People v. Martinez

Decision Date16 December 1992
Citation80 N.Y.2d 444,591 N.Y.S.2d 823,606 N.E.2d 951
Parties, 606 N.E.2d 951 The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Steven MARTINEZ, Appellant.
CourtNew York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
OPINION OF THE COURT

SIMONS, Acting Chief Judge.

This appeal addresses (1) the factual basis necessary to justify police officers' pursuit and detention of a fleeing individual, and (2) whether, under the circumstances presented, police officers properly pursued defendant into a nearby grocery store, recovered drugs he had discarded and arrested him for unlawful possession of those drugs.

On April 7, 1989, at about 10:50 P.M., Mount Vernon City Police Officer Radzinsky was patrolling in a high-crime area with his partner in a marked police car when he saw defendant reach up and remove a metal Hide-a-Key box from the steel grate of a store window. Officer Radzinsky was aware that the area was known for its drug activity; he personally had made approximately 50 drug-related arrests in the vicinity. He also knew, from his experience and training, that Hide-a-Key boxes are sometimes used by drug dealers to "stash" drugs.

After observing defendant, the officers stopped and got out of their car. They were dressed in plain clothes, but Officer Radzinsky had his identifying badge prominently displayed and defendant knew him to be a police officer because defendant had been present when Officer Radzinsky previously arrested a friend of his. At the officers' approach, defendant turned and ran a few steps into a nearby grocery store. The officers chased defendant into the store, saw him pass off the box to codefendant Palmer, and saw Palmer go to the rear of the store and throw the box to the floor. Officer Radzinsky retrieved the box and found it contained 17 vials of what later proved to be crack cocaine.

Defendant contends that the police had no justifiable basis to pursue him into the grocery store, that he abandoned the box as a direct result of illegal police conduct, and that, consequently, the recovered crack should have been suppressed at trial.

The parties have urged two different standards for determining the legality of the police pursuit (compare, People v. Leung, 68 N.Y.2d 734, 736, 506 N.Y.S.2d 320, 497 N.E.2d 687; People v. De Bour, 40 N.Y.2d 210, 223, 386 N.Y.S.2d 375, 352 N.E.2d 562 [reasonable suspicion needed to justify seizure or pursuit], with People v. Howard, 50 N.Y.2d 583, 596, 430 N.Y.S.2d 578, 408 N.E.2d 908 [suggesting that probable cause is needed to justify seizure or pursuit]. The controlling rule is stated in People v. Leung, supra: the police may pursue a fleeing defendant if they have a reasonable suspicion that defendant has committed or is about to commit a crime.

Police-citizen encounters take a variety of forms, ranging from a request for information to an arrest. The greater the level of police interference, the greater the quantum of information necessary to justify it. Thus, we have held that the police need have only some objective credible reason to approach a citizen for information, but they must have probable cause to believe that a crime is or has been committed to support an arrest (see, People v. De Bour, 40 N.Y.2d, at 223, 386 N.Y.S.2d 375, 352 N.E.2d 562, supra ). There is a broad range of legitimate police activity between these two extremes, however, encounters which involve more than an informational stop and less than an arrest. Included among them are forcible stops and seizures which take place whenever an individual's freedom of movement is significantly impeded (see, People v. De Bour, 40 N.Y.2d, at 216, 386 N.Y.S.2d 375, 352 N.E.2d 562, supra ). Illustrative is police action which restricts an individual's freedom of movement by pursuing one who, for whatever reason, is fleeing to avoid police contact. Because the resulting infringement on freedom of movement is similar, both forcible stops and pursuits require the same degree of information to justify them.

Forcibly detaining someone, or pursuing them for the purpose of detaining them, results in a lesser interference with freedom than does an arrest. Consequently, we have held that the police may forcibly stop or pursue an individual if they have information which, although not yielding the probable cause necessary to justify an arrest, provides them with a reasonable suspicion that a crime has been, is being, or is about to be committed (see, People v. Leung, 68 N.Y.2d 734, 736, 506 N.Y.S.2d 320, 497 N.E.2d 687, supra; People v. De Bour, 40 N.Y.2d 210, 223, 386 N.Y.S.2d 375, 352 N.E.2d 562, supra; cf., People v. May, 81 N.Y.2d 725, 593 N.Y.S.2d 760, 609 N.E.2d 113 [decided today].

The courts have applied this rule somewhat unevenly, however, because of language found in People v. Howard, 50 N.Y.2d 583, 430 N.Y.S.2d 578, 408 N.E.2d 908, supra. In Howard, we discussed the two extremes of police-citizen encounters, informational stops and arrests. The discussion of probable cause required for arrest lead some to read the decision as standing for the proposition that probable cause is required to justify police pursuit. The holding of the Court, insofar as relevant to the issue before us, was that flight alone...

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