door and permitted the police to enter because he was submitting to their authority. The trial court concluded that "no clearer violation" of Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639,supra could be established.

Defendant was convicted after a bench trial and the judgment was affirmed by a divided Appellate Division. Justice Sandler, with whom Justice Wallach concurred, agreed with the Supreme Court's determination that the police had made an illegal arrest but nevertheless found attenuation based upon the existence of probable cause. He also found that defendant gave his written statement at the station house not because he felt committed by what he had said at his apartment but because he had made a clear decision to admit his guilt prior to the illegal entry of the police. ¹ The trial court made no such finding and Justice Sandler cited no evidence in the record to support his conclusion.

Justice Asch, joined by Justice Kassal, concurred in affirmance in a separate writing. He found that defendant had consented to the police entry but held that, assuming a Payton violation, any "taint" resulting from the illegal arrest was removed by the lapse of time between the initial confession and the rereading of the Miranda warnings before defendant made his second confession.

Justice Rosenberger dissented and voted to reverse the judgment and remand the matter for a new trial. He concluded that there was no significant intervening event between the defendant's initial statement in his apartment, found by the hearing court to be the result of his unlawful arrest, and the written statement given at the police station.

In Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639, supra, the Supreme Court held that arrest was a species of seizure and that a warrantless, nonconsensual entry into a suspect's home to make a routine felony arrest violates the Fourth Amendment. Noting that the Fourth Amendment protects individual privacy in a number of settings, it pointed out that in none of them is the zone of privacy more clearly defined than in "the unambiguous physical dimensions of an individual's home" (445 U.S. at 589, 100 S.Ct. at 1381, supra). Accordingly, it held that the fruits of illegal entries must be suppressed even though the police might have probable cause to conduct a search or effectuate an arrest outside the home without a warrant. Under the rule of Payton, this arrest was clearly illegal, as the courts below found, and it only remains to determine the consequences of the illegal police conduct.

In Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441, the Supreme Court first considered whether a confession, otherwise admissible, must be suppressed if it is the "fruit" of an antecedent illegal arrest. The court held that verbal evidence "which derives so immediately from an unlawful entry and an unauthorized arrest" is no less the product of official illegality than the more common physical, tangible evidence obtained as a direct result of an unlawful invasion. Therefore, the exclusionary rule operates to bar from trial any verbal statements obtained as a direct result of an unlawful invasion (id., at 485, 83 S.Ct. at 416). In Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 45 L.Ed.2d 416, the Supreme Court clarified the Wong Sun decision and addressed the proper effect that should be given to Miranda warnings administered after an illegal arrest.

In Brown, defendant was unlawfully arrested and taken to a police station where some two hours later, after being given proper Miranda warnings, he made the incriminating statements used against him at trial. Justice Blackmun, speaking for the court, noted the Fourth and Fifth Amendment concerns in the case and stated that for the causal chain between the illegal arrest and the subsequent statements to be broken Wong Sun requires not merely that the statement meet the Fifth Amendment's standards but also requires "consideration of a statement's admissibility in light of the distinct policies and interests of the Fourth Amendment" (id., at 602, 95 S.Ct. at 2261). The court reasoned that if Miranda warnings, by themselves, were sufficient to attenuate the taint of an unconstitutional arrest, any incentive to avoid Fourth Amendment violations would be substantially impaired and the exclusionary rule diluted. Thus, the court held that Miranda warnings in and of themselves do not purge the taint of the original illegality. The court rejected a "but for" standard that would require suppression of all statements made after police illegality, however, and held that the question of whether a confession is the product of a free will under Wong Sun must be answered by reviewing the facts of each case. Three of the factors to be considered, the court said, are the temporal proximity of the arrest and the confession, the...