People v. Bartolomeo

• Decision Date: 16 June 1981
• Citation: 440 N.Y.S.2d 894,423 N.E.2d 371,53 N.Y.2d 225
• Parties: , 423 N.E.2d 371 The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Peter BARTOLOMEO, Appellant.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 894

440 N.Y.S.2d 894

53 N.Y.2d 225, 423 N.E.2d 371

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Peter BARTOLOMEO, Appellant.

Court of Appeals of New York.

June 16, 1981.

Richard A. Greenberg, New York City, for appellant

Patrick Henry, Dist. Atty. (Vincent A. Malito, Asst. Dist. Atty., of counsel), for respondent.

OPINION OF THE COURT

JONES, Judge.

Where to the knowledge of the interrogating officer a suspect being questioned had been arrested by the same law enforcement agency nine days previously on an unrelated charge, statements obtained in consequence of the interrogation must be suppressed if in fact the suspect is represented by an attorney with respect to the unrelated charge even though the fact of such representation is unknown to the officer. In such circumstances defendant cannot effectively waive his right to counsel unless the attorney is present. ¹ There need not be suppression, however, of evidence seized pursuant to a search warrant issued on the basis of a sworn statement by one who has personal knowledge of, and participated in, events which provide probable cause for the issuance of the warrant.

On this appeal from an order affirming a judgment convicting defendant of the crime of murder in the second degree after a jury trial defendant contends that numerous errors before and during trial, require reversal of his conviction. Because error was committed in the denial of his pretrial motion to suppress incriminating statements obtained from him while in custody in the absence of, and in violation of his right to, counsel, we reverse and remit for further proceedings without consideration of other alleged trial errors.

Findings of fact made by the Judge who presided at the suppression hearing, which have been affirmed by the Appellate Division, establish the following sequence of events. On May 27, 1978 defendant was arrested by the Suffolk County Police Department and arraigned on a charge of arson. At that arraignment defendant was represented by counsel, attorney Joseph Stabile.

Thereafter, on June 5, 1978, defendant was apprehended by officers of the same law enforcement agency and taken to its homicide headquarters in connection with an investigation then being conducted of the death of one John McLaughlin which had occurred the preceding April. At no time did defendant or his father, who was with him when he was taken into custody, refer to the fact that he had an attorney on the arson charge.

At the police station two homicide squad detectives, Rafferty and Donohue, both of whom knew of defendant's arson arrest a few days earlier but neither of whom knew that he was represented by counsel in that matter, advised defendant of his constitutional preinterrogation rights. In response to questions from the detectives and without mention of the fact that he already had an attorney on the arson charge, defendant stated that he did not want an attorney and would answer the detectives' questions without one. Detective Rafferty then informed him that he was under arrest for the McLaughlin homicide and, by relating details of a statement implicating defendant given by an accomplice Caprisecca (who was already in custody in connection with the crime), extracted from defendant the incriminating statements sought to be suppressed. Approximately three quarters of an hour after defendant's arrival at the police station, an attorney, who had been consulted by attorney Stabile concerning the arson charge, called the station and informed Detective Rafferty that he was representing defendant and wanted all questioning to cease. Thereupon the interrogation promptly came to an end.

In denying suppression of Detective Rafferty's and Detective Donohue's testimony as to the statements made to them by defendant while he was in custody on June 5, the Judge presiding at the suppression hearing concluded that there had been no violation of the defendant's constitutional right of access to counsel at the time he waived his right to counsel, no attorney having entered the homicide proceeding at that time. "The defendant's happenstance representation by an attorney in the unrelated arson proceedings, such fact being unknown to the homicide squad detectives, is insufficient to invoke the Hobson rule." ² The Appellate Division, 77 A.D.2d 819, 429 N.Y.S.2d 979, affirmed, without opinion.

