People v. Paul
| Decision Date | 08 April 1988 |
| Citation | 527 N.Y.S.2d 905,139 A.D.2d 916 |
| Parties | PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Prinell PAUL, Appellant. |
| Court | New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division |
Gerald T. Barth by James Maxwell, Syracuse, for appellant.
Robert Wildridge by Lisa Rosenthal, Syracuse, for respondent.
Before DOERR, J.P., and BOOMER, GREEN, LAWTON and DAVIS, JJ.
Defendant appeals from his convictions of burglary, robbery, unlawful imprisonment and criminal mischief. He raises several claims of error, only one of which warrants our consideration.
Defendant and others allegedly entered the apartments of Mary Crampton and Virginia Dower in the City of Syracuse at nighttime. As a result, various items of jewelry were taken from the apartments. Defendant was subsequently arrested at the home of his girlfriend, Valerie Hester, when the police, armed with a search warrant, entered the apartment and obtained jewelry and other items belonging to the victims. The items seized were found in the apartment, on defendant's person and in the back yard of the apartment building. All the evidence was inventoried on the return sheet of the search warrant without differentiating the places where it was seized.
On November 7, 1984, defendant made an omnibus motion seeking suppression of the evidence seized in the search of Hester's apartment. On the return date of the motion, the court directed the People to provide defendant with a copy of the search warrant. Thereafter, on April 4, 1985, defendant particularized his motion and moved to suppress all items seized, arguing that the search warrant was invalid on its face and did not establish probable cause to believe that the evidence described in the warrant would be found in the apartment of Valerie Hester. The People made no written response to the original motion nor to the renewed motion. After reserving decision, the suppression court, on May 1, 1985, issued a Decision/Order granting defendant's motion to suppress the evidence seized on the ground that the search warrant was not supported by probable cause. Three weeks later, at a pretrial conference, the People raised for the first time two alternative theories to justify the seizure of some of the evidence in question. First, the prosecutor argued that when the police entered the apartment of Valerie Hester with the search warrant, they also had a valid arrest warrant for defendant and, thus, the items seized from defendant were incident to a lawful arrest. Prior to this time, no mention of an arrest warrant had been made. The prosecutor also claimed that some of the evidence was seized from the back yard after it had been thrown from the apartment window, allegedly by defendant, and, therefore, it had been abandoned and was admissible. Over defendant's objection, the court conducted a hearing and on July 1, 1985, issued a new Decision/Order, reversing in part its original suppression decision. The court found that the arrest warrant was lawfully issued and determined that the items seized from defendant's person and from the back yard would be admissible at trial. Defendant argues that the court impermissibly gave the Peop a second chance to defeat his suppression motion. We agre...
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