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AFTER A VALID TRAFFIC STOP, ASKING DEFENDANT TO STEP OUT OF THE CAR AND PLACING DEFENDANT IN HANDCUFFS IN THE ABSENCE OF ANY VALID “SAFETY REASONS” CONSTITUTED AN ILLEGAL DETENTION WARRANTING SUPPRESSION OF DEFENDANT’S STATEMENTS (FOURTH DEPT).

The Fourth Department, reversing County Court, suppressing defendant’s statements and ordering a new trial, determined the statements were the fruit of an unlawful detention at a traffic stop. A two-justice dissent argued the unlawful detention lasted less than a minute before the police had probable cause to arrest, and, therefore, a hearing should be held to determine whether the spontaneous statements made by the defendant at the police station were the fruit of the poisonous tree:

The Troopers … directed the driver and defendant to exit the vehicle so the Troopers could conduct an inventory search. Pursuant to standard procedure, the driver and defendant were placed in handcuffs. No other basis for placing the driver and defendant in handcuffs was offered by the People, and at the suppression hearing one of the Troopers testified that, in the City of Rochester, “for our safety reasons, every single time we have somebody exit the vehicle, we put them in handcuffs.” Before the inventory search was conducted, the vehicle’s driver began acting nervous, and when one of the Troopers inquired about her behavior, the driver stated that there was a gun in a bag in the vehicle. The Troopers retrieved and searched the bag, which contained a loaded handgun. Defendant and the driver were then arrested and taken to the State Police station for processing, where defendant began talking to one of the Troopers and made spontaneous statements indicating that the gun belonged to him. * * *

We agree with defendant that by placing him in handcuffs after directing him to exit the vehicle, the Troopers transformed the traffic stop into a “forcible stop and detention” … , which “must be justified by some additional circumstances, such as a threat of evasive conduct . . . ; a need to transport the defendant for a showup procedure . . . ; a fear that the suspect may interfere with the execution of a search warrant . . . ; or a concern for officer safety” … . The People did not present evidence at the suppression hearing of ” ‘articulable facts’ from the encounter to establish reasonable suspicion that defendant posed any danger to the officers” … .

From the dissent:

As the majority concludes, two New York State Troopers unlawfully detained defendant in handcuffs following the traffic stop. At the time, the Troopers had no reason to believe that either defendant or the driver had committed a crime. But the unlawful detention lasted less than a minute before the driver informed the Troopers that there was a gun in the vehicle, thus providing the Troopers with probable cause to arrest both the driver and defendant for criminal possession of a weapon. Thus, at the time he made his statements, defendant was lawfully under arrest. People v Hernandez, 2025 NY Slip Op 04315, Fourth Dept 7-25-25

Practice Point: Apparently the State Police consider the City of Rochester a high crime area and it is standard procedure for them, after a traffic stop in the city, to place the occupants of the car in handcuffs for “safety reasons.” The Fourth Department held that standard procedure constitutes an illegal detention.

 

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