People v. Greene

• Decision Date: 20 November 2007
• Docket Number: No. 139.,139.
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of New York, v. Temel GREENE, Appellant.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

879 N.E.2d 1280

9 N.Y.3d 277

849 N.Y.S.2d 461

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, v. Temel GREENE, Appellant.

No. 139.

Court of Appeals of New York.

November 20, 2007.

Office of the Appellate Defender, New York City (Rosemary Herbert, Richard M. Greenberg and Jonathan Marvinny of counsel), for appellant.

Robert T. Johnson, District Attorney, Bronx (Peter D. Coddington and Jessica Carmela Darpino of counsel), for respondent.

[849 N.Y.S.2d 279]

OPINION OF THE COURT

SMITH, J.

We hold that evidence obtained as a result of a violation of the physician-patient privilege need not be suppressed at a criminal trial.

Facts and Procedural History

Anthony Berrios was shot to death on October 16, 2001. Detective Michael Elliott was assigned to investigate the homicide. Elliott learned from the victim's aunt that, according to talk on the street, the shooting was the result of a fight on October 13 in which a man had been slashed in the face.

Elliott went to a nearby hospital and asked an administrator "if anyone came in for a slashing to the face on that date." The administrator gave him defendant's name and address. With the help of a police computer, Elliott obtained defendant's arrest record and a photograph of him. A witness to the shooting identified the photograph; the trail thus begun led to more evidence against defendant, and eventually to his conviction for second degree manslaughter.

The main ground for defendant's appeal is the denial of his motion to suppress all evidence obtained as a result of the

[849 N.Y.S.2d 280]

hospital's disclosure of defendant's name and address to Elliott. Supreme Court held that evidence obtained in violation of the physician-patient privilege need not be suppressed. The Appellate Division affirmed on two alternative grounds: that there was no breach of the privilege, and that even if there was suppression was not required. A Judge of this Court granted leave to appeal, and we now affirm on the second of those two grounds.

Discussion

CPLR 4504(a) says: "Unless the patient waives the privilege, a person authorized to practice medicine ... shall not be allowed to disclose any information which he acquired in attending a patient in a professional capacity, and which was necessary to enable him to act in that capacity." We have held that the privilege does not apply to "such ordinary incidents and facts as are plain to the observation of any one without expert or professional knowledge" (Klein v. Prudential Ins. Co. of Am., 221 N.Y. 449, 453, 117 N.E. 942 [1917]). The People argue that the rule of Klein controls this case, because defendant's wound was visible to anyone who looked at him. Defendant argues that, while his wound may have been obvious, the cause of it was not; he says that laypeople cannot tell whether a wound is caused by a "slash" or some other kind of injury (cf. Matter of Grand Jury Investigation in N.Y. County, 98 N.Y.2d 525, 531, 749 N.Y.S.2d 462, 779 N.E.2d 173 [2002] [the privilege may turn on "whether particular injuries and their causes would have been obvious to a layperson"]).

We need not decide this issue, because we agree with both courts below that, even if there was a violation of the physician-patient privilege, the suppression of the evidence found as a result is not required. The physician-patient privilege is based on statute, not the State or Federal Constitution (Klein, 221 N.Y. at 453, 117 N.E. 942). Our decisions make clear that a violation of a statute does not, without more, justify suppressing the evidence to which that violation leads (People v. Patterson, 78 N.Y.2d 711, 716-717, 579 N.Y.S.2d 617, 587 N.E.2d 255 [1991]).

We have made an exception to this rule only when the principal purpose of a statute is to protect a constitutional right (People v. Taylor, 73 N.Y.2d 683, 690-691, 543 N.Y.S.2d 357, 541 N.E.2d 386 [1989]; People v. Gallina, 66 N.Y.2d 52, 59, 495 N.Y.S.2d 9, 485 N.E.2d 216 [1985]). The statute at issue in Taylor governed the procedure to be followed on an application by police officers for a search warrant; the statute in Gallina governed court-authorized wiretapping. In each case, while a violation of the

[849 N.Y.S.2d 281]

statute was not necessarily a violation of a constitutional right, the statutes existed to safeguard rights protected by the Fourth Amendment. In those cases, we held that when the statutes were violated, the evidence obtained as a result should be...