Case Title: The People v. Robert Mothersell

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: new-york

Court: New York Appellate Court

Date: 2010-04-01T00:00:00Z

Document:
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This opinion is uncorrected and subject to revision before
publication in the New York Reports.
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No. 43  
The People &c.,
            Respondent,
        v.
Robert Mothersell,
            Appellant.
Ameer N. Benno, for appellant.
James P. Maxwell, for respondent.
LIPPMAN, Chief Judge:
The contraband defendant stands convicted of possessing
was recovered from his person by means of a strip-search
conducted on the authority of a warrant purporting to authorize
the search of all persons present at the time of its execution.  
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Defendant now contends, as he did before the County Court and the
Appellate Division, that there was not a sufficient predicate for
issuance of the warrant and that, even if properly issued, it did
not authorize the strip search performed on him.  We agree with
both of these contentions.
In his suppression motion defendant specifically
alleged that there was no adequate factual basis for the all-
persons-present warrant and that "[e]ven if the warrant were to
be viewed as allowing [him] to be seized and searched during
[its] execution, it was a violation of [his] rights under the
Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution and Article 1, section 12
of the New York Constitution to be subjected to a body cavity
search based solely on the 'all persons present' warrant and his
mere presence at the target residence."   The People responded
that the search warrant was validly issued and properly executed. 
They characterized the search of defendant as a "strip search"
that did not involve a cavity search.
 
In ruling upon the first branch of the motion, the
court relied on the affidavit submitted in support of the warrant
application, the sole basis for the warrant's issue.  According
to the affidavit, two controlled purchases of cocaine had been
made by known and reliable informants at the target premises, the
first floor front apartment at 114 Isabella Street, a two-story
residential building.  The first purchase was reportedly made
from a male resident of the apartment, referred to only as "Tom,"
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on February 2, 2006; the second purchase, from an "unknown male,"
took place weeks later, "during the week ending 25 February
2006."  The amount of cocaine purchased on each occasion is not
stated.  Based on these two transactions, the motion court found
that "not only was [probable cause established] to believe that
the residence of 114 Isabella Street, First Floor Front
Apartment, was being used for the sale and distribution of drugs
but also that anyone present therein was involved in the ongoing
illegal activity" and, accordingly, that the applicable standard
for issuance of an all-persons-present warrant as set forth in
People v Nieves (36 NY2d 396 [1975]) had been met.  The court
directed a hearing upon the disputed factual issue raised in
connection with the motion's second branch, namely, whether there
had been a body cavity search, as defendant alleged, or merely a
strip search, as the People contended.
At the hearing, one of the officers who executed the
warrant testified that he searched defendant solely pursuant to
what he understood to be the warrant's authority; he acknowledged
that he had no independent basis for an arrest and, in fact, said
that defendant was not under arrest at the time of the search. 
He also stated that he had taken part in the execution of
hundreds of all-person-present warrants and that persons were
routinely strip-searched pursuant to such warrants and required
to facilitate the examination of their anal and genital cavities. 
The officer said that defendant was subjected to such a search,
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during which he was required to lift his scrotum and then to bend
over to expose his anal cavity.  The incriminating evidence was
discovered in the course of the latter exercise.
The Court denied suppression, finding that although the
search at issue had been "more intrusive than merely a strip
search," and involved "the conducting of a visual body cavity
search," it was authorized by the all-persons-present warrant and
had been reasonably conducted.
Upon the denial of his suppression motion, defendant
entered a plea to criminal possession of a controlled substance
in the fifth degree.  The Appellate Division affirmed the ensuing 
judgment of conviction, stating "the warrant application
established probable cause to believe that the apartment was
being used for the sale of controlled substances and that anyone
present was involved in the ongoing illegal activity" (59 AD3d
995, 995-996 [internal citation and quotation marks omitted]). 
In support of this conclusion, the Court cited several Appellate
Division decisions in which all-persons-present warrants had
evidently been upheld on predicates not dissimilar to the one at
bar (see People v Neish, 232 AD2d 744, 746 [1996], lv denied 89
NY2d 927 [1996]; People v Williams, 284 AD2d 564, 565 [2001], lv
denied 96 NY2d 909 [2001]).  The present appeal from the
Appellate Division decision and order affirming defendant's
conviction is before us by leave of a Judge of this Court (12
NY3d 857 [2009]).  
