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AT THE TIME DEFENDANT RAN AS THE POLICE APPROACHED THERE WAS NO INDICATION THE POLICE WERE GOING TO CITE DEFENDANT FOR TRESPASS OR VIOLATION OF AN OPEN-CONTAINER LAW; DEFENDANT THEREFORE COULD NOT HAVE INTENDED TO OBSTRUCT GOVERNMENTAL ADMINISTRATION BY RUNNING; DEFENDANT’S RUNNING DID NOT PROVIDE PROBABLE CAUSE TO ARREST; THE PEOPLE’S ALTERNATIVE PROBABLE CAUSE ARGUMENT (TRESPASS AND OPEN-CONTAINER VIOLATION), ALTHOUGH PRESENTED TO THE SUPPRESSION COURT, WAS NOT RULED ON AND THEREFORE COULD NOT BE CONSIDERED ON APPEAL (FOURTH DEPT).

​The Fourth Department, reversing the denial of defendant’s suppression motion, determined the police did not have probable cause to arrest defendant for obstructing governmental administration. The People’s alternative argument (the police had probable cause to arrest defendant for trespass and violation of an open-container law), made in a post-suppression-hearing memo, could not be considered on appeal because the suppression court did not rule on it. The police approached defendant as he was sitting at a picnic table on vacant property drinking from a cup. As the police approached, defendant got up from the table and ran:

… [A]lthough the officers testified that they were planning to issue citations for violation of the open container ordinance as they approached the picnic table, there is no evidence that, when defendant jumped up from the table and attempted to run away, the officers were in the process of issuing the citations … or that they had given any directive for defendant to remain in place while they issued such citations … . The officers thus had no reasonable basis to believe that defendant had the requisite intent—i.e., the conscious objective—to prevent them from issuing citations … . * * *

… [T]he court’s determination that the officers had probable cause to arrest defendant for obstructing governmental administration, and that the searches and seizures were incident to a lawful arrest for that offense, “was the only issue decided adversely to defendant at the trial court” … . That determination “alone constituted the ratio decidendi for upholding the legality of the [searches and seizures] and denying the suppression of evidence” (id.). Our “review, therefore, is confined to that issue alone” … . People v Tubbins, 2022 NY Slip Op 07317, Fourth Dept 12-23-22

Practice Point: Here defendant did not know the police were going to cite him for trespass and an open-container violation at the time he ran. Therefore his running was not obstruction of governmental administration and did not provide probable cause for arrest on that ground.

Practice Point: The People’s alternative argument that the police had probable cause to arrest for trespass and an open-container violation was presented to the suppression court but was not ruled on. Therefore the appellate court could not consider it.

 

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