Court Opinion

ID: 9806577
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 19:14:08.807762+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:09:53.597506
License: Public Domain

Acosta, J.R,
dissents in a memorandum as follows: I believe defendant is entitled to suppression of a pistol found by the police in a shopping bag located on the floor of the back seat of a car defendant was driving. Evidence that, during a traffic stop, defendant behaved in a very nervous manner, looked several times toward the back seat of the car, and failed to comply with the officers’ directives, was not sufficient to lead to a reasonable conclusion that a weapon located within the car presented an actual and specific danger to the officers’ safety so as to justify a limited search of the car after defendant had been removed from the car and frisked without incident. There was no testimony that defendant looked in the specific direction of the bag or even the floor. Accordingly, there was nothing that could be analogized to movements within a car to reach or conceal something, which could reasonably have been taken to indicate the presence of a concealed weapon (see People v Newman, 96 AD3d 34, 42 [1st Dept 2012], lv denied 19 NY3d 999 [2012]). In the absence of objective indicators that could lead to a reasonable conclusion that there was a substantial likelihood that a weapon was located in defendant’s car, the search was *629unlawful since no actual and specific danger threatened the safety of the officers (see People v Hackett, 47 AD3d 1122, 1124 [3d Dept 2008]; Matter of Terrell W., 301 AD2d 536 [2d Dept 2003]).