MATTER OF CAMPBELL v. Adams
| Decision Date | 06 July 1954 |
| Citation | 206 Misc. 673 |
| Parties | In the Matter of Thomas Campbell, Petitioner,<BR>v.<BR>Francis W. H. Adams, as Police Commissioner of The City of New York, Respondent. |
| Court | New York Supreme Court |
C. Frank Ortloff for petitioner.
Adrian P. Burke, Corporation Counsel (Beatrice Dunn of counsel), for respondent.
Petitioner seeks an order, pursuant to article 78 of the Civil Practice Act, directing the return by the police commissioner of the City of New York of petitioner's fingerprints and photographs, and their duplicates, which were prepared in connection with the arrest of the petitioner on a charge of burglary in 1947, when he was sixteen years of age. This charge of burglary was dismissed by the Magistrate presiding in the Adolescent Court. Thereafter a complaint was filed in said court to have petitioner adjudicated a wayward minor. In said latter proceeding, petitioner was placed on probation for two years.
Seven years later, in 1954, petitioner, now twenty-three years of age, having since served his country in its armed forces in actual combat, applied for a position in an industry, which, for security reasons, requires fingerprints of all job applicants. He was denied employment because investigation in a criminal identification bureau indicated his fingerprints to be those of a person of criminal background. Respondent police commissioner refused the return of the fingerprints and photographs taken of petitioner.
Section 516 of the Penal Law, which deals generally with the return of fingerprints and photographs, provides as follows: "Upon the determination of a criminal action or proceeding against a person, in favor of such person, unless another criminal action or proceeding is pending against him or unless such person has previously been convicted in this state of a crime or of the offense of disorderly conduct or of being a vagrant or disorderly person * * *, every photograph of such person and photographic plate or proof and fingerprints taken or made of such person while such action or proceeding is pending by direction or authority of any police officer, peace officer or any member of any police department, and all duplicates and copies thereof shall be returned on demand to such person by the police officer, peace officer or member of any police department having any such photograph, photographic plate or proof, copy or duplicate in his possession or under his control; and such police officer, peace officer or member of any police department failing to comply with the requirements hereof, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor".
It appears from the preceding provision that at the moment of dismissal, the petitioner was entitled to "demand" the return of his fingerprints and photographs taken "while such action or proceeding is pending". The police commissioner rejected that demand. In the analogous case of Matter of Troilo v. Valentine (179 Misc. 954), the petitioner had been acquitted of violating section 1897 of the Penal Law. Then pending against him also were two criminal actions for which offenses they involved there was no authorization to fingerprint. Of both of the latter he was convicted.
In a proceeding such as the instant one, the court ordered that the fingerprints and photographs of him be returned, despite the convictions, holding (p. 955):
If such is the rule where one is accused of multiple crimes, how much more rational is its application to a situation where one is accused of a crime (the complaint for which is dismissed), and thereafter adjudicated (not convicted) of a status (not a crime) of waywardness!
The determinative fact in any of these cases — and in the instant one — is that the dismissal of a charge in conjunction with which prints and photographs have been taken, ipso facto, entitles the accused to a return of those records.
The Legislature has made this a uniform procedure in related statutes, as for example, under section 552-a...
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...17 (7th Cir.), cert. denied sub nom. Herschel v. Wilson, 385 U.S. 973, 87 S.Ct. 513, 17 L.Ed. 2d 436 (1966). Campbell v. Adams, 206 Misc. 673, 133 N.Y.S.2d 876 (Spec.T. 1954), cited by plaintiffs, is not to the contrary. That case involved only interpretation of relevant New York statutes g......
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