People v. Lane

Decision Date30 November 1961
Citation179 N.E.2d 339,223 N.Y.S.2d 197,10 N.Y.2d 347
Parties, 179 N.E.2d 339 The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Edward Junior LANE, Defendant, and Theodore McNeil, Clarence Lee Sloan and JohnHenry Williams, Appellants.
CourtNew York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

James P. Cassidy, Newburgh, for Theodore McNeil, appellant.

Lazarus I. Levine, Liberty, for Clarence Lee Sloan, appellant.

Solomon A. Klein, Brooklyn, for John Henry Williams, appellant.

Abraham Isseks, Dist. Atty., Goshen (Angelo J. Ingrassia, Middletown, and Robert M. Devitt, Newburgh, of counsel), for respondent.

BURKE, Judge.

The judgments convicting defendants of felony murder and sentencing them to death must be reversed and new trial ordered.

The most substantial errors raised by appellants concern the admissibility of their confessions, nature of the search resulting in discovery of the revolver, sufficiency of evidence corroborating accomplice testimony, and propriety of actions of the District Attorney.

We hold that no error was committed in submitting to the jury, under proper instructions, the voluntary nature of the confessions, although obtained after removal from the county jail, and during a delay in arraignment (Rogers v. Richmond, 365 U.S. 534, 81 S.Ct. 735, 5 L.Ed.2d 760; Stein v. New York, 346 U.S. 156, 187-188, 73 S.Ct. 1077, 97 L.Ed. 1522). Admissibility of confessions is a matter of State procedure (Rogers v. Richmond, supra, 365 U.S. p. 543, 81 S.Ct. 735). Nothing in Mapp v. Ohio (367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081) is to the contrary.

It is evident that Mapp does not bar the admission, as evidence, of the revolver found in McNair's car, unless it was seized by an unreasonable search, for 'It is (only) unreasonable searches that are prohibited by the Fourth Amendment.' (United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 60, 70 S.Ct. 430, 432, 94 L.Ed. 653; Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 147, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543). A search incident to a lawful arrest is itself lawful (People v. Defore, 242 N.Y. 13, 18, 150 N.E. 585, 586; People v. Chiagles, 237 N.Y. 193, 142 N.E. 583, 32 A.L.R. 676; Carroll v. United States, supra) and, regardless of the character of the arrest, a search is legal if there is consent thereto.

The investigation conducted in this case meets both these tests.

'A peace officer may, without a warrant, arrest a person, * * * (w)hen a felony has in fact been committed, and he has reasonable cause for believing the person to be arrested to have committed it' (Code Crim.Proc. § 177).

The classic statement of the meaning of probable, or reasonable, cause is that of Chief Justice Marshall in Locke v. United States (7 Cranch 339, 11 U.S. 339, 348, 3 L.Ed. 364): 'It may be added, that the term 'probable cause,' according to its usual acceptation, means less than evidence which would justify condemnation. * * * It imports a seizure made under circumstances which warrant suspicion.' (See, also, Henry v. United States, 361 U.S. 98, 102, 80 S.Ct. 168, 4 L.Ed.2d 134; Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 175, 69 S.Ct. 1302, 93 L.Ed. 1879; Carroll v. United States, supra, 267 U.S. p. 162, 45 S.Ct. 280; Dumbra v. United States, 268 U.S. 435.)

It is conceded that the arrest took place at the time that Sergeant Decker and Officer Cerone approached the car with guns drawn and ordered the two occupants out (see Henry v. United States, supra, 361 U.S. p. 103, 80 S.Ct. 168; Code Crim.Proc. §§ 167, 171). The testimony of decedent's wife, Sergeant Gallagher and Officer Cerone shows that the arresting officers had 'reasonable cause for believing the person to be arrested to have committed' the felony (Code Crim.Proc. § 177). The arrest, therefore, being lawful, the incidental search was also permissible.

Furthermore we find the search of the automobile was conducted with the consent of the owner, McNair. Such acquiescence is binding on the occupants, for '(t)he immunity from unreasonable searches and seizures being personal, one cannot object to the searching of another's premises or property if the latter consents to the search, even though property is found, for the possession of which defendant is subsequently prosecuted.' (4 Wharton's Criminal Law and Procedure, p. 215).

Defendants' contention that there is insufficient evidence in the record to corroborate the accomplice testimony given by Lane and Williams is contrary to the facts. Such proof is clearly found in testimony that McNeil and Sloan were arrested while seated in a car in which the murder weapon was found, and further that of the witness Kirby as to the presence of all of the defendants together in an apartment both before and after the killing.

