The Third Department, reversing defendant’s conviction, determined the police did not have justification for searching defendant’s duffel bag and the evidence seized from the bag should have been suppressed. Defendant was arrested in his residence on an outstanding warrant. The defendant was handcuffed when the duffel bag was retrieved by a police officer (Gillis) from behind the couch:
To justify a warrantless search of a closed container incident to arrest, the People must satisfy two requirements: “The first imposes spatial and temporal limitations to ensure that the search is not significantly divorced in time or place from the arrest. The second, and equally important, predicate requires the People to demonstrate the presence of exigent circumstances” … . Two interests underlie the exigency requirement: “‘the safety of the public and the arresting officer; and the protection of evidence from destruction or concealment'” … .
The People failed to establish the existence of exigent circumstances justifying the search of defendant’s duffel bag. Gillis testified that the bag was still against the wall when defendant was handcuffed and personally searched pursuant to the outstanding warrant, and Gillis had to physically retrieve the bag from behind the couch in order to search it. In addition, the officers had searched the residence prior to arresting defendant and did not find any evidence of drug activity or paraphernalia, the owner told Gillis that there was nothing illegal in the apartment and defendant denied that there was contraband in the bag when questioned about its contents. Thus, the search of the subject bag was improper and its contents — namely, crack cocaine, cell phones and train tickets — should have been suppressed … . People v Ortiz, 2016 NY Slip Op 05521, 3rd Dept 7-14-16
CRIMINAL LAW (SEARCH OF CLOSED CONTAINER AFTER DEFENDANT HAD BEEN ARRESTED AND HANDCUFFED NOT JUSTIFIED BY EXIGENT CIRCUMSTANCES, CONVICTION REVERSED)/EVIDENCE (CRIMINAL LAW, SEARCH OF CLOSED CONTAINER AFTER DEFENDANT HAD BEEN ARRESTED AND HANDCUFFED NOT JUSTIFIED BY EXIGENT CIRCUMSTANCES, CONVICTION REVERSED)/SUPPRESSION (CRIMINAL LAW, SEARCH OF CLOSED CONTAINER AFTER DEFENDANT HAD BEEN ARRESTED AND HANDCUFFED NOT JUSTIFIED BY EXIGENT CIRCUMSTANCES, CONVICTION REVERSED)/SEARCH AND SEIZURE (SEARCH OF CLOSED CONTAINER AFTER DEFENDANT HAD BEEN ARRESTED AND HANDCUFFED NOT JUSTIFIED BY EXIGENT CIRCUMSTANCES, CONVICTION REVERSED)/CLOSED CONTAINERS (CRIMINAL LAW, SEARCH OF CLOSED CONTAINER AFTER DEFENDANT HAD BEEN ARRESTED AND HANDCUFFED NOT JUSTIFIED BY EXIGENT CIRCUMSTANCES, CONVICTION REVERSED)