People v. Minus

• Decision Date: 10 March 2015
• Docket Number: 14466, 4090/11
• Citation: 126 A.D.3d 474,2015 N.Y. Slip Op. 01901,5 N.Y.S.3d 76
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Omar MINUS, Defendant–Appellant.
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division

126 A.D.3d 474
5 N.Y.S.3d 76
2015 N.Y. Slip Op. 01901

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent
v.
Omar MINUS, Defendant–Appellant.

14466, 4090/11

Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department, New York.

March 10, 2015.

5 N.Y.S.3d 77

Richard M. Greenberg, Office of the Appellate Defender, New York (Joseph M. Nursey of counsel), for appellant.

Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., District Attorney, New York (Karen Schlossberg of counsel), for respondent.

FRIEDMAN, J.P., SWEENY, ACOSTA, DeGRASSE, GISCHE, JJ.

Opinion

126 A.D.3d 475

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Michael R. Sonberg, J. at suppression hearing; Cassandra Mullen, J. at jury trial and sentencing), rendered January 4, 2012, convicting defendant of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree, and sentencing him, as a second drug felony offender, to a term of three years, unanimously reversed, as a matter of discretion in the interest of justice, and the matter remanded for a new trial.

One of the three police witnesses testified that he saw defendant ride a bicycle to a street corner in a drug-prone area, have a quick conversation with another man, and then hand the man a small, unidentified

5 N.Y.S.3d 78

object in exchange for cash. The detective inferred, based on his narcotics training and experience, that this exchange was a drug transaction. After he transmitted a report of these observations to his field team, another detective saw defendant throwing drug packages toward his mouth, two of which landed on the ground and were recovered by the police. The remaining packages entered defendant's mouth and were not recovered.

The trial court issued a pretrial Molineux ruling (People v. Molineux, 168 N.Y. 264, 61 N.E. 286 [1901] ) precluding the People from using the testimony about the hand-to-hand exchange for any purpose other than to explain the subsequent actions of the police, specifically noting that this testimony could not be used as a evidence of defendant's intent to sell the drugs found in his possession. The prosecutor “disregard[ed] the court's rulings” (People v. D'Alessandro, 184...