IN THIS STREET STOP, THE POLICE WERE JUSTIFIED IN FRISKING THE DEFENDANT BUT WERE NOT JUSTIFIED IN REACHING INSIDE A POCKET TO RETRIEVE THE ROBBERY VICTIM’S DRIVER’S LICENSE; BECAUSE THE DRIVER’S LICENSE CORROBORATED OTHER EVIDENCE, MAKING CONVICTION MORE LIKELY, A NEW TRIAL WAS ORDERED (SECOND DEPT).

The Second Department, reversing several convictions and ordering a new trial on the relevant counts, determined the police were justified in frisking the defendant not in removing the robbery victim’s driver’s license from defendant’s pocket. The driver’s license corroborated other evidence making the robbery and possession of stolen property convictions more likely:

… Supreme Court properly determined that since the defendant fit the description heard over the radio and he was in close spatial and temporal proximity to the scene of the robbery, the police officers reasonably suspected that the defendant was the perpetrator of the robbery. Furthermore, the police officers were justified in performing a protective frisk since they had reasonable suspicion that the defendant was armed and dangerous since he had a box cutter in his hand, and the police officers had concerns for safety, entitling them to conduct a protective frisk … . However, here, there was no justification for searching the defendant’s pants pocket, reaching into it, and removing the driver license … , as there was no evidence presented at the suppression hearing that, during his frisk of the defendant, Officer Mancuso felt anything in the defendant’s pocket that seemed to be a weapon or that could have posed a further danger to the police officers at the scene. In the course of conducting a protective pat-down based upon reasonable suspicion, “[o]nce an officer has concluded that no weapon is present, the search is over and there is no authority for further intrusion” … . Thus, there was no lawful basis for removing the driver license from the defendant’s pocket … . Accordingly, the People failed to satisfy their burden of going forward to establish the legality of police conduct in the first instance, and thus, the driver license should have been suppressed. People v Sanchez, 2026 NY Slip Op 06146, Second Dept 10-21-26

Practice Point: Here the police were justified in frisking the defendant for weapons. But, because the frisk did not indicate the presence of a weapon, the police were not justified in reaching inside defendant’s pocket and seizing the robbery victim’s driver’s license.