Court Opinion

ID: 9522151
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:18:37.865933+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:02:20.615311
License: Public Domain

G.B. Smith, J.
(dissenting in part). At a Mapp hearing to suppress physical evidence, the prosecution permitted a police officer to testify without revealing that the officer was under investigation for peijury. Moreover, the testimony of that officer before the grand jury was false and his truthful testimony would not have established probable cause for an arrest. The failure of the prosecution to reveal Brady material should have led to the suppression of evidence taken from defendant at the time of his arrest. No reopened or new suppression hearing should have been permitted. Accordingly, we dissent.
Facts
Over the course of approximately eight months beginning in 2000, the police undertook an undercover narcotics investigation at the Frederick Douglass housing development in Manhattan. A detective developed a relationship with a local barber, *22Maurice Mayo, who began selling narcotics to undercover agents. The police first encountered defendant on April 12, 2001. Shortly after 9:00 p.m., Mayo met with detectives in their undercover car and exchanged four bundles of heroin for $320 prerecorded money. One detective asked Mayo for an additional amount of heroin. The officers then watched Mayo meet defendant and exchange money. Defendant and Mayo were arrested. Defendant’s driver’s license and the prerecorded buy money were found on his person. Neither Detective Gordon nor other members of the field team knew defendant prior to the arrest. Shortly after defendant’s arrest, the police executed a search warrant at his apartment. The search produced narcotics, drug paraphernalia and money.
On November 14, 2001, Detective Gordon was called as the only witness to testify in a Mapp hearing. At the time, Detective Gordon was under investigation for perjury before the grand jury in another case, People v Greene. This fact was not revealed at the Mapp hearing. Specifically, Detective Gordon had admitted to an assistant district attorney that he did not see the defendant in that case remove a bag that contained crack from a stairway in a building in East Harlem even though he testified before a grand jury that he had. As a result of this revelation, the assistant district attorney dismissed the indictment in Greene and sent a complaint on Detective Gordon to the official corruption unit which is part of the District Attorney’s office.
The Mapp hearing in this case did not conclude until April 17, 2002 when the court denied the motion to suppress. At that time, there was no disclosure by the prosecution of the peijury investigation of Detective Gordon.1
At the trial, the People did not call Detective Gordon. Defendant, however, made known to the prosecution his intention to call the detective. The prosecution then disclosed for the first time that Detective Gordon was under investigation for perjury committed before a grand jury in another case, and that Gordon was likely to take the Fifth Amendment concerning questions regarding any past misconduct or any inconsistent statements before a grand jury. This disclosure came almost two months after the close of the suppression hearing.
On June 14, 2002, in an ex parte application, the prosecution revealed to the court, for the first time, the ongoing investiga*23tion against Gordon for perjury in the Greene matter. The court adopted the prosecution’s suggestion that defendant should receive a de novo Mapp hearing prior to the evidence being presented to the jury for deliberation. Defendant, at first, rejected the de novo hearing and argued for a mistrial based upon the Brady violation. The trial court denied defendant’s motion. Subsequently, when defendant asked for a de novo suppression hearing, the People opposed the new request as untimely, but instead proposed a reopened suppression hearing where the People and defendant could call any witnesses of their choosing. The judge granted the motion to reopen the hearing with new witnesses.
At the reopened hearing, Sergeant Washington testified about the surveillance and arrest on April 12, 2001. The facts of the story were similar to those recounted by Detective Gordon. After the evidence was heard, trial court found Sergeant Washington to be credible and admitted all the evidence obtained from defendant at the scene of the arrest. The trial court did not accept Detective Gordon’s version of the exchange between defendant and Mayo as credible but stated that “nothing Gordon said contradicts what the sergeant said.”2
