People v. Adessa

• Decision Date: 27 March 1997
• Parties: , 680 N.E.2d 134 The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Matthew ADESSA, Appellant.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 863

657 N.Y.S.2d 863

89 N.Y.2d 677, 680 N.E.2d 134

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Matthew ADESSA, Appellant.

Court of Appeals of New York.

March 27, 1997.

Nicolosi & Sciacca, Bayside (Vincent F. Nicolosi and Matthew J. Larkin, of counsel), for appellant.

Richard A. Brown, District Attorney of Queens County, Kew Gardens (Alexander H. Gardner and John M. Castellano, of counsel), for respondent.

James M Catterson, Jr., District Attorney of Suffolk County, Riverhead (Glenn Green, of counsel), and Francis D. Phillips, II, District Attorney of Orange County, Goshen, for New York State District Attorneys Association, amicus curiae.

OPINION OF THE COURT

TITONE, Judge.

The issue in this appeal is whether it is inherently prejudicial to obtain an indictment against a civilian defendant from a Grand Jury that has also been asked to consider a police misconduct charge arising out of the same incident. On this appeal, defendant contends that such a presentment procedure so impairs the integrity of the Grand Jury proceeding as to taint the indictment. Finding no concrete prejudice resulting from the "dual slip" presentment in this case, we conclude that the indictment against defendant was properly upheld.

According to the evidence presented to the Grand Jury as described in the opinions below, defendant entered a Queens gas station at about 4:50 A.M. on the morning of October 2, 1993. Having been asked to pay in advance for his gas, defendant reentered his vehicle and sped away. In the process, he allegedly hit another car that was parked at the gas station and nearly struck a security guard who was attempting to record his license plate number.

Two police officers in an unmarked vehicle observed defendant's hasty departure from the gas station. Believing that a robbery may have occurred, they chased defendant through several traffic lights, flashing their headlights and using an attachable rotating red light. When defendant's vehicle finally came to a stop, the officers exited their car and identified themselves. At that point, the officers saw the back-up lights on defendant's vehicle flash on and, fearful that defendant was about to back into them, the officers returned to their car. Defendant sped off again and the chase resumed, terminating only when defendant brought his vehicle to a stop in the right-hand lane of the Long Island Expressway.

Defendant alit from his car with a baseball bat in his hand and moved in the officers' direction. The officers again identified themselves as police and ordered defendant to drop the bat. Rather than doing so, however, defendant continued to move toward them. One of the officers fired his weapon at defendant, striking him in the legs and buttocks. Defendant ran back to his car and sped away. He was subsequently arrested at Deepdale Hospital, where he had driven for treatment immediately after the shooting.

Approximately three weeks after the arrest, defendant's attorney advised the District Attorney's office that he planned to request an administrative and criminal investigation into possible misconduct by the officer who had fired at defendant. Noting the prospect of a conflict arising from the existence of defendant's cross complaint, defense counsel further advised the District Attorney that his client would not testify before the Grand Jury with respect to the charges leveled against him.

On November 10, 1993, the matter was presented to a Grand Jury as a "dual slip" presentment, the first "slip" involving "the People against Matthew Adessa" and the second involving "an investigation into the shooting of Matthew Adessa." The only witnesses to testify were the gas station attendant, the shooting officer's partner and a third officer who had been sent to the hospital to place defendant under arrest. Neither defendant nor the shooting officer testified before the Grand Jury.

On February 2, 1994, the Grand Jury voted to indict defendant on two counts of first degree reckless endangerment, two counts of second degree reckless endangerment, one count of second degree menacing, one count of fourth degree criminal possession of a weapon and one count of leaving the scene of an accident. The menacing and weapon counts arose out of defendant's alleged use of a baseball bat and the remainder of the charges arose out of his vehicular activities. Several charges were also submitted against the shooting officer, but the Grand Jury declined to indict. ¹

On April 27th, defense counsel moved to dismiss the indictment against defendant in motion papers that detailed defendant's claim of police misconduct. Defense counsel's affirmation alleged, among other things, that defendant had been unaware that the unmarked vehicle chasing him contained police officers. He had brandished the baseball bat at the vehicle's occupants, who had never identified themselves as police officers, because he feared for his own safety. Defense counsel also alleged that defendant had already turned around to flee when the officer fired his third shot. In further support of his claim that the police had acted improperly, counsel noted that the officers had not attempted to apprehend the injured defendant after he reentered his car and fled the scene of the shooting.

