People v. Garcia
| Decision Date | 18 December 2012 |
| Citation | 20 N.Y.3d 317,2012 N.Y. Slip Op. 08670,983 N.E.2d 259,959 N.Y.S.2d 464 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Appellant, v. Miguel GARCIA, Respondent. |
| Court | New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Robert T. Johnson, District Attorney, Bronx (Stanley R. Kaplan and Joseph N. Ferdenzi of counsel), for appellant.
Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel, LLP, New York City (Matan A. Koch of counsel), and Steven Banks, Legal Aid Society (Andrew C. Fine and Denise Fabiano of counsel), for respondent.
On this appeal, we must determine whether a police officer may, without founded suspicion for the inquiry, ask the occupants of a lawfully stopped vehicle if they possess any weapons. We answer in the negative and, in so holding, necessarily conclude that the graduated framework set forth in Peoplev. De Bour, 40 N.Y.2d 210, 386 N.Y.S.2d 375, 352 N.E.2d 562 (1976) and People v. Hollman, 79 N.Y.2d 181, 581 N.Y.S.2d 619, 590 N.E.2d 204 (1992) for evaluating the constitutionality of police-initiated encounters with private citizens applies with equal force to traffic stops.
On September 19, 2007, shortly after 10:00 p.m., Police Officers Cleri, Manning and Payton, on patrol in a marked police vehicle, pulled over defendant's vehicle because of a defective rear brake light. In addition to defendant, who was behind the wheel, there were four male occupants in the vehicle. According to Officer Manning, the three passengers in the rear seat “were a little[ ] furtive,” kept “looking behind,” and “stiffened up” when he and Officer Cleri approached the vehicle. Officer Cleri also observed that the passengers “made furtive movements, [and] act[ed] nervous.” Officer Cleri asked defendant for his license and registration. Defendant complied with the request. Officer Cleri then asked if anyone in the vehicle had a weapon, and the passenger in the rear middle seat answered, “Yes, I ... have a knife.” The officer directed the passenger to place the knife on the floor and to keep his hands in view. The passenger complied. The officers then ordered the occupants out of the vehicle and frisked each man as he exited the car. After the last passenger exited, Officer Manning saw what appeared to be “a gun or some sort of weapon” wedged between the front passenger seat and the door of the vehicle. With the aid of a flashlight, the officer retrieved and inspected the item, an air pistol.
All five occupants were handcuffed and taken to the police precinct. During a subsequent inventory search of the vehicle, Officer Cleri discovered a second air rifle located in the trunk. Defendant waived his Miranda rights and, after a 15 to 20 minute police interrogation, admitted that he was the owner of the air guns. An ensuing misdemeanor information charged defendant with two counts of misdemeanor possession of an air pistol or rifle (Administrative Code of City of N.Y. § 10–131[b] ).
Defendant moved, as relevant to this appeal, to suppress the air rifles recovered from his vehicle, arguing that the officers had no basis for searching the car after it was stopped. Supreme Court granted defendant's motion, holding that Officer Cleri's question as to whether the occupants possessed any weapons required founded suspicion of criminality and that mere nervousness on the part of the occupants did not give rise to such suspicion. Supreme Court further determined that the People failed to demonstrate a very high probability that the officers would have inevitably discovered the air guns.
The People moved to reargue that portion of Supreme Court's order that suppressed the physical evidence. Relying on People v. Alvarez, 308 A.D.2d 184, 764 N.Y.S.2d 42 (1st Dept.2003), lv. denied,3 N.Y.3d 657, 782 N.Y.S.2d 699, 816 N.E.2d 572 (2004), the People argued that “an inquiry into weapon possession is not a greater intrusion than the right to remove the occupants from the car” and, therefore, does not require suspicion of criminality. Finding Alvarez persuasive, Supreme Court reversed its prior order and held that Officer Cleri's inquiry into the presence of weapons was permissible even though the officer lacked a founded suspicionof criminality. The court did not reach the People's alternative argument that the evidence was admissible under the inevitable discovery doctrine. Defendant pleaded guilty to two counts of the reduced charge of attempted unlawful possession of an air pistol or air rifle (Administrative Code of City of N.Y. § 10–131[b][1] ) and was sentenced to a conditional discharge. The Appellate Division reversed and vacated the judgment convicting defendant, granted defendant's suppression motion and dismissed the information ( People v. Garcia, 85 A.D.3d 28, 923 N.Y.S.2d 433 [1st Dept.2011] ). The court held that Supreme Court erred in relying on Alvarez upon reargument, as that case was distinguishable, and that the trial court's initial determination that the officer's inquiry required founded suspicion was correct ( see id. at 33–34, 923 N.Y.S.2d 433).
A Judge of this Court granted the People's application for leave to appeal (18 N.Y.3d 883, 939 N.Y.S.2d 753, 963 N.E.2d 130 [2012] ) and we now modify.