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Preliminarily, while the People argue that the issues
defendant would have us review are not preserved, both of the
issues defendant has briefed to us were clearly raised and argued
on the suppression motion and before the Appellate Division,
which, it may be noted addressed both issues on the merits
without invoking its interest of justice jurisdiction.  Nor is it
the case that we are being asked by defendant to differ with the
motion court's now affirmed factual findings; the plainly
reviewable issue posed is rather whether those facts will support
the legal conclusion that the search of defendant was
constitutional.
The Fourth Amendment to the Federal Constitution as
made applicable to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment, and
Article I, Section 12 of our New York State Constitution speak
with one voice in requiring that warrants "particularly
describ[e] . . . the persons . . . to be seized."  It is plain
that the warrant here at issue does not particularly describe
anyone.  That, however, is not where the present inquiry ends
because CPL  690.15 (2) states that "[a] search warrant which
directs a search of a designated or described place, premises or
vehicle, may also direct a search of any person present thereat
or therein," and in People v Nieves (36 NY2d 396) this provision
was upheld as against the claim that it was facially
unconstitutional.  
At the time of Nieves, the constitutionality of CPL
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690.15 (2), enacted only five years before, had been seriously
questioned (id. at 404) and it was evident that the statute as
written was potentially overbroad in its application (id.).  We
nonetheless reasoned that there could be circumstances in which a
showing of probable cause to search a place would also afford
probable cause to infer that everyone present at the place had
upon their persons the items specified in the warrant, and thus,
that the statute was capable of application without
constitutional offense.  We recognized, however, the exacting
nature of the showing necessary to justify the inferences
essential to the statute's constitutionally permissible use, and
summarized the "carefully circumscribed," indeed "severely
limited," grounds upon the search of an individual identified in
the authorizing warrant only as "a[] person present" could be
performed:
"The facts made known to the Magistrate and
the reasonable inferences to which they give
rise, must create a substantial probability
(see People v Baker, 30 NY2d 252, 259) that
the authorized invasions of privacy will be
justified by discovery of the items sought
from all persons present when the warrant is
executed. If this probability is not present,
then each person subject to search must be
identified in the warrant and supporting
papers by name or sufficient personal
description" 
(id. at 405).
This standard was not met in Nieves.   The any-person-
present warrant there at issue was premised upon facts indicating
that the place to be searched, a restaurant, was being used to
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conduct illegal gambling transactions and to store the records of
those transactions.  But the locus of the search had not been
shown limited to criminal activity and, accordingly, the
requisite probability that anyone at the restaurant would be
there for an illicit purpose and would have upon his or her
person evidence probative of the alleged ongoing illegality was
not made out.  Indeed, notwithstanding our recognition in Nieves
of the possibility of a valid any-person-present warrant, it does
not appear that this Court has ever actually sustained such an
instrument.  While such a case may well come before us, it is not
this one.
It is true that the location specified in the present
warrant was not open to the public as was the restaurant in
Nieves, but, as we noted in Nieves, that the place of a warrant's
execution is not publicly trafficked, while relevant, does not
suffice to demonstrate the selectivity necessary to the warrant's
legality (id. at 405, n 4); innocent persons are commonly
encountered in private spaces, such as homes, and, in fact,
possess in those spaces the most constitutionally compelling
expectations of privacy (see e.g.  Payton v New York, 445 US 573,
587 [1980] quoting  Dorman v United States, 435 F2d 385, 389 [DC
Cir 1970] ["Freedom from intrusion into the home or dwelling is
the archetype of the privacy protection secured by the Fourth
Amendment"]).  The private nature of a place, then, does not of
its own argue persuasively in support of a warrant
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indiscriminately permitting the seizure and search of all persons
found there at the time of its execution.
Rather than adopt such a singular and inadequate
criterion for judging the validity of an all-persons-present
warrant, the Nieves court set forth numerous other factors
necessarily to be considered in the discharge of a court's duty
to subject an application seeking such a warrant to "rigid
scrutiny" (36 NY2d at 405).  Among these were the character of
the premises, the nature of the illegal activity believed to be
conducted at the location, the number and behavior of the persons
present at the time of day or night when the sought warrant was
proposed to be executed, and whether persons unconnected with the
illicit activity had been observed at the premises.  Nieves
required the address of each of these issues in the application
(id.). 