Several months later defense counsel filed a supplementary motion for dismissal, asserting that he had just learned that both the case against his client and the "investigation" into the police officers' conduct had been presented to the same Grand Jury. Counsel argued that the Grand Jury proceeding was "tainted" because defendant, the only person with evidence to give against the officers, was "never given an opportunity to appear" or to give testimony in the proceeding. Counsel further argued that the Grand Jury could not have impartially considered the evidence against defendant when it "had already found credible" the testimony of the People's police officer-witness.

The Supreme Court granted defendant's motion and dismissed the indictment. The court noted that the District Attorney could not be faulted for failing to notify defendant of the presentment against the officers or for depriving him of an opportunity to testify against them, since, unlike a target, a complainant has no statutory or common-law right to appear before a Grand Jury and the People enjoy broad discretion in determining how to conduct their case. Nonetheless, the court concluded that the People had breached their obligation of fairness by taking advantage of a "spilling over of sympathy" by the grand jurors for the officers, prejudicing defendant's right to an unbiased Grand Jury hearing.

On the People's appeal, however, the Appellate Division reversed and reinstated the indictment. While it recognized that the People's discretion with regard to Grand Jury presentations is not without limits, the Court found no reason in law or policy to hold that two separate Grand Juries are required when there are cross accusations by police officers and citizens. Additionally, on the facts before it, the Appellate Division concluded that there was no basis for a finding that "the Grand Jury proceeding was impaired to the defendant's possible prejudice." (218 A.D.2d 415, 420, 640 N.Y.S.2d 895.) Defendant has appealed by permission of a Judge of this Court.

It is beyond dispute that the Grand Jury has the dual role of investigating crimes and protecting citizens from unfounded prosecutions and governmental overreaching (People v. Lancaster, 69 N.Y.2d 20, 25, 511 N.Y.S.2d 559, 503 N.E.2d 990; People v. Calbud, Inc., 49 N.Y.2d 389, 396, 426 N.Y.S.2d 238, 402 N.E.2d 1140). It is also beyond dispute that improper influences and exposure to bias can so undermine the Grand Jury's integrity as to require dismissal of the resulting indictment (see, People v. Huston, 88 N.Y.2d 400, 646 N.Y.S.2d 69, 668 N.E.2d 1362; CPL 210.20[1][c]; 210.35[5] ). The issue presented here does not concern the vitality of these principles, but rather concerns the nature and extent of particularized prejudice, if any, that this defendant suffered by virtue of the "dual slip" procedure that was followed in his case. Absent a breach of a statutory command or some indication of likely prejudice, there is no legal basis for interfering with the prosecutor's prerogatives in determining the manner in which a Grand Jury presentment is made.

We begin our analysis with defendant's own claims of prejudice. In an argument that met with success in the Supreme Court, defendant contends that the joint presentment of citizen-police officer cross complaints is "inherently prejudicial" because the "societal respect and admiration police officers enjoy" could induce the grand jurors to give undue credence to the police-generated evidence against the civilian target. The argument, however, does not withstand scrutiny, since it rests on a speculative assumption that is neither self-evidently valid nor pragmatically viable in our system of criminal justice. That rationale is clearly not acceptable.

First, because the enforcement of the criminal laws is entrusted to police officers, the conduct and testimony of police officers figure prominently in virtually every aspect of criminal proceedings. Further, because the police-witnesses' version of events is frequently challenged, the probity and veracity of police officers must often be assessed in the face of conflicting versions offered by civilian-witnesses, including the accused. Thus, to adopt the assumption that police testimony enjoys an unwarranted advantage in credibility disputes would be to cast doubt on the fairness of nearly every proceeding in which the truth of such testimony is disputed. Second, in this age of spontaneous videotaping of arrests and widespread news coverage of police brutality claims, it seems doubtful that many grand jurors asked to resolve a credibility dispute between an officer and a civilian would necessarily...