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ALTHOUGH THE POLICE IN THIS STREET STOP CASE MAY HAVE HAD CAUSE FOR A LEVEL ONE INQUIRY (A CAN IN A PAPER BAG), THEY IMMEDIATELY ENGAGED IN LEVEL TWO INVASIVE QUESTIONING FOCUSED ON DEFENDANT’S POSSIBLE VIOLATION OF THE OPEN CONTAINER LAW; DEFENDANT’S MOTION TO SUPPRESS SHOULD HAVE BEEN GRANTED (FOURTH DEPT).

The Fourth Department, vacating defendant’s guilty plea, over a two-justice dissent, determined defendant’s motion to suppress based upon the illegal street stop should have been granted. The police may have been justified in a level one (DeBour) inquiry based upon an apparent violation of the open-container law (a can in a paper bag), but the police immediately moved to a level two encounter with invasive questioning about the container in the paper bag:

At the first level of a police-civilian encounter, i.e., a request for information, a police officer may approach an individual “when there is some objective credible reason for that interference not necessarily indicative of criminality” (De Bour, 40 NY2d at 223), and “[t]he request may ‘involve[] basic, nonthreatening questions regarding, for instance, identity, address or destination’ ” … .”The next degree, the common-law right to inquire, is activated by a founded suspicion that criminal activity is afoot and permits a somewhat greater intrusion in that a [police officer] is entitled to interfere with a citizen to the extent necessary to gain explanatory information, but short of a forcible seizure” (De Bour, 40 NY2d at 223).

Here, even assuming, arguendo, that the officers possessed a level one right to approach defendant and his companion … the officers nonetheless immediately “engaged in a level two intrusion, i.e., ‘a more pointed inquiry into [the] activities [of defendant and his companion]’ . . . , by asking ‘invasive question[s] focusing on the possible criminality of the subject’ ” … . Notably, the officers did not see defendant or his companion drinking from whatever item was in the paper bag, and there were no other attendant circumstances indicative of criminal behavior that would warrant the more pointed inquiry at the outset … . People v Wright, 2021 NY Slip Op 03675, Fourth Dept 6-11-21

 

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