THE POLICE DID NOT HAVE REASONABLE SUSPICION TO JUSTIFY THE TRAFFIC STOP AND DID NOT HAVE PROBABLE CAUSE TO ARREST AT THE TIME DEFENDANT GOT OUT OF THE CAR; THE STATEMENTS MADE BY DEFENDANT AND THE COCAINE SEIZED FROM HIS PERSON SHOULD HAVE BEEN SUPPRESSED (FOURTH DEPT).
The Fourth Department, reversing the convictions related to statement which should have been suppressed, determined the police did not have reasonable suspicion to justify a traffic stop and did not have probable to handcuff the defendant, a de facto arrest, when he got out of the car. Therefore the statements which led to the search and seizure of cocaine, as well as the seized cocaine, should have been suppressed:
Inasmuch as the officer conducting the surveillance and directing the stop of defendant “did not see what the defendant and [the alleged buyer] exchanged, could not see if one of the [participants] gave the other something in return for something else, and did not see money pass between the two [individuals],” we conclude that the officers detaining defendant lacked reasonable suspicion to do so … .
… Although the use of handcuffs does not automatically transform a defendant’s detention into a de facto arrest … , such use must be justified by some additional circumstances, such as a threat of evasive conduct … . …
… [T]here was no testimony that the officer who handcuffed defendant “reasonably suspect[ed] that he [was] in danger of physical injury by virtue of [defendant] being armed” … . “[T]he test for determining whether a defendant is in custody or has been subjected to a de facto arrest is ‘what a reasonable [person], innocent of any crime, would have thought had he [or she] been in the defendant’s position’ ” … . People v Hernandez, 2020 NY Slip Op 05321, Fourth Dept 9-30-20
