DEFENDANT’S SUPPRESSION MOTION PAPERS RAISED A FACTUAL ISSUE REQUIRING A HEARING, MATTER REMITTED (FOURTH DEPT).
The Fourth Department, remitting the matter, determined defendant had raised a factual issue requiring a suppression hearing:
“When made before trial, suppression motions must be in writing, state the legal ground of the motion and contain sworn allegations of fact made by defendant or another person” … . A hearing may be denied “unless the papers submitted raise a factual dispute on a material point which must be resolved before the court can decide the legal issue” … .
Here, defendant specifically alleged that officers “responded to [the scene] after . . . defendant, or someone at his behest, called 911” and that defendant, upon their arrival, told them that he “found [the victim] on the stairs bleeding and was trying to help him.” Defendant alleged that, based on that information, “[t]he police removed [him] from the scene and placed him in the back of a police vehicle, and took his personal cell phone from him” without reasonable suspicion or probable cause justifying the intrusion. Although the People contended that defendant made other statements to the officers that heightened their level of suspicion and justified the intrusion, defendant’s motion papers disputed this assertion, alleging instead that, at the time of the intrusion, “the police knew nothing more than [that the victim] appeared to have been shot, and [that defendant] . . . had discovered him and summoned help while trying to give assistance at the scene.” Indeed, at oral argument on the motion, defendant further explained that he specifically disputed what information the police had at the time of the intrusion. We conclude that, under these circumstances, defendant sufficiently raised a factual issue necessitating a hearing … . People v White, 2021 NY Slip Op 01639, Fourth Dept 3-19-21