People v Brannon
2009 NY Slip Op 01861 [60 AD3d 498]
March 17, 2009
Appellate Division, First Department
As corrected through Wednesday, May 6, 2009


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

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

Robert M. Morgenthau, District Attorney, New York (Nivritha Casi Ketty of counsel), forrespondent.

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Arlene R. Silverman, J.), rendered February13, 2007, as amended April 19, 2007, convicting defendant, upon his plea of guilty, of criminalpossession of a weapon in the third degree, and sentencing him, as a second felony offender, to aterm of 2 to 4 years, unanimously affirmed.

The court properly denied defendant's suppression motion. There is no basis for disturbingthe court's credibility determinations (see People v Prochilo, 41 NY2d 759, 761 [1977]).The combination of defendant's suspiciously evasive conduct, the officer's observation thatdefendant was carrying what was at the least a large and possibly dangerous knife, anddefendant's acknowledgment, in response to a proper common-law inquiry, that he had a knife,permitted the officer to conduct a self-protective frisk (see People v Batista, 88 NY2d650, 654 [1996]; People v Benjamin, 51 NY2d 267, 271 [1980]; see also People vKing, 102 AD2d 710 [1984], affd 65 NY2d 702 [1985]). Concur—Mazzarelli,J.P., Andrias, Gonzalez, Moskowitz and Renwick, JJ.


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