Court Opinion

ID: 9808934
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:54:57.056865+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:20:34.274846
License: Public Domain

Hall, J.,
dissents, and votes to reverse the judgment, on the law and the facts, grant those branches of the defendant’s omnibus motion which were to suppress physical evidence and his postarrest statements to law enforcement officials, and order a new trial, with the following memorandum: “On a motion by a defendant to suppress physical evidence, ‘the People have the burden of going forward to show the legality of the police conduct in the first instance’ ” (People v Spann, 82 AD3d 1013, 1014 [2011], quoting People v Whitehurst, 25 NY2d 389, 391 [1969]). Upon my review of the record, I find that the People failed to meet this burden. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
At the suppression hearing, the People failed to present sufficient evidence to show, in the first instance, that the police entry into the building where the defendant lived was lawful. There was no evidence presented as to how the police officers entered the building. Although a police officer testified that the building was a “two-family house,” there was no testimony that the police officers believed the building to be a two-family house prior to entering it. Furthermore, there was no evidence that the subject building was in any way distinguishable from a one-family house. Based on my reading of the hearing testimony, it can be reasonably inferred that the subject police officer testified that the building where the defendant lived was a “two-family house” based on his observations from inside the building, not from its outward appearance.
Under these circumstances, it is my opinion that the People failed to meet their burden of going forward to show the legality of the police conduct in the first instance. That is, the People failed to show that the police entry into the building where the defendant lived was lawful.
Accordingly, I find that those branches of the defendant’s omnibus motion which were to suppress physical evidence and his postarrest statements to law enforcement officials should have been granted (see People v Garriga, 189 AD2d 236 [1993]). I further conclude that the error described herein was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt (see People v Alston, 122 AD3d 934, 936 [2014]).