People v. Robinson
| Decision Date | 24 May 2001 |
| Parties | (A.D. 1 Dept. 2001) The People of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Claude Robinson, Defendant-Appellant. 3494 : FIRST JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT |
| Court | New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division |
Defendant appeals from a judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Carol Berkman, J. at hearing; Richard Carruthers, J. at jury trial and sentence), rendered July 8, 1996, convicting him of two counts of robbery in the second degree, and one count of attempted robbery in the third degree.
Carol A. Remer-Smith, of counsel (Robert M. Morgenthau, District Attorney, New York County, attorney) for respondent,
Rosemary Herbert, of counsel (Lara Adamsons, on the brief, Richard M. Greenberg, attorney) for defendant-appellant.
Milton L. Williams, J.P., Peter Tom, Richard T. Andrias, Alfred D. Lerner, and David B. Saxe, JJ.
This appeal raises the fundamental issue of when an investigative detention ripens into an arrest. Specifically, we are asked to consider whether a police officer's initially valid stop of an individual who is suspected of a crime becomes invalid when that individual is handcuffed, involuntarily transported to the police station and placed in a barred cell for two to three hours to await a lineup. We conclude that the combination of these elements constitutes an arrest which was unlawful in the absence of probable cause.
According to the testimony given by Officer Paul Wasielewski at the suppression hearing, at the start of his shift at the Sixth Precinct in Manhattan on December 21, 1995, he and the other officers received information about a series of "pattern robberies" at stores in Manhattan. They were told that the robber was a black male in his mid-20s or early 30s, 5 employees at what time the store closed, sometimes look around or price an item, and then return at closing time to rob the store.
Officer Wasielewski testified that this was the third time he had heard about a robbery suspect fitting this description. Days before, he had learned that a black male wearing sunglasses and a blue jacket with a bulldog decal had robbed a store on Bedford Street. Further, several weeks before, Officer Wasielewski had responded to another call from a robbery victim who described the perpetrator with the same identifying characteristics.
At approximately 6:30 p.m. on December 21, Officer Wasielewski received a radio transmission concerning a suspicious male in a children's clothing store on Hudson Street in downtown Manhattan. He responded to the call along with Sergeant Clune, and proceeded to the store. Two witnesses in the store told Officer Wasielewski that a black man, wearing sunglasses and a blue jacket with a bulldog on the back, had come into the store for the second time and asked what time the store opens and closes. This time, the witnesses said, the man had another black man with him.
Officer Wasielewski consequently broadcast a description of the men over the radio, indicating that the man with the bulldog jacket and sunglasses was a possible suspect in a series of robberies and that the two men had left the store on Hudson Street. Officer Wasielewski waited inside the store for the suspects to return, and Sergeant Clune left to look for the suspects. By the time the store closed, the two men had not returned. The two store employees went home, and Officer Wasielewski returned to the station house.
At approximately 6:40 p.m., Officer Joseph Guzzino heard Officer Wasielewski's radio transmission and began canvassing the area in an unmarked car. Twenty minutes later, Officer Guzzino spotted the defendant, Claude Robinson, a few blocks from Hudson Street. He was wearing a blue Georgetown Hoyas jacket with a bulldog decal on the back. The officer observed him peering inside a candy store, looking up and down the street and sporadically talking to another man, later identified as Myles or Mills. Myles was leaning against the building where the candy store was located.
Officer Guzzino watched the two men for 20 minutes and followed them on foot as they walked a few blocks and stopped at a second store. Again, the officer observed the defendant peering inside the store, looking up and down the street and talking to Myles. At the hearing, the officer explained that he believed that the defendant was casing the stores in anticipation of robbing them: observing who was in the stores, what security systems were in place and generally trying to determine how easy it would be to carry out a robbery.
While watching the two men, Officer Guzzino spoke with Sergeant Clune over the radio and described the defendant's behavior and location. Following instructions from the sergeant, Officer Guzzino stopped the defendant and Myles at 7:20 p.m on 14th Street, between Fifth Avenue and University Place. He frisked the men for weapons, but found none, although he did seize a pair of sunglasses from the defendant.