We reach a different conclusion and accordingly reverse the judgment of conviction. Knowledge that one in custody is represented by counsel, albeit on a separate, unrelated charge, precludes interrogation in the absence of counsel and renders ineffective any purported waiver of the assistance of counsel when such waiver occurs out of the presence of the attorney (People v. Miller, 54 N.Y.2d 616, 442 N.Y.S.2d 491, 425 N.E.2d 879; People v. Rogers, 48 N.Y.2d 167, 422 N.Y.S.2d 18, 397 N.E.2d 709). The same consequence flows from knowledge, such as that possessed by Detectives Rafferty and Donohue here, that the defendant has been arrested only seven days earlier by members of the same police department on an arson charge, if in fact the defendant has counsel on the earlier charge. This follows naturally on the awareness on the part of law enforcement personnel of judicial concern for, and protection of, a criminal defendant's right to the aid of counsel at every critical stage of proceedings against him. Hence, the interrogating detectives here, with actual knowledge of the outstanding arson charge against defendant, were under an obligation to inquire whether defendant was represented by an attorney on that charge. Having failed to make such inquiry, the officers were chargeable with what such an inquiry would have disclosed--namely, that defendant did have an attorney acting on his behalf. With such knowledge they were foreclosed either from questioning defendant or from accepting his waiver of counsel's assistance unless his attorney was then present. It was therefore error to deny suppression of testimony as to the statements made by defendant at the Suffolk County police station on June 5, 1978. For this reason, defendant's conviction must be vacated.

We reject however defendant's contention that it was error to deny suppression of his 1966 Volkswagen which had been seized pursuant to a search warrant issued by Suffolk County Court. (At the trial photographs of the vehicle taken by the police after its seizure were received in evidence, as was testimony by a resident of the neighborhood in which the homicide occurred, who had been shown the Volkswagen by the police, that it looked like a vehicle that he had seen there on the night of the homicide.) ³

The warrant which directed seizure of the vehicle, reciting that probable cause had been shown that the Volkswagen constituted evidence of a crime and tended to show that a particular person had committed a crime, was issued on presentation to a Suffolk County Court Judge of a sworn, written statement given by the accomplice Caprisecca which accompanied an affidavit by Detective Rafferty. The first of these documents contained a detailed eyewitness recital of events surrounding the McLaughlin homicide, including a description of Caprisecca's and defendant's midnight journey in defendant's Volkswagen to the place of residence of the victim armed with a gun for the purpose of getting money, of their entry into the house after ringing the bell with no response, of defendant's shooting the victim who was surprised on the premises, of their hurried departure in the Volkswagen, and of the subsequent disposal of the weapon by throwing it in a bay. Detective Rafferty's affidavit stated that he had received information through a conversation with Caprisecca that (1) the described Volkswagen had been used during the commission of the identified April homicide and (2) that Caprisecca and defendant had committed the homicide, which information he characterized as reliable. In denying the request for suppression of defendant's vehicle which had been seized pursuant to the warrant, the Judge before whom the suppression hearing was held found that reasonable and sufficient cause for the warrant had been demonstrated to the issuing Judge.

In that conclusion we find no error, an ample showing of probable cause (the sine qua non for issuance of a search warrant) having been made in the two documents--and, in particular, in the sworn statement by the accomplice Caprisecca--on which the request for the warrant was predicated.

Defendant's insistence that the sufficiency of the documents submitted to the issuing Judge must be measured by the two-pronged test set out in Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723 is misplaced. The requirements of Aguilar must be met when a warrant is sought on the basis of an affidavit made by a law enforcement officer reciting information related to him by another person--often, as in Aguilar, an unidentified informant. In such a case, where the affidavit " 'contains no affirmative allegation that the affiant spoke with personal knowledge of the matters contained therein' " (378 U.S. p. 113, 84 S.Ct. p. 1513), it must be shown both that the source from which the officer obtained his knowledge was reliable and that the information obtained from that source was itself entitled to be credited. Subsequent application of the Aguilar requirements, by both the Supreme Court of the United States and the courts of this State, have been in cases in which the material necessary to provide reasonable cause for the issuance of a warrant has been included in the affidavit of the officer applying for the warrant and has consisted of communications to the officer by a third person, unsupported by a sworn statement or affirmation of such third person (e. g., United States v. Harris, 403 U.S. 573, 91 S.Ct. 2075, 29 L.Ed.2d 723; Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed.2d 637; United States v. Ventresca, 380 U.S. 102, ...