The essential object of the searching examination
required of the reviewing magistrate under Nieves, is to guard
against the authorization of a dragnet likely to include the
innocent, a danger that would otherwise routinely be courted in
issuing all-persons-present warrants.  Naturally, the
reasonableness of this species of warrant may depend upon whether
a more specifically focused search authorization can be framed
(see id.), but it does not follow that an application for such a
warrant can be justified solely by the inability of the applicant
individually to identify the particular person or persons to be
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searched.  The requirement of probable cause both for the
proposed search of the premises and for the search of each person
present at the time of the warrant's execution is unwavering:
"[T]he facts before the issuing Judge at the time of the warrant
application, and reasonable inferences from those facts, must
establish probable cause to believe that the premises are
confined to ongoing illegal activity and that every person within
the orbit of the search possesses the articles sought" (id. at
404; see also Ybarra v Illinois, 444 US 85, 91 [1979] ["Where the
standard is probable cause, a search or seizure of a person must
be supported by probable cause particularized with respect to
that person.  This requirement cannot be undercut or avoided by
simply pointing to the fact that coincidentally there exists
probable cause to search or seize another or to search the
premises where the person may happen to be."] [emphasis added]).
In defending the adequacy of the present application
against this standard, the People remind us of the maxim that
warrant applications are not to be hypertechnically read.  But
that principle of construction was never intended as license to
excuse deficiencies in an application's factual underpinning (see
Steele v United States, 267 US 498, 503 [1925]; People v
Hendricks, 25 NY2d 129, 137 [1969]).  Even generously read, the
application at bar must be deemed unequal to its purpose.  
Amid the application's pages of boilerplate allegations
are the following few relevant particulars: that the premises at
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issue were residential in nature; and that on two occasions
separated by weeks cocaine in unspecified quantities had been
purchased at the premises by trusted confidential informants from
one or two men, undescribed except that after the first buy the
seller was referred to as "Tom."   But, two isolated purchases of
what must be supposed to have been small quantities of narcotics
cannot suffice to show that a residential location has been given
over entirely to the drug trade, much less that every person at
the location is probably a participant in drug trafficking.  The
warrant application does not state, as it is required to by
Nieves, whether any innocent use of the premises had been
observed.  Nor is there information in the application respecting
the number or behavior of the persons ordinarily present at the
apartment at the time of the sought warrant's contemplated
execution -- here, "any time of day or night." 
In the end, the only statement in the warrant
application even purporting to justify the issuance of an all-
persons-present warrant is the one in which the deponent offers
on the basis of her past experience that it is "not uncommon that
persons found in the subject residence could reasonably be
expected to conceal cocaine."  But, as noted, the search of all
persons present, particularly where, as here, it is proposed to
be accomplished solely on the authority of a warrant to be
executed at any time, requires a showing of facts from which it
can be inferred that it is substantially probable that any
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persons present at the warrant's execution will have the sought
evidence of crime upon them; this governing standard is
manifestly not met by the above-quoted fairly opaque formulation,
which, charitably construed, ventures no more than that some
persons present at the subject residence might have cocaine upon
their persons.
Our conclusion that this all-persons-present warrant is
not valid, should not be taken as signifying a departure from
Nieves's  initial holding that warrants of this sort are not
categorically unconstitutional.  Indeed, we think it clear that
surveillance of a location may yield a factual basis to infer
with the requisite force that the place is devoted to an ongoing
illicit purpose, such as the manufacture or marketing of
narcotics (a "drug factory") or their use (a "shooting gallery"
or "drug house"), and that all those present at the time of the
contemplated search will probably be in possession of contraband
or other specified evidence of illegality.  Although the
predicate for this kind of warrant cannot, consistent with the
essential constitutional purpose of protecting persons from
unreasonable searches, be less than exacting, the warrant may
still have utility.  Its utility, however, may not permissibly
arise, as it apparently has in practice, from any relaxation of
the requirement of probable cause as to each person targeted for
search or seizure.
While the warrant's invalidity is dispositive of
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defendant's entitlement to suppression, we briefly address
defendant's second point in view of the hearing testimony
indicating that strip searches are commonly performed solely on
the authority of all-persons-present warrants.  