The defendant was then handcuffed, placed in a police car and transported to the Sixth Precinct. He was brought into the precinct, still handcuffed, placed in a holding cell, and informed that if he was not identified, he would be released. At approximately 10:31 p.m., three hours after he had been initially stopped by the police, the defendant was placed in a lineup, and identified by two victims as the perpetrator of a robbery that had occurred at a flower and antique store on December 19, 1995. The defendant was then placed under arrest, and his jacket seized.
The next day the defendant was identified in another lineup by the victims of two other robberies, one that took place on November 14, 1995 at a handcrafts store on West 4th Street, and another that occurred on November 28, 1995 at a bookstore on West 12th Street.
The defendant was indicted on two counts of robbery in the first degree and one count of attempted robbery in the third degree.
His motion to suppress the sunglasses, jacket and lineup identification evidence as fruits of an illegal arrest was denied, except for the suppression of the sunglasses. He was then convicted, following a jury trial, of all counts.
On appeal, the defendant contends that he was in effect placed under arrest on 14th Street, prior to the time the officers obtained probable cause supporting his arrest, and that therefore his jacket and the lineup identifications should be suppressed.
The People now concede that, as the hearing court concluded, at the time defendant was detained on 14th Street, the police did not have probable cause to arrest him. However, they contend, the police nevertheless acted properly. It is conceded that they had reasonable suspicion to believe that defendant was the subject of the report made that day by the women in the children's clothing store, and was also the man who had committed the previously reported store robberies. Therefore, they claim, their seizure of defendant was a proper, temporary investigative detention, rather than an arrest.
Given the unique nature of each crime investigation, and the speed at which circumstances develop, there is no fixed list of factors from which to determine when an investigatory detention ripens into an arrest (see, People v Hicks, 68 N.Y.2d 234, 239). Instead, it has been said that the standard to be applied is whether a reasonable person, innocent of any crime, would have believed he was arrested if he was in the defendant's position (People v Hicks, supra at 240, citing People v Yukl, 25 N.Y.2d 585, 589, cert denied 400 U.S. 851). A proper temporary detention is one where a reasonable, innocent person reason would understand that he was being briefly detained in order to quickly obtain information either confirming or dispelling the officers' suspicion.
The determination does not turn on whether or not the suspect was told he was under arrest (Dunaway v New York, 442 U.S. 200, 212) or whether the police thought their conduct was reasonable based on their objectives (People v Hicks, 68 N.Y.2d 234, 243).
Of course, the scope of a reasonable investigatory detention will vary to some extent depending on the particular facts and circumstances of each case. However, the detention must be temporary and last no longer than is necessary to effectuate the purpose of the stop, and the methods employed to verify or dispel the officer's suspicion should be the least intrusive reasonably available.
It has repeatedly been held that when an individual is handcuffed, searched and placed in a police car for transport, the conduct constitutes an arrest (see, People v Brnja, 50 N.Y.2d 366, 372; People v Quarles, 187 A.D.2d 200, 203, lv denied 81 N.Y.2d 1018; People v Foster, 91 A.D.2d 1046, 1047, appeal dismissed, 61 N.Y.2d 640; People v Pittman, 83 A.D.2d 870, 871 lv denied 56 N.Y.2d 813). While simply transporting a suspect to another location, or even to a police station, does not in and of itself require the conclusion that a temporary detention has become an arrest (see, People v Hicks, 68 N.Y.2d 234, 239, 242; People v Baily, 216 A.D.2d 1, lv denied 86 N.Y.2d 790), it is critical to consider how the detainee is treated once having arrived at the destination.
In Hicks, supra, the suspects were detained and transported to the nearby crime scene for an identification procedure within minutes of the crime (id. at 237). Indeed, in upholding the procedure, the Court was careful to note that "the authorities knew that a crime had actually been committed; the total period of detention was less than 10 minutes, the crime scene to which defendant was taken was very close, and eyewitnesses were there; and there [was] no proof of significantly less intrusive means available to accomplish the same purpose [to quickly confirm or dispel reasonable...
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