MATTER REMITTED FOR A REOPENED SUPPRESSION HEARING BASED UPON NEW EVIDENCE THAT THE VEHICLE STOP MAY HAVE BEEN BASED UPON INFORMATION FROM AN ANONYMOUS BYSTANDER (SECOND DEPT).

The Second Department, remitting the matter for a reopened suppression hearing, determined the hearing was warranted by new information that the stop of defendant’s vehicle may have been based on information from an anonymous source. The defendant had already been convicted of attempted robbery twice after a reversal:

We agree with the defendant that the Supreme Court should have granted his motion to reopen the suppression hearing on those branches of his omnibus motion which were to suppress physical evidence recovered as a result of the stop of the livery car and the identification evidence that followed the stop pursuant to CPL 710.40(4). CPL 710.40(4) permits a court to reopen a suppression hearing if additional pertinent facts have been discovered which the defendant could not have discovered with reasonable diligence before the determination of the original suppression motion … . The additional facts discovered need not necessarily be “outcome-determinative or essential'”; instead, they must be “pertinent” in that they “would materially affect or have affected” the earlier suppression ruling … . Here, the revelation that the livery car description may have come from an anonymous bystander who interjected while translating between the complainant and the sergeant at the scene was previously unknown, and because the sergeant did not previously testify in the case, could not have been discovered with due diligence by the defendant. The information that the livery car description came from an unidentified and anonymous bystander would have affected the earlier suppression determination by placing squarely before the court questions regarding the identity and reliability of the person who described the livery car … . People v Dunbar, 2019 NY Slip Op 09018, Second Dept 12-18-19