People v. Bryant
| Decision Date | 24 June 1975 |
| Citation | 333 N.E.2d 161,37 N.Y.2d 208,371 N.Y.S.2d 881 |
| Parties | , 333 N.E.2d 161 The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Joseph BRYANT and Michael Jones, Appellants. |
| Court | New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
Judith Preble and William E. Hellerstein, New York City, for appellants.
Nicholas Ferraro, Dist. Atty. (Bruce E. Whitney, Kew Gardens, of counsel), for respondent.
The order of the Appellate Term should be reversed and the order of the Criminal Court City of New York granting defendants' motion to suppress should be reinstated.
Seeing both defendants sitting in a parked car, the patrolman approached and asked to see the driver's license and registration. As he did so he observed 43 empty glassine envelopes, not otherwise described, and a folded 10 dollar bill on the dashboard of the car in which defendants were sitting. The patrolman thereupon arrested defendants and searched each. On defendant Jones he found one glassine envelope containing a white residue; on defendant Bryant he found nothing. The 10 dollar bill was found to contain a white substance which was later analyzed and determined to be six grains of cocaine.
At the suppression hearing the arresting officer testified that he had previously made arrests for drugs being passed from one person to another in a dollar bill folded to make a cup-like container. He testified without particularization that the 10 dollar bill here was folded in the same manner. The officer added that the arrest occurred in a 'narcotics prone location'.
At the conclusion of the officer's testimony counsel for each defendant expressly waived cross-examination and rested on the People's case. The court granted the motion to suppress, observing that suspicion is no basis for an arrest.
On appeal the Appellate Term characterized the patrolman's testimony as equivocal, and rather than making an explicit determination on the probable cause issue, remitted the case to Criminal Court for a hearing De novo. The dissenting Justice would have affirmed the order of the lower court. Evaluating the disposition by the majority as a conclusion that the evidence was insufficient to establish probable cause (a conclusion with which the dissenter agreed), he added that there was no justification in his view for a further hearing to give the People a second opportunity to establish probable cause.
In sum it thus appears that the finding of no probable cause by the hearing court was in effect affirmed at the intermediate appellate level. As we wrote recently in People v. Oden, 36 N.Y.2d 382, 385, 368 N.Y.S.2d 508, 512, 329 N.E.2d 188, 191 ...
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...the State should be given two bites at the apple, we need not decide and intimate no opinion thereon. See People v. Bryant, 37 N.Y.2d 208, 371 N.Y.S.2d 881, 333 N.E.2d 161 (1975). We cannot say the ruling below that there existed probable cause to arrest the defendant without a warrant was ......
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People v. Nieves
...especially where this would involve the repetition of an evidentiary hearing, has long been disfavored (see People v. Bryant, 37 N.Y.2d 208, 371 N.Y.S.2d 881, 333 N.E.2d 161; People v. Garrow, 52 A.D.2d 982, 383 N.Y.S.2d 428; People v. Reingold, 44 A.D.2d 191, 353 N.Y.S.2d 978; People v. Bu......
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People v. Knapp
...no justification to grant "the People a second chance to succeed where once they had tried and failed" (People v. Bryant, 37 N.Y.2d 208, 211, 371 N.Y.S.2d 881, 333 N.E.2d 161). For the reasons stated, the order of the Appellate Division should be reversed, defendant's conviction vacat testi......
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Com. v. Howard
...in his brief that the prosecution should not be given a 'second bite at the apple' or, as put in People v. Bryant, 37 N.Y.2d 208, 211, 371 N.Y.S.2d 881, 884, 333 N.E.2d 161, 162 (1975): 'There (i)s no justification here to afford the People a second chance to succeed where once they had tri......