NO NEED FOR ARRESTING OFFICER TO TESTIFY AT SUPPRESSION HEARING, INFERENCE OF MUTUAL COMMUNICATION APPLIED.
The First Department determined the arresting officer did not need to testify at the suppression hearing and explained the inference of mutual communication:
The arresting officer had probable cause to arrest defendant under the fellow officer rule because “the radio transmission [of] the undercover officer . . . provided details of the defendant’s race, sex, clothing, as well as his location and the fact that a positive buy’ had occurred” and defendant was the only person in the area who matched the description at the location … . Although the arresting officer did not testify at the suppression hearing, “the only rational explanation for how defendant came to be arrested . . . is that [the arresting officer] heard the radio communication [heard by the testifying officer] and apprehended defendant on that basis” … . The inference of mutual communication … does not turn on what kind of radios the officers were using, or how well the radios were working, but on the simple fact that, without hearing the radio transmission, the arresting officer would have had no way of knowing where to go or whom to arrest. People v Vidro, 2017 NY Slip Op 01975, 1st Dept 3-16-17
CRIMINAL LAW (NO NEED FOR ARRESTING OFFICER TO TESTIFY AT SUPPRESSION HEARING, INFERENCE OF MUTUAL COMMUNICATION APPLIED)/EVIDENCE (CRIMINAL LAW, NO NEED FOR ARRESTING OFFICER TO TESTIFY AT SUPPRESSION HEARING, INFERENCE OF MUTUAL COMMUNICATION APPLIED)/MUTUAL COMMUNICATION , INFERENCE OF (CRIMINAL LAW, NO NEED FOR ARRESTING OFFICER TO TESTIFY AT SUPPRESSION HEARING, INFERENCE OF MUTUAL COMMUNICATION APPLIED)/SUPPRESSION (CRIMINAL LAW, EVIDENCE, NO NEED FOR ARRESTING OFFICER TO TESTIFY AT SUPPRESSION HEARING, INFERENCE OF MUTUAL COMMUNICATION APPLIED)