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DEFENDANT IN THIS GRAND LARCENY CASE WAS DETAINED BY STORE SECURITY GUARDS; DEFENSE COUNSEL FIRST LEARNED THE IDENTITY OF ONE OF THE STORE’S SECURITY PERSONNEL ON THE EVE OF THE HEARING TO DETERMINE WHETHER THE SECURITY GUARDS WERE LICENSED TO EXERCISE POLICE POWERS OR WERE AGENTS OF THE POLICE; THEREFORE DEFENSE COUNSEL’S REQUEST FOR AN ADJOURNMENT TO SUBPOENA THE STORE’S EMPLOYMENT POLICIES AND OTHER EMPLOYMENT INFORMATION SHOULD HAVE BEEN GRANTED (FIRST DEPT).

The First Department, reversing Supreme Court and ordering a new “state action” hearing, determined defense counsel’s request for an adjournment to subpoena information about the store security guards’ employment should have been granted. The issue is whether the store security guards who detained the defendant in this grand larceny case were licensed to exercise police powers or acted as agents of the police. Defense counsel learned the name of the store’s lead investigator at the time of defendant’s detention on the eve of the state action hearing. The First Department noted that defense counsel could not properly subpoena the employment information without knowing the identities of the people involved:

… [W]e find that the court improvidently exercised its discretion in denying defense counsel a short adjournment. In denying the requested adjournment, the court found that defendant “could have done that [subpoena … records] a long time ago, maybe even when this appeal was being perfected.” On this appeal, the People make a similar argument that the court did not improvidently exercise its discretion in denying the adjournment because defense counsel could have subpoenaed the materials during the pendency of this appeal. The problem with these arguments is that this Court had already recognized that, without information about the identity of the officers involved in defendant’s arrest, defense counsel was not in a position to meaningfully subpoena records … .

Contrary to the court’s suggestion, this is not the situation where defense counsel failed to exercise due diligence. In fact, as we held, without knowing the names of the store security guards involved in defendant’s detention, defendant was in no better position to subpoena the employer material than when he filed his initial motion. Thus, it was only upon learning the identity of one member of the security team that the defense could meaningfully begin to investigate whether the security guards were state actors. People v Sneed, 2025 NY Slip Op 03026, First Dept 5-20-25

Practice Point: If a defendant is detained by store security guards, the detention may implicate constitutional protections if the security guards are licensed to exercise police powers or are agents of the police. The defense, therefore, may be entitled to a so-called “state action” hearing. To subpoena the appropriate store employment records, defense counsel is entitled to the identities of the security guards involved in defendant’s detention.

 

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