People v. Zappulla
| Decision Date | 23 April 2001 |
| Citation | 282 A.D.2d 696,724 N.Y.S.2d 433 |
| Parties | (A.D. 2 Dept. 2001) The People, etc., respondent, v Guy Zappulla, appellant. 1999-02915, 2001-02880 : SECOND JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT |
| Court | New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division |
Lynn W. L. Fahey, New York, N.Y. (Jay L. Weiner of counsel), for appellant.
Charles J. Hynes, District Attorney, Brooklyn, N.Y. (Leonard Joblove and Camille O'Hara Gillespie of counsel), for respondent.
CORNELIUS J. O'BRIEN, J.P., SONDRA MILLER, WILLIAM D. FRIEDMANN, SANDRA L. TOWNES, JJ.
Appeal by the defendant from (1) a judgment of the Supreme Court, Kings County (Kreindler, J.), rendered March 30, 1999, convicting him of murder in the second degree, upon a jury verdict, and imposing sentence, and (2) a separate judgment of the same court, rendered March 31, 1999, convicting him of escape in the second degree, upon his plea of guilty, and imposing sentence. The appeals bring up for review the denial, after a hearing (Marrus, J.), of those branches of the defendant's omnibus motion which were to suppress physical evidence and certain statements he made to law enforcement authorities.
ORDERED that the judgments are affirmed.
The defendant was arrested at approximately 12:30 A.M. on March 17, 1998, in the second-floor hallway of the Golden Gate Inn in Brooklyn after his girlfriend filed a complaint that he had stolen a fur coat and jewelry from her. At approximately 1:20 A.M., after being advised of his Miranda rights (see, Miranda v Arizona, 384 U.S. 436), he refused to talk about the theft, although he did talk about being a police informant. Before transporting the defendant to central booking, the police searched him and found a key to room 234 at the Golden Gate Inn. Detectives went to the motel and discovered that the defendant was not the registered occupant. When no one answered the door to room 234 and the detectives heard a television blaring loudly inside the room, they asked the manager to enter and see if the occupants were safe. The manager unlocked the door, went in, and found only a fur coat. Based on this information, the police obtained a search warrant for the room. Upon executing the warrant, they found the corpse of Jennifer Scarpati a/k/a Imparato (hereinafter Scarpati) under one of the beds. Thereafter, at approximately 1:15 A.M. on March 18, 1998, the police interrogated the defendant about the homicide, without readvising him of his Miranda rights. He confessed to the police that he choked Scarpati. The defendant moved unsuccessfully to suppress the physical evidence recovered from the motel room and his confession.
The defendant argues that in view of the approximately 24-hour interval between the first interrogation regarding the theft of items from his girlfriend and the second interrogation regarding Scarpati's murder, an unrelated crime, the police were obligated to issue him a full set of Miranda warnings before questioning him about the Scarpati case. The defendant contends that since the police failed to properly readvise him of his Miranda rights, his confession should have been suppressed. He claims that the physical evidence recovered from the motel room should also have been suppressed on the ground, inter alia, that the search warrant was improperly obtained.
The hearing court properly refused to suppress the evidence seized as a result of the search of the motel room. The defendant lacked standing to challenge the search as he failed to establish that he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the motel room (see generally, People v Rodriguez, 69 N.Y.2d 159; People v Lerhinan, 90 A.D.2d 74). His possession of a key to the room at the time of his arrest was insufficient to confer standing (see, People v Scott, 273 A.D.2d 76; People v Jose, 252 A.D.2d 401, affd 94 N.Y.2d 844; see also, United States v Gordon, 168 F.3d 1222, cert denied 572 U.S. 1030), particularly as the room was not registered to him, and, in fact, he was registered in a different room.
The hearing court should have suppressed the defendant's confession to Scarpati's murder. The general rule is that "where a person in police custody has been issued Miranda warnings and voluntarily and intelligently waives those rights, it is not necessary to repeat the warnings prior to subsequent questioning within a reasonable time thereafter, so long as the custody has remained continuous" (see, People v Glinsman, 107 A.D.2d 710, lv denied 64 N.Y.2d 889, cert denied 472 U.S. 1021). The defendant correctly contends that no reported case in this state has...
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