People v. Crooks

• Decision Date: 11 June 2015
• Docket Number: 106311
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Dayshawn CROOKS, Appellant.
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division

129 A.D.3d 1207
11 N.Y.S.3d 709
2015 N.Y. Slip Op. 04881

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent
v.
Dayshawn CROOKS, Appellant.

106311

Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Department, New York.

June 11, 2015.

11 N.Y.S.3d 710

Matthew C. Hug, Troy, for appellant, and appellant pro se.

P. David Soares, District Attorney, Albany (Brittany L. Grome of counsel), for respondent.

Before: McCARTHY, J.P., EGAN JR., DEVINE and CLARK, JJ.

Opinion

CLARK, J.

129 A.D.3d 1207

Appeal from a judgment of the County Court of Albany County (Ceresia, J.), rendered August 15, 2013, upon a verdict convicting defendant of the crime of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree (two counts).

In January 2013, defendant was charged with two counts each of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree and criminally using drug paraphernalia in the second degree after police officers executing a search warrant at his apartment in the City of Albany discovered, among other things, a quantity of crack cocaine. After a jury trial, defendant was found guilty of both counts of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree. County Court thereafter sentenced defendant—as a second felony offender—to an aggregate prison term of eight years followed by three years of postrelease supervision. Defendant now appeals, and we affirm.

Initially, we agree with County Court that a Darden hearing was not necessary inasmuch as probable cause for the search warrant was established, in part, by the independent observations of the police (see People v. Farrow, 98 N.Y.2d 629, 630–631, 745 N.Y.S.2d 752, 772 N.E.2d 1110 [2002] ; People v. Darden, 34 N.Y.2d 177, 181–182, 356 N.Y.S.2d 582, 313 N.E.2d 49 [1974] ; People v. Sudler, 75 A.D.3d 901, 903–904, 906 N.Y.S.2d 373 [2010], lv. denied 15 N.Y.3d 956, 917 N.Y.S.2d 116, 942 N.E.2d 327 [2010] ). The search warrant at issue stemmed from two controlled

129 A.D.3d 1208

purchases of crack cocaine, orchestrated by police and involving the use of a confidential informant (hereinafter the CI).¹ In his search warrant application, and during his in-court examination at a Mapp hearing, Detective James Wood of the City of Albany Police Department explained that both buys had been electronically monitored via a live audio transmitter worn by the CI during the CI's interactions with defendant in and around the Albany apartment. At certain points during these transactions, Wood and/or another police officer were also able to visually observe the CI interacting with defendant. Moreover, the CI was fully searched and found to be

11 N.Y.S.3d 711

without contraband before entering the apartment or interacting with defendant, while additional searches upon the CI's exit revealed crack cocaine. Thus, we cannot agree with defendant's contention that it was error for County Court to deny his request for a Darden hearing, as the search warrant that led to the instant charges was supported by probable cause independent of any information directly provided by the CI alone (see People v. Farrow, 98 N.Y.2d at 631, 745 N.Y.S.2d 752, 772 N.E.2d 1110 ; People v. Anderson, 104 A.D.3d 968, 970–971, 960 N.Y.S.2d 548 [2013], lvs. denied 21 N.Y.3d 1013, 971 N.Y.S.2d 495, 994 N.E.2d 391 [2013], 21 N.Y.3d 1016, 971 N.Y.S.2d 498, 994 N.E.2d 394 [2013] ).

Nor are we persuaded by defendant's contention that the verdict is against the weight of the evidence. “Such review entails weighing the relative probative force of conflicting testimony and the relative strength of conflicting inferences that may be drawn from the testimony while viewing the evidence in a neutral light and giving deference to the jury's credibility assessments” (People v. Gibson, 121 A.D.3d 1416, 1418, 995 N.Y.S.2d 383 [2014], lv. denied 24 N.Y.3d 1119, 3 N.Y.S.3d 761, 27 N.E.3d 475 [2015] [internal quotation marks and citations omitted]; see People v. Danielson, 9 N.Y.3d 342, 348–349, 849 N.Y.S.2d 480, 880 N.E.2d 1 [2007] ; People v. Bleakley, 69 N.Y.2d 490, 495, 515 N.Y.S.2d 761, 508 N.E.2d 672 [1987] ). Inasmuch as a different verdict would not have been unreasonable, we...