DEFENDANT’S PRESENCE NEAR A SUSPECTED DRUG HOUSE IN A HIGH CRIME AREA GAVE RISE TO ONLY A GROUNDED SUSPICION; THE ATTEMPT TO STOP THE CAR IN WHICH DEFENDANT WAS A PASSENGER WAS NOT JUSTIFIED BY REASONABLE SUSPICION; THE MOTION TO SUPPRESS THE SEIZED EVIDENCE AND THE SHOWUP IDENTIFICATION SHOULD HAVE BEEN GRANTED; DEFENDANT’S GUILTY PLEA, WHICH ENCOMPASSED AN UNRELATED OFFENSE, WAS VACATED IN ITS ENTIRETY (FOURTH DEPT).

The Fourth Department, reversing Supreme Court’s denial of a suppression motion and vacating defendant’s guilty plea, determined  defendant’s presence near a suspected drug house gave rise only to a founded suspicion which would justify an approach and a common inquiry by the police. Instead, the police attempted to stop the car in which defendant was a passenger and arrested defendant after he ran into his residence. Cocaine and heroin were seized from the defendant. The Fourth Department held that all the seized evidence and the showup identification should have been suppressed. In addition, the court vacated the entire guilty plea which encompassed an unrelated offense:

A detective who could see only the front area of the residence to be searched observed multiple people whom he suspected to be customers arrive at and depart from the back area of the residence through the driveway. The detective also twice saw defendant come to the front yard of the residence to smoke a cigarette then return to the back area. Defendant eventually left the residence as a passenger in a vehicle. The detective conveyed the vehicle’s plate number and direction of travel to an officer in a “take down” car, who followed defendant and attempted to effect a stop of the vehicle by activating the patrol vehicle’s lights. The vehicle in which defendant was a passenger slowed and defendant jumped out and fled on foot into his own residence, where he was arrested soon after and found to be in possession of cocaine and heroin. …

Based on defendant’s proximity to a suspected drug house and his otherwise innocuous behavior … , the officer had, at most, a “founded suspicion that criminal activity [was] afoot,” which permitted him to approach defendant and make a common-law inquiry … . The mere fact that defendant was located in an alleged high crime area “does not supply that requisite reasonable suspicion, in the absence of ‘other objective indicia of criminality’ . . . , and no such evidence was presented at the suppression hearing” … . …

… [A]lthough defendant’s conviction of a second count of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the fifth degree arises from a separate incident, his plea of guilty “was expressly conditioned on the negotiated agreement that [he] would receive concurrent sentences on the separate counts to which he pleaded,” and thus the plea must be vacated in its entirety … . People v Martinez-Gonzalez, 2020 NY Slip Op 06593, Fourth Dept 11-13-20