People v. Gomez

• Decision Date: 30 June 2009
• Docket Number: No. 119,119
• Citation: 912 N.E.2d 555,13 N.Y.3d 6
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Appellant, v. Victor GOMEZ, Respondent.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

912 N.E.2d 555

13 N.Y.3d 6

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Appellant, v. Victor GOMEZ, Respondent.

No. 119

Court of Appeals of New York.

June 30, 2009.

Robert M. Morgenthau, District Attorney, New York City (Jung Park and Mark Dwyer of counsel), for appellant.

DLA Piper LLP (US), New York City (Christopher C. Land of counsel), and Legal Aid Society (Steven Banks, David Crow and Andrew Fine of counsel) for respondent.

OPINION OF THE COURT

JONES, J.

The issue before us is whether the People met their initial burden of establishing a valid inventory search. We hold that they have not.

On June 23, 2005, at approximately 12:45 A.M., two New York City Police Department (N.Y.P.D.) officers were on patrol in a marked police car in Manhattan (area of 107th Street and Amsterdam Avenue) when one officer noticed a 1999 Dodge Stratus driving erratically. This officer conducted a computer search of the vehicle's license plate and found that defendant Victor Gomez owned the vehicle, but that his driver's license (and driving privileges) had been suspended. The officers stopped the vehicle, confirmed that defendant, the sole occupant of the vehicle, was driving with a suspended license, arrested defendant for same and impounded the vehicle. Defendant was cuffed and placed in the patrol car.

One of the arresting officers, who recognized defendant from a prior incident in which defendant had threatened to shoot the officer and himself,¹ and other officers began searching the car. Because the door on the driver's side was blocked due to the way it was parked, an officer accessed the car through the passenger side and conducted a cursory search of the car's interior, recovering nothing. The police also searched the trunk of defendant's car and found a paper bag containing a powdered substance that appeared to be cocaine, a plastic bag with white residue, an electric scale and a small manila envelope containing red pills. Because a crowd was gathering at the scene, it was decided that the search would be continued at the precinct. While driving defendant's car to the station, an officer discovered 45 empty plastic "baggies" in the driver's side door panel.

Defendant, who was charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree and criminally using drug paraphernalia in the second degree, moved to suppress the items recovered during the search of his vehicle. After a combined Mapp, Huntley, Dunaway hearing in which the arresting officer who searched defendant's car testified, Supreme Court denied defendant's motion, finding that it was reasonable, under the circumstances, for the police to conduct an inventory search of defendant's vehicle. Subsequently, defendant, in satisfaction of the indictment, pleaded guilty to criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree and was sentenced, as a second felony offender, to a determinate prison term of 3½ years.²

In a 4-1 decision, the Appellate Division reversed the conviction, granted defendant's motion to suppress the evidence and dismissed the indictment (50 A.D.3d 407, 859 N.Y.S.2d 621 [2008]). According to the majority, the People failed to (1) "establish the content of any standardized procedure for inventory searches promulgated by the [NYPD]" (id. at 409, 859 N.Y.S.2d 621), (2) come forward with evidence that the search of defendant's car was conducted in accordance with any such standardized procedure and (3) establish that the police created any meaningful inventory list—"the hallmark of an inventory search" (id., quoting People v. Johnson, 1 N.Y.3d 252, 256, 771 N.Y.S.2d 64, 803 N.E.2d 385 [2003])—of the items found in defendant's car. The dissenting Justice argued that defendant's claims were not preserved for appellate review and that even if they were, the People met their initial burden of establishing a valid inventory search. A Justice of the Appellate Division granted the People leave to appeal, and we now affirm.

In People v. Galak, 80 N.Y.2d 715, 594 N.Y.S.2d 689, 610 N.E.2d 362 [1993], this Court noted:

"The analysis of what constitutes a reasonable inventory search begins with the language of the Fourth Amendment, which protects citizens not from all searches by governmental actors but only from those that are `unreasonable'. In its modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, the Supreme Court has held that the reasonableness of a search is calculated by weighing the governmental and societal interests advanced by the search against the individual's right to be free from arbitrary interference by law enforcement officers (United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 878, 95 S.Ct. 2574, 45 L.Ed.2d 607 [remaining citations omitted])" (80 N.Y.2d at 718, 594 N.Y.S.2d 689, 610 N.E.2d 362).

Further,

"[a]n inventory search is ... designed to properly catalogue the contents of the item searched. The specific objectives of an inventory search, particularly in the context of a vehicle, are to protect the property of the defendant, to protect the police against any claim of lost property, and to protect police personnel and others from any dangerous instruments (...