In light of the heightened dangers faced by investigating police officers during traffic stops, a police officer may, as a precautionary measure and without particularized suspicion, direct the occupants of a lawfully stopped vehicle to step out of the car ( see People v. Robinson, 74 N.Y.2d 773, 775, 545 N.Y.S.2d 90, 543 N.E.2d 733 [1989], citing Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 1047–1048, 103 S.Ct. 3469, 77 L.Ed.2d 1201 [1983];Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106, 98 S.Ct. 330, 54 L.Ed.2d 331 [1977] ). While “[a] citizen does not surrender all the protections of the Fourth Amendment by entering an automobile” ( New York v. Class, 475 U.S. 106, 112, 106 S.Ct. 960, 89 L.Ed.2d 81 [1986] ), the United States Supreme Court declared in Mimms that the intrusion occasioned by requiring an occupant to “expose to view very little more of his person than is already exposed” is “de minimis” and “cannot prevail when balanced against legitimate concerns for the officer's safety” (434 U.S. at 111, 98 S.Ct. 330 [emphasis omitted] ). Accordingly, we held in Robinson that “[b]rief and uniform precautionary procedures of this kind are not per se unreasonable and unconstitutional” under federal law (74 N.Y.2d at 775, 545 N.Y.S.2d 90, 543 N.E.2d 733).
The rule of Mimms and Robinson stands independently of that articulated in De Bour and Hollman and generally used to assess the reasonableness of police conduct toward private citizens in New York State. The De Bour/Hollman framework sets out four levels of police-citizen encounters and the attendant, escalating measures of suspicion necessary to justify each. At the initial level, a “request for information,” a police officer may approach an individual “when there is some objective credible reason for that interference not necessarily indicative of criminality” ( De Bour, 40 N.Y.2d at 223, 386 N.Y.S.2d 375, 352 N.E.2d 562;see Hollman, 79 N.Y.2d at 185, 581 N.Y.S.2d 619, 590 N.E.2d 204). The request may “involve [ ] basic, nonthreatening questions regarding, for instance, identity, address or destination” ( Hollman, 79 N.Y.2d at 185, 581 N.Y.S.2d 619, 590 N.E.2d 204). However, “[o]nce the officer asks more pointed questions that would lead the person approached reasonably to believe that he or she is suspected of some wrongdoing ... the officer is no longer merely seeking information” ( id.). This “common-law right of inquiry, a wholly separate level of contact, is ‘activated by a founded suspicion that criminal activity is afoot’ ” ( id. at 184, 581 N.Y.S.2d 619, 590 N.E.2d 204, quoting De Bour, 40 N.Y.2d at 223, 386 N.Y.S.2d 375, 352 N.E.2d 562). Although we have not yet addressed this issue, other appellate courts have characterized a police officers question as to whether an individual has a weapon as a common-law inquiry requiring founded suspicion of criminality ( see People v. Ward, 22 A.D.3d 368, 368, 802 N.Y.S.2d 166 [1st Dept.2005]; People v. Stevenson, 7 A.D.3d 820, 821, 779 N.Y.S.2d 498 [2d Dept.2004]; People v. Park, 294 A.D.2d 887, 888, 741 N.Y.S.2d 824 [4th Dept.2002] ).
Whether the “founded suspicion” requirement of De Bour and Hollman applies to a police officer's ability to ask the occupants of a lawfully stopped vehicle if they are in possession of a weapon is debated on this appeal. Relying on the police safety justification discussed in Mimms and Robinson, the People ask us to adopt the rule that police officers may routinely pose that question regardless of any suspicion of criminality because the inquiry serves a legitimate protective purpose and is no more intrusive on the occupants' privacy than an order to step out of the vehicle. While the People acknowledge that we have applied the De Bour/Hollman framework in the context of traffic stops ( see People v. Battaglia, 86 N.Y.2d 755, 631 N.Y.S.2d 128, 655 N.E.2d 169 [1995] ), they argue that it is best suited for, and should generally be limited to, street encounters. Defendant, conversely, points out that in addition to this Court, all four departments of the Appellate Division have applied the De Bour/Hollman rules to traffic stops and argues that carving out the exception the People seek would be inconsistent with our search and seizure jurisprudence and would subject citizens to accusatory inquiry without even a minimal factual basis.
We have long placed paramount importance on promoting “ ‘predictability and precision in judicial review of search and seizure cases and the protection of the individual rights of our citizens' ” ( see People v. P.J. Video, 68 N.Y.2d 296, 304, 508 N.Y.S.2d 907, 501 N.E.2d 556 [1986], quoting People v. Johnson, 66 N.Y.2d 398, 407, 497 N.Y.S.2d 618, 488 N.E.2d 439 [1985] ). We have also “sought to provide and maintain ‘bright line’ rules to guide the decisions of law...
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