THE APPLICATION FOR A SEARCH WARRANT WAS BASED ON INFORMATION PROVIDED BY AN INFORMANT WHO WAS NOT DEMONSTRATED TO BE RELIABLE; DEFENDANT’S SUPPRESSION MOTION SHOULD HAVE BEEN GRANTED (SECOND DEPT).

The Second Department, reversing Supreme Court, determined defendant’s motion to suppress the firearm found in a search of his apartment should have been granted. The application for the search warrant was supported by uncorroborated information from an informant who was not shown to be reliable:

In support of the search warrant application, a police officer averred that he was informed by a confidential informant that the informant had observed the defendant with a handgun on three occasions, two of which were when the defendant was leaving the defendant’s apartment. As the defendant correctly contends, the police failed to establish that the information given by the confidential informant was reliable . The confidential informant’s statement was not under oath or against penal interests… , the informant had not demonstrated a “proven track record of supplying reliable information in the past,” and the only information given by the informant that the police independently corroborated prior to executing the search warrant was the fact that the defendant lived at the subject apartment and the description of the premises given by the informant … . People v Vincent, 2023 NY Slip Op 03808, Second Dept 7-12-23

Practice Point: If the application for a search warrant is based upon information from an informant, the application must demonstrate the informant and the information is reliable. Here there was no evidence the informant had provided accurate information in the past and the information was not sufficiently corroborated by other evidence.