People v Mendoza
2008 NY Slip Op 03492 [50 AD3d 478]
April 22, 2008
Appellate Division, First Department
As corrected through Wednesday, June 18, 2008


The People of the State of New York, Respondent,
v
SilvaMendoza, Appellant.

[*1]Steven Banks, The Legal Aid Society, New York (Karen M. Kalikow of counsel), forappellant.

Robert T. Johnson, District Attorney, Bronx (Robert R. Sandusky, III of counsel), forrespondent.

Judgment, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Troy K. Webber, J., on motion; DavidStadtmauer, J., at plea and sentence), rendered June 9, 2006, convicting defendant of promotingprison contraband in the first degree, and sentencing him, as a second felony offender, to a termof 2 to 4 years, unanimously affirmed.

The court properly denied, without a hearing, defendant's motion to suppress contraband thatcorrection officers discovered in his pocket during a search they conducted while defendant wasan inmate at Rikers Island, since his factual allegations, even if accepted as true, would not havewarranted a conclusion that the search was unreasonable (see CPL 710.60 [3]). Whiledefendant's allegations may have stated a Fourth Amendment claim in the context of a search of aperson at liberty, defendant did not address the diminished Fourth Amendment rights of a prisoninmate (see Bell v Wolfish, 441 US 520, 557 [1979]). The facts alleged in defendant'smoving papers did not set forth a basis for suppression, given the prison context (see Hudsonv Palmer, 468 US 517, 529 [1984]; People v Frye, 144 AD2d 714 [1988], lvdenied 73 NY2d 891 [1989]). We have considered and rejected defendant's remainingarguments. Concur—Lippman, P.J., Saxe, Gonzalez and Nardelli, JJ.


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