We have held that a post-arrest strip search must be
based upon reasonable suspicion that an arrestee is hiding
contraband beneath his or her clothing, and that a search
involving visual examination of an arrestee's anal and genital
cavities -- a distinctly elevated level of intrusion, which must
be separately justified -- may not be performed except upon a
"specific, articulable factual basis supporting a reasonable
suspicion to believe the arrestee secreted evidence inside a body
cavity"  (People v Hall, 10 NY3d 303, 310-311 [2008], cert denied
__ US __, 129 S Ct 159 [2008]).  In this connection, we stressed
in language particularly resonant here that 
"visual cavity inspections . . . cannot be
routinely undertaken as incident to all drug
arrests or permitted under a police
department's blanket policy that subjects
persons suspected of certain crimes to these
procedures.  There must be particular,
individualized facts known to the police that
justify subjecting an arrestee to these
procedures (see generally People v McIntosh,
96 NY2d 521, 525 [2001]). Our precedent on
this point is unequivocal: the police are
required to have 'specific and articulable
facts which, along with any logical
deductions, reasonably prompted th[e]
intrusion (People v Cantor, 36 NY2d 106, 113
[1975]), although they are allowed to 'draw
on their own experience and specialized
training to make inferences from and
deductions about the cumulative information
available to them that might well elude an
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*If the search involves the removal of an object secreted
within a body cavity, a warrant specifically authorizing the
intrusion must first be obtained (People v More, 97 NY2d 209
[2002]).
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untrained person' (United States v Arvizu,
534 US 266, 273 [2002] [internal quotation
marks omitted]."
(id. at 311 [emphasis added]).  
Thus, even where there is probable cause for an arrest,
and a suspect has been arrested -- something that had not yet
occurred at the time of the search of defendant -- there must, in
addition to the predicate for the arrest, be grounds to justify
the very significant intrusion of a strip or visual body cavity
search.*  It is not enough that there is probable cause to
suppose that a person possesses contraband or that pursuant to a
warrant there may exist grounds for a non-strip search; where a
strip search is to be performed, there must also exist 
"particular, individualized facts known to the police that
justify subjecting an arrestee to these procedures" (id.), i.e.,
specific facts to support a reasonable suspicion that a
particular person has secreted contraband beneath his or her
clothes or in a body cavity.  Such a predicate did not exist at
the time that the present warrant was sought and, accordingly,
these extraordinary intrusions could not have been within any
authority the warrant was capable of conferring. 
A search warrant exists and is required not simply to
permit, but to circumscribe police intrusions (see Marron v
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United States, 275 US 192, 196 [1927] ["nothing is left to the
discretion of the officer executing the warrant"]).  This
warrant, even if valid for other uses, would fail of its
essential limiting purpose if it were understood to afford
plenary authority for the inspection of the most private recesses
of a person's anatomy.
Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division should
be reversed, the motion to suppress granted, and the indictment
dismissed.
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People of the State of New York v Robert Mothersell
No. 43
READ, J. (concurring):
Whether the warrant application in this case was
sufficient to support an all-persons-present search for drugs is
a close question.  Ultimately, though, I conclude that the
information presented in the affidavit supporting the warrant
application was simply too skimpy and dependent on boilerplate. 
All-persons-present warrants for drug searches have been approved
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where the supporting affidavits supply more detailed information
regarding the experience and training of the officer seeking the
warrant, including that, in the officer's experience, persons
engaged in the sale of drugs often work in concert with others
and that those engaged in such activities frequently maintain
residences separate and apart from the location where the drug-
related activity is conducted (see People v Williams, 284 AD2d
564, 565 [3d Dept 2001], lv denied 96 NY2d 909 [2001]). 
Additional details to support an all-persons-present warrant
based on drug purchases made by an informant might also include,
for example, whether the drugs at the target location were in
open view; whether scales and glassine bags were visible; whether
those observed at the location appeared to be high, or were using
drugs; and, generally, how many people were seen and whether any
of them appeared unaware of or uninvolved with the illegal
activity taking place.
As the majority points out, police surveillance may
also supply a sufficient factual basis from which to infer that a
location is a drug factory, shooting gallery or drug house, and
that all those present when a search warrant is executed will
likely possess contraband or other evidence of illegality (see
majority op at 11-12).  These havens for drug activity are often
found in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods, whose innocent
residents suffer from the high crime incident to the illicit drug
trade in their midst.  The all-persons-present warrant --
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properly supported -- is a tool for combating drug crime for the
benefit of these citizens.  As for the strip/visual body cavity
search, the facts set out in the affidavit and brought out at the
suppression hearing did not meet the standard articulated in
People v Hall, 10 NY3d 303 [2008], cert denied __ US __ 129 S Ct
159 [2008]), which was decided after the hearing took place in
this case. 
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Order reversed, defendant's motion to suppress granted and
indictment dismissed.  Opinion by Chief Judge Lippman.  Judges
Ciparick, Graffeo, Read, Smith, Pigott and Jones concur, Judge
Read in a separate concurring opinion in which Judges Graffeo and
Pigott also concur.
Decided April 1, 2010