People v. Santiago

• Decision Date: 23 January 1964
• Citation: 247 N.Y.S.2d 473,13 N.Y.2d 326,196 N.E.2d 881
• Parties: , 196 N.E.2d 881 The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Lee SANTIAGO, Appellant. The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Rosalee MARTIN, Appellant.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 473

247 N.Y.S.2d 473

13 N.Y.2d 326, 196 N.E.2d 881

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Lee SANTIAGO, Appellant.

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Rosalee MARTIN, Appellant.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Jan. 23, 1964.

Joseph I. Stone, New York City, for appellant in the first above-entitled action.

Frank S. Hogan, Dist. Atty. (Malvina H. Guggenheim and H. Richard Uviller, New York City, of counsel), for respondent in the first aboveentitled action.

Joseph I. Stone, New York City, for appellant in the second above-entitled action.

Frank S. Hogan, Dist. Atty. (Alan Frederick Leibowitz and H. Richard Uviller, New York City, of counsel), for respondent in the second above-entitled action.

DESMOND, Chief Judge.

These appeals were argued on the same day and at least for purposes of contrast it will be useful to deal with them in a single opinion. The cases are not otherwise associated except that each conviction is for felonious possession of narcotic drugs and in each there was an alleged obtaining of the evidence by an illegal search without a warrant. The found facts as to the two searches are, however, so different as to produce opposite results in this court.

People v. Santiago

During the evening of January 4, 1962 defendant Lee Santiago was arrested in an apartment in a building on St. Nicholas Avenue, New York City, without a search warrant or an arrest warrant. During the jury trial in Supreme Court, New York County, on the section 1751 (Penal Law, Consol.Laws, c. 40) charge a motion to suppress was made, heard and denied. Defendant was convicted of felonious possession and was sentenced to 7 1/2 to 10 years. Appellate Division, First Department, unanimously affirmed without opinion and leave to appeal was granted.

The real question here, as distinguished from the question which will appear in the Martin case, is whether the search without a warrant was reasonable as being based on reliable information from an informer, keeping in mind that 'Substantiation of information can come either from the informer's own character and reputation or from the separate, objective checking of the tale he tells' (People v. Coffey, 12 N.Y.2d 443, 452, 240 N.Y.S.2d 721, 726, 191 N.E.2d 263, 268, and authorities cited therein).

In the early evening three Mew York City police officers and a Federal narcotics agent went to the West 76th Street apartment of a woman named Elfman, a known drug addict, and told her that they had evidence of a sale of narcotics by her but promised her consideration if she would co-operate with the police. Responding to these pressures Miss Elfman admitted that she sold narcotics in a certain New York City neighborhood and stated that her source of supply was a woman named Lee who lived in apartment 24 at 723 St. Nicholas Avenue and whose alleged telephone number was given by Elfman to the officers. Elfman gave the officers quite a lot of other information about Lee, telling them where Lee got the narcotics and as to approximate amounts which Elfman bought daily from Lee, etc. Elfman said that she usually approached Lee in the latter's pink Oldsmobile automobile at certain corners but that Elfman occasionally obtained the narcotics from Lee at apartment 24, 723 St. Nicholas Avenue. One of the officers testified that he knew Lee as a reputed seller and knew that she drove a pink Oldsmobile car. Checking with the telephone company he found that the phone number given to him by Elfman was listed to one Clifford Jones at the same address, 723 St. Nicholas Avenue. In the presence of this officer Elfman made two calls to that phone number. The first one was not answered but on the second call, with the officer listening in, Elfman introduced herself, called the person on the other end of the telephone 'Lee' and asked: 'Have you got any stuff?' The person addressed as Lee replied that she did have it, told Elfman to come up but that she (Lee) would be leaving soon, and Elfman replied that she would be right up. Immediately Elfman and the officers went to 723 St. Nicholas Avenue, she having been directed by them to go to the apartment, arrange for a purchase but not to take the narcotics but to come out of the apartment door and if she had found narcotics there to give a signal to the officers waiting in the hall. After about a half hour Elfman came out, gave the signal by a nod of the head and all four of the officers pushed in through the partly opened door. Defendant Lee Santiago was standing in a door to a bedroom and when she saw the officers she threw on the floor two glassine envelopes containing a white powder. One of the city policemen put Lee Santiago under arrest, there was a search of the apartment and Lee Santiago admitted that the glassine envelopes belonged to her and that they contained heroin. A woman, who was sitting on a bed and turned out to be a sister of Clifford Jones in whose name the apartment was rented, ordered the officers to leave. Instead they continued to search the apartment and requested her to move from the bed which she declined to do, whereupon they lifted her off the bed and found concealed between the spring and the mattress a considerable number of glassine envelopes, some of them filled with white powder. All of this white powder was latter proven to be heroin. Defendant Lee Santiago told the officers that it all belonged to her, that Lucy Johnson was merely trying to protect Lee and that Lucy should not be arrested. All of this was established by ample proof. The defense, presumably rejected by the trier of the facts, was that this was a frameup and that the informer Elfman had, at the direction of the officers, hidden in the bed a package of narcotics given her by the police. The officers denied that there was any such frameup or conspiracy with Elfman.

This search and seizure was lawful if it was incident to a lawful arrest and the arrest was lawful if the officers had reasonable cause to believe that a felony had been committed and that the defendant had committed it (Code Crim.Proc. § 177). The presence or absence of reasonable cause depended on whether the officers in good faith believed that defendant was guilty of a felony and whether this belief rested on grounds which would induce an ordinarily prudent and cautious man under the circumstances to believe likewise (People v. Coffey, 12 N.Y.2d 443, 451, 240 N.Y.S.2d 725-726, 191 N.E.2d 263, 266, supra; Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 69 S.Ct. 1302, 93 L.Ed. 1879). This boils down to an inquiry as to whether, from the information which they had, the officers had fair reason to believe before they entered the apartment that defendant feloniously possessed narcotics with intent to sell them (Penal Law, § 1751). We hold that such reasonable grounds existed. The officers not only knew Elfman as a narcotics user and seller but knew of defendant's requtation as a seller. They had checked the telephone number given them by Elfman and found that it was the number of a telephone at the apartment address Elfman had given them. They listened in while Elfman identified herself and addressed the person at the other end of the line as 'Lee' and heard the conversation in which Elfman asked if Lee had any 'stuff', was told...