However, when the District Attorney, in spite of objections, referred in his summation to the absence of brutal treatment of McNair, reversible error was committed. The testimony of this witness, which had been excluded as a result of the District Attorney's objection, was relevant, and could have been allowed on the issues of credibility and coercion. A common pattern of mistreatment of all of the suspects held in connection with the commission of the crime was pertinent to a particularly critical conflict in the evidence. It was, therefore, clearly prejudicial to the defendants for the District Attorney, after succeeding in preventing testimony on that subject by McNair, to aruge that McNair was not beaten, and urge that, therefore, the jury should find the others similarly treated. Such conduct merely served to illustrate the importance attached by all parties to that testimony. Hence the reference by the District Attorney to the nonexistent evidence constitutes error requiring our reversal.

A reversal is also dictated by the cumulative effects of the improprieties committed on cross-examination and in the summation. Although taken singly they were not detrimental, considered collectively they were exceedingly harmful (see People v. Carborano, 301 N.Y. 39, 42, 92 N.E.2d 871, 872).

In this view it is not necessary to pass on the other questions.

Accordingly, all the judgments appealed from should be reversed, and a new trial ordered.

FULD, Judge (concurring).

I agree that there must be a new trial for the reasons set forth in the court's opinion, but, contrary to the view held by the majority, I believe that reversible error was also committed by the trial judge's ruling admitting into evidence the defendants' confessions.

Upon further deep and considered reflection, I am convinced that our present rule which permits a confession to be used against a defendant, even though obtained in contravention of law, is indefensible. 'Nothing can destroy a government more quickly', observed Mr. Justice Clark, writing for the Supreme Court in Mapp v. Ohio (367 U.S. 643, 659, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 1694), 'than its failure to observe its own laws * * *. As Mr. Justice Brandeis, dissenting, said in Olmstead v. United States, 1928, 277 U.S. 438, 485, 48 S.Ct. 564, 575, 72 L.Ed. 944: 'Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. * * * If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. '' Indeed, Mr. Justice Brandeis went on to say in Olmstead, 'To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means to declare that the government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal would bring terrible retribution.'

In the case before us, the confessions were obtained from the defendants not only while they were being unlawfully detained in violation of the arraignment provisions of our statute (Code Crim.Proc. § 165; Penal Law, Consol.Laws, c. 40, § 1844), 1 but also after they had been illegally removed for what reason does not appear from the county jail. 2 In my view, 'the imperative of judicial integrity' (Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 222, 80 S.Ct. 1437, 4 L.Ed.2d 1669; see, also, Cahn, The Sense of Injustice (1949), pp. 116-117), as well as the principle and rationale underlying the decision in Mapp (even though not its holding), condemn the confessions and call for their exclusion from evidence.

As judges of the State's highest court ever under the necessity of reconsidering an old and unsatisfactory court-made rule, at variance with concepts of justice and fair dealing (see, e. g., People v. Oakley, 9 N.Y.2d 656, 212 N.Y.S.2d 72, 173 N.E.2d 48 (voluntary confession sworn to before judicial officer excluded); People v. Waterman, 9 N.Y.2d 561, 216 N.Y.S.2d 53, 175 N.E.2d 445 (voluntary confession obtained after indictment excluded); People v. Spitaleri, 9 N.Y.2d 168, 212 N.Y.S.2d 53, 173 N.E.2d 35 (withdrawn plea of guilty excluded); Bing v. Thunig, 2 N.Y.2d 656, 667, 163 N.Y.S.2d 3, 11, 143 N.E.2d 3, 9) we should not uphold confessions procured in violation of law. And, consonant with this, we should read into our prompt arraignment statute (Code Crim.Proc. § 165) the meaning we declined to give it some years ago (see People v. Mummiani, 258 N.Y. 394, 399-400, 180 N.E. 94, 96; People v. Alex, 265 N.Y. 192, 194, 192 N.E. 289, 290, 94 A.L.R. 1033. Cf. McNabb v. United States, 318 U.S. 332, 63 S.Ct. 608, 87 L.Ed. 819; Mallory v. United States, 354 U.S. 449, 77 S.Ct. 1356, 1 L.Ed.2d 1479; Rogers v. Richmond, 365 U.S. 534, 540-541, 81 S.Ct. 735) and refuse to accept confessions obtained during the period of unlawful detention.

'A democratic society, in which respect for the dignity of all men is central,' the Supreme Court declared in a case also dealing with confessions illegally secured, 'naturally guards against the misuse of the law enforcement process. * * * Legislation * * *, requiring that the police must with reasonable promptness show legal cause for detaining arrested persons, constitutes an important safeguard not only in assuring protection for the innocent but...

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    ...We have observed some of the flagrant abuses in the confession area. (See Judge Fuld's dissent in People v. Lane, 10 N.Y.2d 347, 354-357, 223 N.Y.S.2d 197, 199, 179 N.E.2d 339, 340.) We may expect that the police will push such authority to the limit. The 'unlawful' detentions and 'unsucces......
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