People v. Huffman

Decision Date16 December 1976
Parties, 359 N.E.2d 353 The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Tyrone HUFFMAN, Appellant.
CourtNew York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Matthew Muraskin, James J. McDonough and Eugene Murphy, Mineola, for appellant.

Denis Dillon, Dist. Atty., Mineola (Robert N. Zausmer, William C. Donnino and Martin I. Saperstein, Mineola, of counsel), for respondent.

JASEN, Judge.

The significant issue on this appeal is whether the extemporaneous admission of an unidentified individual, elicit by a single question from police officers conducting an on-the-scene investigation of possible criminal activity, is admissible, though the standard preinterrogation warnings were not administered until after the admission and been made.

On June 9, 1974, Long Beach Police Officers Richard Brooks and Daniel Bart were assigned to an early morning tour of duty in a radio patrol car. At approximately 4:30 a.m., the officers drove down the alleyway behind East Park Avenue with their car lights extinguished. They observed several individuals standing on the rear steps leading to the back door of a delicatessen. As the police vehicle approached the steps, the group split up and its members began to run. Officer Brooks, the operator of the patrol car, turned on the headlights. The officers observed the man who had been standing closest to the delicatessen door run down the steps, turn right, and go behind some bushes adjacent to the delicatessen. The police car stopped abreast of the bushes and both officers left the vehicle. Officer Brooks saw the man standing behind the bushes looking at him, and drew his revolver but held it at his side, with the barrel pointing down. His partner, Officer Bart, loosened the clasp on his holster, placed his hand on his weapon but did not draw it. Officer Brooks ordered the man to come out from behind the bushes. When the man emerged, with empty hands held in the air, both officers, with the danger past, fully secured their weapons. The man, subsequently identified as Tyrone Huffman, the defendant, was asked, 'What are you doing back here?' Huffman replied, 'We were trying to break into that store.' Officer Brooks then told him, 'That's enough, don't say anything else. Just get in the back of the car.' Before entering the police car, defendant was given the standard four-fold preinterrogation warnings set forth in Miranda v. Arizona (384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694). This exchange was completed in approximately one minute or less.

After the warnings had been given and defendant placed in the car, the officers asked him what had happened to his companions. Defendant replied, 'They are around the corner.' In the meantime, Officer Bart heard a noise emanating in the garage next to the bushes. He entered the garage and found another individual. The officer asked this person what he was doing. In response, the man told the officer that he lived in the house that was attached to the garage. 'That's where I live.' Officer Bart did not pursue the matter further and returned to the patrol car.

As the officers were driving away from the scene, they observed three men crouched behind an automobile on a nearby street. The defendant was asked, 'Are those your friends that were involved in breaking in?' Defendant stated that they were. As observed earlier, defendant had already received preinterrogation warnings and was therefore aware of his right to remain silent. All the men were placed in the car and cautioned not to talk to each other during the drive to the police station. The officers arrived at the station at approximately 4:40 a.m. The officers then waited with the defendant for 20 minutes until Detective O'Neill arrived. Aside from a pedigree taken by a desk officer, during this wait the police did not converse at all with the defendant. Defendant was brought to an upstairs interrogation room. After being advised of his rights for a second time, the defendant gave the police an oral statement that was subsequently reduced to writing. In the written statement, defendant admitted that he and four friends had been looking for money and were attempting to break into the delicatessen. The delicatessen management kept a rope under the door for the use of restaurant employees and defendant was attempti to reach under the door, grab the rope and use it to force open the door. Defendant read the statement aloud to the officers, initialed some corrections, and signed the statement.

After a hearing on a motion to suppress defendant's oral and written admissions, the trial court found 'that the mere cursory, threshold-type inquiry made by Officer Brooks to the defendant at the scene, did not constitute interrogation and thus does not fall within the ambit of Miranda. (Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694, Supra.) This premise is also substantiated by the fact that immediately after the defendant's response, the officer told him to say no more. The court was further persuaded by the brevity of the encounter at the scene, lasting less than a minute.' Upon trial, defendant was convicted by a jury of attempted burglary in the third degree. The Appellate Division unanimously affirmed the judgment of conviction, without opinion. (49 A.D.2d 1039, 374 N.Y.S.2d 242.) The order of the Appellate Division should be affirmed.

In Miranda v. Arizona (384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694, Supra), the Supreme Court was concerned with the development of procedures which would assure that an individual subject to custodial police interrogation would be accorded the Fifth Amendment privilege against compulsory self incrimination. (384 U.S., at p. 439, 86 S.Ct., at p. 1602.) The court summarized its holding as requiring that 'the prosecution may not use statements, whether exculpatory or inculpatory, stemming from custodial interrogation of the defendant unless it demonstrates the use of procedural safeguards effective to secure the privilege against self-incrimination. By custodial interrogation, we mean questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way.' By procedural safeguards, the court was referring to the fourfold warnings that have now become so familiar to lawyers, the police and the public. (384 U.S., at pp. 444--445, 86 S.Ct., at p. 1612.)

Here, the defendant concedes that the police had the right to stop him pursuant to CPL 140.50 (subd. 1). Rather, his 'objection is to the coercion of answers to the questions posed with guns drawn.' The contention is that defendant had been deprived of his liberty and that, under Miranda and our decision in People v. Shivers (21 N.Y.2d 118, 286 N.Y.S.2d 827, 233 N.E.2d 836), any questioning had to be preceded by warnings. Since the defendant had not been advised of his rights prior to the initial oral admission, it is argued, the admission and all subsequent admissions are inadmissible. (Cf. People v. Tanner, 30 N.Y.2d 102, 331 N.Y.S.2d 1, 282 N.E.2d 98.)

Our decisions, in applying Miranda, have consistently recognized the distinction between coercive interrogation and permissible street inquiry. In People v. P. (Anonymous) (21 N.Y.2d 1, 286 N.Y.S.2d 225, 233 N.E.2d 255), police officers approached the defendant in front of his home and asked to speak to him privately. The officers then questioned defendant for approximately three minutes about his conduct that afternoon. We stated that '(t)his kind of questioning is little different from routine police investigation of crimes or suspicious conduct at a person's home, his place of business or on the street--the kind of questioning which has uniformly been held not to require the Miranda warnings.' (21 N.Y.2d, at pp. 10--11, 286 N.Y.S.2d, at p. 233, 233 N.E.2d, at p. 261.) The fact that the defendant might have been restrained if he had attempted to leave was not considered controlling. The test which we established was whether the defendant 'as a reasonable person' would believe that his freedom had been significantly restrained. (21 N.Y.2d, at p. 10, 286 N.Y.S.2d, at p. 233, 233 N.E.2d, at p. 260.)

In People v. Shivers (21 N.Y.2d 118, 286 N.Y.S.2d 827, 233 N.E.2d 836, Supra), the defendant and a companion were interrogated at length, without warnings, by a police officer who was holding a drawn gun pointed in their direction. We ruled that 'onc (an) officer * * * draw(s) his gun, the individual interrogated is actually deprived of his freedom and, under Miranda, he may no longer be questioned without first being warned of his rights, and any statement elicited without such warnings may not be received in evidence, or otherwise used, at a subsequent trial.' (21 N.Y.2d, at p. 122, 286 N.Y.S.2d, at p. 830, 233...

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