People v. Natal

• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Writing for the Court: KAYE; WACHTLER
• Citation: People v. Natal, 75 N.Y.2d 379, 553 N.Y.S.2d 650, 553 N.E.2d 239 (N.Y. 1990)
• Decision Date: 27 March 1990
• Parties: , 553 N.E.2d 239 The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Julio NATAL, Appellant.

Page 650

553 N.Y.S.2d 650

75 N.Y.2d 379, 553 N.E.2d 239

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Julio NATAL, Appellant.

Court of Appeals of New York March 27, 1990.

David B. Weisfuse and Stephen J. Pittari, White Plains, for appellant.

Carl A. Vergari, Dist. Atty. (Maryanne Luciano and Richard E. Weill, White Plains, of counsel), for respondent.

OPINION OF THE COURT

KAYE, Judge.

This appeal challenges the District Attorney's conduct in obtaining--by subpoena returnable to himself--defendant's clothing and personal effects which were taken at the time of arrest and held at the jail during pretrial confinement. We conclude that in this case defendant suffered no constitutional deprivation, and that the conviction should be affirmed despite the District Attorney's misuse of court process.

In connection with his arrest and detention for breaking into a house in the City of Rye, defendant was taken to police headquarters, where he was forced to surrender his clothing and personal effects. As a matter of police routine, those items were inventoried as personal property, placed in a locker for safekeeping, and then transferred to the Westchester County jail where defendant awaited trial.

Nine months later--just one week before trial--by subpoena served on the jail's "Booking Officer," the District Attorney demanded "forthwith" "[i]tems of clothing worn by defendant at time of alleged incident (7/20/85) including white tennis clothes; white tennis socks and sneakers; blue bag." The subpoena was on a printed form, but indicated no court part or Judge's name, and further stated that the officer did "not have to appear in person if this property is immediately furnished to [the] Assistant District Attorney". In response, the requested items were handed over to the District Attorney.

Defendant sought suppression of three of the items--a red bandana, blue bag and letter opener--on the ground that the District Attorney's action constituted an unlawful seizure and abuse of the subpoena process. After denial of the motion, defendant was tried and convicted of burglary, grand larceny and criminal mischief. The bandana, bag and letter opener were introduced in evidence as part of the People's case.

The Appellate Division affirmed defendant's conviction, concluding that the disputed items were not the product of an illegal search or seizure. Moreover, the court held that any error was harmless in that "the physical evidence introduced at trial did little to reinforce the eyewitness's uncontroverted testimony regarding the defendant's involvement in the burglary and his subsequent in-court identification of the defendant." (144 A.D.2d 587, 588, 534 N.Y.S.2d 229.) We now affirm.

Defendant does not challenge the search conducted at the time of his arrest or the inventory of his property conducted as a matter of administrative routine at the time he was jailed. Rather, he asserts that, without a warrant, the People had no right to seize his property while it was being held for him during his pretrial detention. The first question we address, therefore, is whether personal items exposed to police view under unobjectionable circumstances and then lawfully held by the jail for safekeeping may be transferred to the District Attorney, without a warrant, for use as trial evidence. We agree with the Appellate Division that the answer is yes.

Unlike items seized by the police as evidence at the time of arrest--which may be subjected to examination and testing, and retained after defendant is released from custody--items later taken by prison authorities are held as bailments, to be safeguarded for the accused during incarceration (see, Thomas v. Grupposo, 73 Misc.2d 427, 430, 341 N.Y.S.2d 819; Comment, The Inventory Search and the Arrestee's Privacy Expectation, 59 Ind.L.J. 321, 322-323 [1984]. As the jail rules here provided, the arrestee had the right to take his property with him on posting bail or direct that it be released to a third person.

Thus, while he had no immediate possessory right, defendant retained a property interest in his personal effects when he surrendered them at the jail. But the existence of a property interest does not mean that defendant also had a privacy interest protectable by the State and Federal guarantees against unreasonable searches and seizures (People v. Reynolds 71 N.Y.2d 552, 557, 528 N.Y.S.2d 15, 523 N.E.2d 291; United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1, 7, 97 S.Ct. 2476, 2481, 53 L.Ed.2d 538). A constitutionally protected privacy interest requires the existence of a subjective expectation of privacy that society is willing to recognize as reasonable (People v. Rodriguez, 69 N.Y.2d 159, 164-165, 513 N.Y.S.2d 75, 505 N.E.2d 586; People v. Mercado, 68 N.Y.2d 874, 508 N.Y.S.2d 419, 501 N.E.2d 27, cert. denied 479 U.S. 1095, 107 S.Ct. 1313, 94 L.Ed.2d 166). Defendant has not made that showing.

Warrantless searches and seizures of arrestees' possessions during incarceration have been the subject of considerable judicial scrutiny (see generally, 2 LaFave, Search and Seizure § 5.3[b], at 491-497). Overwhelmingly, the cases hold that inspection of personal effects previously exposed to police view under unobjectionable circumstances, does not invade any substantial privacy interest. Relying upon this line of authority, the Supreme Court in United States v. Edwards, 415 U.S. 800, 94 S.Ct. 1234, 39 L.Ed.2d 771 has suggested that a warrant would not be necessary in situations "where the clothing or effects are immediately seized upon arrival at the jail, held under the defendant's name in the 'property room' of the jail, and at a later time searched and taken for use at the subsequent criminal trial." (Id., at 807, 94 S.Ct. at 1239.) In summarizing the present state of Federal law, one prominent commentator has observed: "at least when (i) an object lawfully came into plain view at the time of a search upon the arrestee's arrival at the place of detention, (ii) later investigation establishes that this item is of evidentiary value, and (iii) the item remains in police custody as a part of the arrestee's inventoried property, then it is permissible for the police, without a warrant, to retrieve that object and thereafter deal with it as an item of evidence." (2 LaFave, op. cit., at 491.) While the property here was maintained by the county jail rather than the police, plainly the present case fits within these criteria, and defendant's argument must be rejected under Federal law.

Defendant's argument must also be rejected under State constitutional law, although the facts of this case do not require us to decide whether, as a matter of State constitutional law, we would subscribe to the perceived Federal law on the subject. Most significantly, the facts before us do not involve a postarrest investigation or (to borrow the trial court's phrase in denying preclusion) a "fishing expedition" to uncover evidence with respect to the charged or any other offense. The disputed items here were known personal articles--already fully exposed to view and identified, in accordance with law--that were relevant to the identification of defendant in a trial about to commence, and not sought for further searching or experimentation.

Central to our consideration of defendant's State constitutional claim is People v. Perel, 34 N.Y.2d 462, 358 N.Y.S.2d 383, 315 N.E.2d...