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PLACING DEFENDANT IN HANDCUFFS ELEVATED THE INVESTIGATORY STOP TO AN ILLEGAL ARREST, MOTION TO SUPPRESS SHOULD HAVE BEEN GRANTED (FIRST DEPT).

The First Department, reversing defendant’s conviction, determined placing the defendant in handcuffs improperly elevated an investigatory detention to an illegal arrest and the suppression motion should have been granted. The court noted that Supreme Court explicitly found that the detective did not have probable cause to arrest at the time of the handcuffing so the appellate court could not consider the People’s argument to the contrary:

During a buy and bust operation, the police made what the suppression court found to be an investigatory stop of defendant, based on reasonable suspicion, followed by a confirmatory identification that provided probable cause to arrest defendant for selling drugs. However, during the stop, but before the identification, the police handcuffed defendant because defendant was “a little irate” and the officer wanted to “make sure nothing escalated.

“Although the use of handcuffs is not dispositive of whether an investigatory detention on reasonable suspicion has been elevated to an arrest, handcuffing is permissible in such a detention only when justified by the circumstances”… . Here, defendant was not suspected of anything more than a street-level drug sale, the police had no reason to believe that he was armed, dangerous or likely to flee, and there was no indication on the record that defendant offered any resistance before he was handcuffed. That defendant was “a little irate” does not establish dangerousness or resistance that would justify the use of handcuffs during an investigatory stop … . People v Steinbergin, 2018 NY Slip Op 02123, First Dept 3-27-18

CRIMINAL LAW (PLACING DEFENDANT IN HANDCUFFS ELEVATED THE INVESTIGATORY STOP TO AN ILLEGAL ARREST, MOTION TO SUPPRESS SHOULD HAVE BEEN GRANTED (FIRST DEPT))/STREET STOPS  (PLACING DEFENDANT IN HANDCUFFS ELEVATED THE INVESTIGATORY STOP TO AN ILLEGAL ARREST, MOTION TO SUPPRESS SHOULD HAVE BEEN GRANTED (FIRST DEPT))/INVESTIGATORY STOP (PLACING DEFENDANT IN HANDCUFFS ELEVATED THE INVESTIGATORY STOP TO AN ILLEGAL ARREST, MOTION TO SUPPRESS SHOULD HAVE BEEN GRANTED (FIRST DEPT))/SEARCH AND SEIZURE  (PLACING DEFENDANT IN HANDCUFFS ELEVATED THE INVESTIGATORY STOP TO AN ILLEGAL ARREST, MOTION TO SUPPRESS SHOULD HAVE BEEN GRANTED (FIRST DEPT))/SUPPRESS, MOTION TO  (PLACING DEFENDANT IN HANDCUFFS ELEVATED THE INVESTIGATORY STOP TO AN ILLEGAL ARREST, MOTION TO SUPPRESS SHOULD HAVE BEEN GRANTED (FIRST DEPT))

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