People v. Sanders
| Decision Date | 23 February 2016 |
| Docket Number | No. 22.,22. |
| Citation | 27 N.Y.S.3d 491,47 N.E.3d 770,26 N.Y.3d 773,2016 N.Y. Slip Op. 01255 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Oscar SANDERS, Appellant. |
| Court | New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
Lynn W.L. Fahey, Appellate Advocates, New York City (Rahshanda Sibley of counsel), for appellant.
Richard A. Brown, District Attorney, Kew Gardens (William H. Branigan, Robert J. Masters and John M. Castellano of counsel), for respondent.
The primary issue on this appeal is whether defendant's constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures was violated when police took defendant's clothing, which had been placed in a clear hospital bag, without either a warrant or his consent. Under the circumstances of this case, we conclude that the seizure was unconstitutional, and that the part of defendant's motion seeking to suppress that physical evidence should have been granted.
On August 11, 2010, defendant “walked in” to Jamaica Hospital in Queens seeking treatment for a gunshot wound. Pursuant to its protocol, and as required by law (Penal Law § 265.25 ), the hospital reported the shooting to the police. Defendant told a police officer who responded to the hospital that defendant “was shot in [a nearby] [p]ark.” By the time he spoke to that officer, defendant was “wearing hospital clothing.”
After “dealing with ... defendant” for “[a] little over an hour,” the officer was directed to clothing defendant “wore when he came to [the] [h]ospital.” Those clothes were in a clear plastic bag that rested on the floor of a trauma room a short distance away from the stretcher on which defendant was situated in a hospital hallway. In the bag the officer observed the “jeans that [defendant] was wearing that night, boxers, and his sneakers,” and there is no dispute that the officer seized that bag. Likewise, there is no dispute that, as he vouchered the clothing, the officer inspected each garment. Based at least in
part on observations the officer made with respect to the condition of those items during the inventory process, authorities believed that defendant had accidentally shot himself with a gun he carried in his waistband.
Defendant was subsequently charged with, among other things, criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree (Penal Law § 265.03[3] ) and criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree (§ 265.02[1] ). Before trial, defendant sought suppression of the clothes based on what defense counsel characterized as the unlawful warrantless seizure of those items. The People opposed the motion on the ground that “police can seize evidence ... where the items are in open view and the officer [ ] observe[s] [them] from a lawful vantage point.” After a hearing at which the investigating officer testified essentially to the facts noted at the outset of this opinion, Supreme Court denied suppression. According to the hearing court, “the clothing in [the] clear bag ... potentially was evidence of a crime,” and “there [was] no violation of any [F]ourth [A]mendment rights ... when th[at] clothing was recovered to be examined to see if it had relevance to the investigation of a crime of someone being shot.”
Defendant was eventually convicted of the aforementioned crimes following a jury trial at which the People supported their contention that defendant criminally possessed a loaded firearm outside of his home or place of business through, among other things, the admission into evidence of the clothing seized at the hospital.1 On appeal, the Appellate Division affirmed the judgment and rejected defendant's challenge to the suppression ruling (119 A.D.3d 878, 991 N.Y.S.2d 66 [2d Dept.2014] ). In doing so, the Appellate Division reasoned that “[s]ince the defendant's clothing was lying on the floor of a hospital room in a clear plastic bag, the clothing was openly visible,” and that “the police had probable cause to seize the ... clothing as evidence of a crime of which they believed the defendant had been a victim” (id. at 878, 991 N.Y.S.2d 66 ). A Judge of this Court granted defendant leave to appeal (24 N.Y.3d 1088, 1 N.Y.S.3d 15, 25 N.E.3d 352 [2014] ), and we now reverse the Appellate Division order.
Our analysis begins with the fundamental precept “that warrantless searches and seizures are per se unreasonable unless they fall within one of the acknowledged exceptions to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement” (
People v. Diaz, 81 N.Y.2d 106, 109, 595 N.Y.S.2d 940, 612 N.E.2d 298 [1993], abrogated on other grounds by Minnesota v. Dickerson, 508 U.S. 366, 113 S.Ct. 2130, 124 L.Ed.2d 334 [1993] ). “Where a warrant has not been obtained, it is the People who have the burden of overcoming th[e] presumption” of unreasonableness (People v. Hodge, 44 N.Y.2d 553, 557, 406 N.Y.S.2d 736, 378 N.E.2d 99 [1978] ).
Of the “ ‘jealously and carefully drawn’ exceptions to the warrant-preference rule” (Matter of Caruso v. Ward, 72 N.Y.2d 432, 443, 534 N.Y.S.2d 142, 530 N.E.2d 850 [1988, Kaye and Titone, JJ., dissenting], quoting Jones v. United States, 357 U.S. 493, 499, 78 S.Ct. 1253, 2 L.Ed.2d 1514 [1958] ), at issue here is the exclusion in which probable cause exists for the seizure of an object or objects in plain view.
“Under the plain view doctrine, if the sight of an object gives the police probable cause to believe that it is the instrumentality of a crime, the object may be seized without a warrant if three conditions are met: (1) the police are lawfully in the position from which the object is viewed; (2) the police have lawful access to the object; and (3) the object's incriminating nature is immediately apparent” (Diaz, 81 N.Y.2d...
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