People v. Boyles
| Decision Date | 08 March 1973 |
| Citation | 73 Misc.2d 576,341 N.Y.S.2d 967 |
| Parties | PEOPLE of the State of New York v. Calvin BOYLES, Defendant. |
| Court | New York Supreme Court |
Thomas Mackell, Dist. Atty., Queens County, for the People; Joseph Joch, Asst. Dist. Atty., of counsel.
David Minkoff, New York City, for defendant.
In this motion brought by defendant to suppress allegedly illegal evidence, the record reveals that defendant had been a 'stand-by' at Kennedy Airport while waiting his turn to board an airplane and to make his intended flight to Chicago.
In that time, he was at length designated as a 'selectee' by the supervising personnel in charge and control for the purpose of undergoing a search for weapons, because, in their opinion, he seemed to fit within the framework of what they denominated as 'behavioral profile,' according to the standard set at the airport by the Bureau of Customs, such being a procedure aimed at detecting for identification suspicious persons, if any, who, being of a dangerous caliber, might be planning to board an airplane and likely to cause trouble.
Defendant, because he was dressed in a jacket studded with metal buttons, 'tripped' the so-called 'magnetometer,' a metal detecting machine that reveals possession of weapons on one's person, a requirement to which all passengers had to submit for safety purposes as a protection for them while on flight. (It is parenthetically noted here that defendant did neither say nor do anything to indicate either any consent or any refusal regarding the application of this form of procedure.) The result of this manner of reasonable frisk up to this point, had satisfied the inspecting officer that defendant was devoid of any weapons on his person.
On completion of the foregoing test, the officer then proceeded farther in his examination of defendant's person. Eventually, it seems, when he reached defendant's right leg, he happened to touch something there that felt like a 'bandaid' situated underneath the right trouser leg. Whereupon, he suspected that that something was a hidden narcotic of some sort. His suspicion leaned towards confirmation when defendant lifted his trouser leg at the officer's direction, and that something on inspection turned out to be a packet containing a small amount of white powder.
As to the attitude of defendant with respect to this procedure, his testimony shows that he had not given permission to make the subsequent search of his person, and that the only reason for his submitting to this search was that he believed he had no alternative but to submit to this kind of procedure when confronted by an officer in uniform and wearing a gun, after being taken by the arm authoritatively by the officer to make the search. Consequently, it is defendant's contention that the frisking of defendant's person by the customs official amounted to a supererogation of authoritative duty, and so, was a trespass; therefore, he views it as a flagrant violation of his constitutional protection under the Fourth Amendment.
On the other hand, the People contend that the customs official had acted in a fully reasonable and lawful manner when he...
To continue reading
Request your trial