People v. Daye

194 A.D.2d 339, 598 N.Y.S.2d 493, 1993 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 5542

Opinion

—Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Richard Lowe, III, J.), rendered October 25, 1990, which convicted defendant, after a non-jury trial, of burglary in the third degree, and sentenced him, as a second felony offender, to a prison term of 3 to 6 years, unanimously affirmed.

Since the officers possessed information which would lead a reasonable person with the same expertise as the officers to conclude, under the circumstances, that defendant was committing or had committed a crime, probable cause existed for defendant’s arrest (People v McRay, 51 NY2d 594, 602). Here, the information included, inter alia: a radio transmission that a burglary was in progress, which was confirmed by three citizen witnesses, who stated that defendant had committed a burglary; observations that the defendant matched the witnesses’ description of the burglar; the spontaneous identification of defendant by a witness near the scene of the crime only minutes after the burglary occurred; and defendant’s flight from the officers before being arrested. Under these circumstances, it was " 'moré probable than not’ ” that defendant had just committed a crime (People v Mercado, 68 NY2d 874, 877, cert denied 479 US 1095). While defendant may offer innocent explanations for his behavior, that does not prevent the police from acting on their well-founded conclusions (supra). Concur—Murphy, P. J., Sullivan, Carro, Kupferman and Rubin, JJ.