Defendant was convicted of various drug charges, including criminal sale of a controlled substance in or near school grounds, criminal sale of a controlled substance in the third degree and criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree. He was sentenced to an aggregate term of 3 to 9 years, all terms to run concurrently. On June 2, 2004, defendant was released on parole and remained on parole at the time of the appeal. The Appellate Division affirmed defendant’s conviction. It found that there was no abuse of discretion in refusing to allow extrinsic collateral evidence for impeachment of defendant’s witness. A Judge of this Court granted defendant leave to appeal.
*24Discussion
The prosecutor’s duty to ensure a fair proceeding supercedes the concern for gaining a conviction (see Berger v United States, 295 US 78, 88 [1935]). Based on the timing of the disclosure and the degree of deprivation to the defendant, the remedy will vary (see People v Banch, 80 NY2d 610, 619 [1992] [new suppression hearing for Rosario violation]; People v Feerick, 93 NY2d 433, 450-451 [1999] [reopened hearing only, for Rosario violation concerning six documents]; People v Cortijo, 70 NY2d 868, 870 [1987] [no hearing required, defendant had opportunity to use the allegedly exculpatory information prior to trial]; Giglio v United States, 405 US 150, 155 [1972] [failure to disclose agreement between prosecutor and witness required a new trial for Brady violation]; People v Cwikla, 46 NY2d 434, 442 [1979] [reversal of convictions and new trial when prosecutor allowed witness to testify falsely that he had not received a promise of favorable consideration from the Parole Board in exchange for his testimony]; People v Pelchat, 62 NY2d 97, 105-107 [1984] [defective indictment dismissed with leave to prosecutor to move before Supreme Court for permission to resubmit the case to the grand jury]).
In People v Pelchat, this Court reversed a conviction even upon a plea of guilty because the prosecutor permitted an indictment although he knew the evidence before the grand jury was false. The rationale was that a prosecutor cannot allow an indictment upon evidence he knows to be false. In this case, not only was Detective Gordon under investigation for perjury at the time he testified before the grand jury, but also his testimony that he saw an exchange of money between defendant and a co-defendant was false.
The prosecutor has a duty to disclose Brady material whether there is a specific request, a general request or no request for it (United States v Bagley, 473 US 667, 682-683 [1985]).3 The duty to disclose does not change merely because defendant is unaware of the information at the time of the pretrial hearing *25(see, supra; see also Banch, 80 NY2d 610, 620 [1992], supra [“Disclosure of witnesses’ statements to facilitate effective cross-examination is a matter of basic fairness; the obligation should not be lightly treated or lightly excused”]). In fact, a Brady claim might arise if the government knew or should have known that the testimonial evidence presented by one of its witnesses was perjured (see Kyles v Whitley, 514 US 419, 433 [1995]). If the prosecution, having failed in its duty to disclose, compromised defendant’s constitutional rights and no confidence can be placed in the verdict, the proper remedy would be to suppress the evidence (see Kyles, supra; People v Cwikla, 46 NY2d 434, 441-442 [1979], supra).
Contrary to the prosecution’s position, it is not relevant that the evidence had a stronger bearing on a credibility issue than upon the guilt or innocence of defendant (see Crane v Kentucky, 476 US 683, 690-691 [1986]). What is relevant is whether evidence of the perjury is exculpatory to defendant (see Whitley, 514 US 419, 433 [1995], supra).
Evidence is exculpatory if it exonerates the accused, or points to the innocence of the accused (see Brady, supra). Defendant argues that evidence of Detective Gordon’s suspected perjury went to the frame-up defense offered by the defendant. Issues of credibility of a witness are relevant to the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment (see People v Savvides, 1 NY2d 554, 557-558 [1956]). However, in the case at bar, Detective Gordon’s credibility is intertwined with the guilt or innocence of defendant and raises Sixth Amendment concerns based on the Brady violation (see Giglio v United States, 405 US 150, 153-154 [1972], supra; People v Pelchat, 62 NY2d 97, 108 [1984], supra).
There were inconsistencies in Detective Gordon’s testimony at the suppression hearing and later at trial. At the suppression hearing, Detective Gordon testified that he saw the defendants exchange money. At trial, he testified that he only saw the defendants “touch hands.”
