| People v Bracy |
| 2012 NY Slip Op 00566 [91 AD3d 1296] |
| Jnury 31, 2012 |
| Appellate Division, Fourth Department |
| The People of the State of New York, Respondent, v MarioBracy, Appellant. |
Appeal from a judgment of the Erie County Court (Michael L. D'Amico, J.), rendered May21, 2010. The judgment convicted defendant, upon his plea of guilty, of criminal possession of aweapon in the second degree, criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree and unlawfulpossession of marihuana. It is hereby ordered that the judgment so appealed from is unanimously modified on thelaw and the facts by vacating the part convicting defendant of unlawful possession of marihuana,granting the omnibus motion insofar as it sought to suppress the marihuana found on defendant'sperson, and dismissing the third count of the indictment, and as modified the judgment isaffirmed. Memorandum: Defendant appeals from a judgment convicting him upon his plea of guiltyof criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree (Penal Law 265.03 [3]), criminalpossession of a weapon in the third degree ( 265.02 [3]) and unlawful possession of marihuana (221.05). After indictment, defendant moved, inter alia, to suppress a loaded handgun andmarihuana that were seized from his person by a police officer. County Court denied the motion,and defendant pleaded guilty to the indictment. Defendant's sole contention on appeal is that thecourt erred in denying that part of his omnibus motion seeking to suppress the handgun andmarihuana seized from his person. We conclude that the court properly refused to suppress thehandgun that was seized from the pocket of defendant's pants, but we agree with defendant thatthe court should have suppressed the marihuana seized from the waistband of his pants. Wetherefore modify the judgment accordingly. We reject defendant's initial contention that the arresting officer violated his rights byapproaching him and asking for identification. According to the testimony presented by thePeople at the suppression hearing, when the officer approached defendant, he and another manwere standing in a street next to an occupied parked vehicle in an area that the officer knew to besubject to violence. Defendant and the other man were standing in the street in a manner thatforced any passing vehicles to drive around them, into the opposing traffic lane. Thus, "[t]hetestimony at the suppression hearing establishes that the police officer[ ] had an objective,credible reason for initially approaching defendant and requesting information from him" (Peoplev Hill, 302 AD2d 958, 959 [2003], lv denied 100 NY2d 539 [2003]; see generally People vHollman, 79 NY2d 181, 190-193 [1992]; People v De Bour, 40 NY2d 210, 213 [1976]). Contrary to defendant's further contention, the evidence presented at the suppressionhearing establishes that the arresting officer had reasonable suspicion to believe that defendantposed a threat to her safety at the time of the frisk. When the officer first asked if the four menpresent, i.e., defendant, the other man outside the car, and two additional men inside the car, hadidentification, the only person who responded was the person in the driver's seat of the car, andhis response was merely that he was not driving. The officer exited her vehicle, stood next todefendant and the other man outside the car, and again asked if the four men had identification.This time no one spoke, but both defendant and the other man quickly reached toward theirpockets or the waistbands of their pants. In addition, both men were wearing long hooded jacketsthat covered their pants below the pockets, and as previously noted the officer was aware that thearea in which the incident occurred was subject to violence. The officer was thus confronted bytwo men in proximity to her, both of whom were reaching for their pockets or the waistbands oftheir pants. The officer grabbed the sweatshirts of both men, placed one man in her vehicle, andfrisked defendant. The officer therefore was justified in lifting defendant's sweatshirt to check forweapons, and in patting down the outside of defendant's clothing. While doing so, the officer felta hard object that she concluded was a handgun, which led to the seizure of the loaded firearmfrom defendant's pocket. Based on that evidence, we conclude that the frisk of defendant was a"constitutionally justified intrusion designed to protect the safety of the officer[ ]" (People vRobinson, 278 AD2d 808, 809 [2000], lv denied 96 NY2d 787 [2001]; see People v Mack, 49AD3d 1291, 1292 [2008], lv denied 10 NY3d 866 [2008]). We note that, although the men may have been reaching for their identification papers inresponse to the officer's inquiry, the officer "had a reasonable basis for fearing for [her] safetyand was not required to 'await the glint of steel' " (People v Stokes, 262 AD2d 975, 976 [1999],lv denied 93 NY2d 1028 [1999], quoting People v Benjamin, 51 NY2d 267, 271 [1980]).Moreover, given that the police officer touched a bulging pocket and felt a hard object that shereasonably feared to be a weapon, the officer did not act unlawfully in reaching into the pocketand removing the object (see People v Davenport, 9 AD3d 316 [2004], lv denied 3 NY3d 705[2004]). We agree with defendant, however, that the court erred in refusing to suppress the bag ofmarihuana that the officer removed from his waistband. The information that the officerpossessed when she seized the bag justified only a limited pat frisk to protect her safety. Indeed, "'[t]he purpose of this limited search is not to discover evidence of crime, but to allow the officerto pursue his [or her] investigation without fear of violence' " (Minnesota v Dickerson, 508 US366, 373 [1993]). "Rather, a protective search permitted without a warrant and on the basis ofreasonable suspicion less than probable cause must be strictly 'limited to that which is necessaryfor the discovery of weapons which might be used to harm the officer or others nearby' " (id.; seePeople v Cantor, 36 NY2d 106, 110-111 [1975]; People v Lazcano, 66 AD3d 1474 [2009], lvdenied 13 NY3d 940 [2010]). Here, to the contrary, the officer testified that she observed the bagwhen she lifted defendant's sweatshirt, and she thought that it was a kit used to test formarihuana. Thus, the officer exceeded the permitted scope of the search by removing the bagfrom the suspect's waistband to identify its contents (see People v Dobson, 41 AD3d 496, 497[2007], lv denied 9 NY3d 874 [2007]). The court's finding that the officer knew that the bagcontained marihuana before she removed it from defendant's waistband is not supported by theevidence at the suppression hearing, including the testimony of the officer herself. Finally, insofar as defendant contends that the improper seizure of the marihuana requiressuppression of the handgun, we reject that contention. The evidence presented at the suppressionhearing establishes, and the court properly concluded, that the officer found the handgun as partof a pat frisk that she conducted for her safety. Finding the bag of marihuana before discoveringthe handgun neither eliminated nor diminished the safety factors confronting her. Thus, she waspermitted to continue frisking defendant's clothing, which is when she discovered the weapon.Present Smith, J.P., Peradotto, Lindley, Sconiers and Gorski, JJ.