This Court need not accept defendant’s theory that the team of field officers were all corrupt and sought to protect Detective Gordon once he was under investigation for perjury in order to hold that the delayed disclosure of the perjury investigation of Detective Gordon constituted a Brady violation. Suppression is warranted because of the untimely disclosure alone, regardless of the offer and acceptance of a reopened suppression hearing *26(see Bagley, supra; United States v Agurs, 427 US 97 [1976]). The prejudice to defendant could not be undone, especially given that Sergeant Washington had already testified at trial to the events of April 12, 2001, and a reopened suppression hearing would merely give him the opportunity to reiterate his previous testimony.
In the court proceedings, with defense counsel present, the trial court stated: “This whole thing is of great concern to me. I told Mr. Heffner [prosecutor] particularly and also Mr. S[e]mmel [prosecutor] that I think it’s unforgiv[a]ble and outrageous that the district attorney’s office did not bring this to the trial court’s attention in this case before now.” Given this level of concern expressed by the trial court, in order to best protect defendant’s right of confrontation, the court should have suppressed the arrest evidence and any evidence that flowed therefrom (see Geaslen, 54 NY2d 510, 516 [1981], supra; Bagley, 473 US 667, 682-683 [1985], supra).
Previously, this Court has denied the prosecution a second bite at the apple when all the evidence was available at the time of the first hearing, and defendant would be prejudiced if the prosecution were allowed a second attempt at trial or a pretrial proceeding (see People v Havelka, 45 NY2d 636, 643-644 [1978]). The prosecution is afforded only one “full and fair” opportunity to present the evidence against defendant (see id. at 643). Thus, if defendant is allowed nothing more than a de novo suppression hearing, then the prosecution is given a second bite at the apple, which only further prejudices the defendant and rewards the prosecution for its failure to disclose material information.
Based upon the untimely disclosure, the fact that the knowledge was completely under the control of the prosecution and that the prosecution was fully aware of Detective Gordon’s suspected perjury at the time of the suppression hearing, the only remedy to cure the prejudice to defendant would be to suppress the arrest evidence (see Banch, 80 NY2d 610, 621 [1992], supra [new trial ordered for failure to fully disclose evidence in violation of duty to disclose under Rosario]).
The charges that arose based on the search warrant were proper. The search warrant was valid and the information obtained from the confidential informant was properly examined by a Darden hearing, and there is no cause to upset the verdict on the possession counts.
The trial court, however, should not have permitted the prosecution to present additional evidence at a reopened suppres*27sion hearing. Once Detective Gordon’s testimony was discredited, it should have considered defendant’s suppression motion in light of the credible evidence remaining. Because that evidence was insufficient as a matter of law to deny defendant’s motion, the court should have suppressed the prerecorded buy money, the only evidence supporting the two counts of criminal sale of a controlled substance. Without that, the People could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant sold the drugs to Mayo. We would, therefore, reverse the two sale convictions, but affirm defendant’s convictions for possession of a controlled substance, possession of a weapon and use of drug paraphernalia.
Judges Rosenblatt, Graffeo and Read concur with Judge R.S. Smith; Judge G.B. Smith dissents in part and votes to modify in a separate opinion in which Chief Judge Kaye and Judge Ciparick concur.
Order affirmed.

. Detective Gordon was charged with official misconduct and, sometime after the trial of the defendant Robinson, the detective was acquitted of the charge.

. In a letter dated July 24, 2002, the prosecutor disclosed that Sergeant Washington tested positive for marijuana on July 9 in a routine police department screening. Trial court denied a CPL 330.30 (3) motion for newly discovered evidence because the information about the drug test had no bearing on the evidence which was the subject of the hearing, nor was there a showing that Sergeant Washington had previously failed drug tests which would have compromised his credibility at the reopened Mapp/Dunaway hearing. In October 2002, Sergeant Washington was acquitted of the charge of official misconduct.

. “This is not to suggest that prosecutors must disclose to the court each and every statement or bit of evidence or the results of every avenue of investigation. Indeed, there are many situations where the prosecution can fairly keep to itself what it alone possesses. But where, as here, there is in the possession of the prosecution evidence of a material nature which if disclosed could affect the ultimate decision on a suppression motion, and that evidence is not disclosed, such nondisclosure denies the defendant due process of law” (People v Geaslen, 54 NY2d 510, 516 [1981]).