People v. Finkle

192 A.D.2d 783, 596 N.Y.S.2d 549, 1993 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 3770
CourtAppellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York
DecidedApril 15, 1993
StatusPublished
Cited by23 cases

This text of 192 A.D.2d 783 (People v. Finkle) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Finkle, 192 A.D.2d 783, 596 N.Y.S.2d 549, 1993 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 3770 (N.Y. Ct. App. 1993).

Opinion

Harvey, J.

Appeal from a judgment of the County Court of Rensselaer County (Dwyer, Jr., J.), rendered January 8, 1991, upon a verdict convicting defendant of the crime of murder in the second degree.

On July 20, 1989, defendant was arrested and charged with murdering Carol Finkle, her stepmother (hereinafter the victim). During her questioning by the police, defendant admitted killing the victim after a family argument that also involved defendant’s sister, Laura Finkle. Defendant initially concealed evidence of the crime and concocted a false story for the authorities. Defendant confessed her participation in the murder after the police confronted her with information concerning the incident that made them suspect that defendant was lying.

On the evening of defendant’s arrest she was arraigned in Town Court and she was arraigned again the next day before County Court, which was acting as a local criminal court. A preliminary hearing was subsequently held, at the conclusion of which defendant was held over for Grand Jury proceedings. Defendant was indicted on two counts of murder in the second degree (Penal Law § 125.25 [1], [2]) and was arraigned before County Court on September 11, 1989. Defendant’s motion to dismiss the indictment because she was not provided notice of the Grand Jury proceedings was denied. Her motion to suppress the inculpatory statements she made to the police was also denied following a hearing. After a jury trial defendant was convicted of one count of murder in the second degree [784]*784(Penal Law § 125.25 [1]) and was sentenced to a prison term of 25 years to life. This appeal followed.

There must be an affirmance. Initially, we express our disagreement with defendant’s contention that the indictment against her should have been dismissed because she was not afforded written notice of the presentation of the case to the Grand Jury. CPL 190.50 (5) (a) provides that the People must inform a defendant of an impending Grand Jury proceeding if there exists an undisposed-of felony complaint in local criminal court which concerns the same offense. However, defendant was not entitled to notice of the Grand Jury proceedings in this case because the felony complaint had been disposed of by the local criminal court when it finished the preliminary hearing and held defendant over for Grand Jury proceedings (see, People v Conde, 131 AD2d 586; People v Green, 110 AD2d 1035, 1036). Accordingly, defendant’s motion to dismiss the indictment was properly denied.

We similarly find that defendant’s motion to suppress the inculpatory statements she made to the police was also properly denied. The suppression hearing testimony from the investigating law enforcement officials discloses that defendant was initially interviewed on July 19, 1989 at Albany Medical Center Hospital and then later interviewed at a State Police barracks at 11:45 a.m. on July 20, 1989. At each time, defendant gave statements generally indicating that during the afternoon of July 19, 1989 she was home watching television with her sister when the victim came home from work. Defendant stated that the victim soon became involved in an angry telephone conversation with someone defendant suspected was a male. Defendant then stated that the victim got off the phone and asked defendant to leave the house for awhile and to get some bread. Defendant said that she and her sister complied and when they returned they reportedly found the victim’s lifeless body lying in a pool of blood. Defendant told the police that she noticed at that time an imprint of a man’s boot in the blood near the body. She indicated that she thought the victim was having an affair and that perhaps her lover had killed her. Following these statements, Russell Spinner, the boyfriend of defendant’s sister, contacted the police sometime after 7:00 p.m. on July 21, 1989 and indicated that defendant had told him that she had killed the victim. While Spinner was being interviewed, State Police Senior Investigator James Horton was told by his supervisor that "there was some information * * * that some of the things that [the girls] told me earlier in the day were, [785]*785in fact, believed to be false” and that he should reinterview defendant and her sister.

At this point, Horton testified that although he was now suspicious of defendant, he did not have probable cause to arrest her "because nothing had changed evidence-wise from the last time I had seen [defendant]”. Moreover, Horton also had questions in his mind about other possible suspects including Spinner, because he was not sure of Spinner’s motivation in contacting the police. Horton drove to where defendant and her sister were staying, asked them to accompany him back to the State Police barracks to look at some pictures and defendant agreed. Horton waited in the car while defendant and her sister got ready and they drove to the barracks, making small talk on the way.

Once back at the barracks at approximately 9:00 p.m., Horton took defendant back to the unlocked room where he had interviewed her earlier in the day and confronted her with his belief that some of the things she had told him earlier in the day might not be true. He told her that the phone call she had allegedly heard the victim participate in before she was killed was not recorded in the telephone company records, even though Horton had actually never obtained that information. Defendant admitted that the phone call had never occurred and that there was no boot print in the blood next to the body. Defendant told Horton at that point, "I wanted to tell you today. I felt sorry for you. You were so nice to me. I wanted to get you alone to tell you.” She said she felt sorry for the State Troopers searching for the murder weapon out in the rain. She stated she felt bad about the victim’s death but she also felt that the victim was trying to turn her father against her.

At this point in the questioning, Horton read defendant her Miranda rights. Defendant agreed to continue to talk to Horton and she gave further inculpatory statements and signed a consent form to allow a search of her car. Defendant was arrested after she provided a written statement. In her statement she admitted striking the victim with a wrench after the victim kicked her sister’s dog and started fighting with her sister. Defendant then repeatedly stabbed the victim with a kitchen knife. Defendant threw the murder weapon and other items in a bag and she and her sister left the house and started driving. Defendant threw the bag in a dumpster behind a McDonald’s restaurant. Defendant sent her sister into a grocery store to buy bread and on the way back to the house defendant made up the story to tell police. Defendant [786]*786also made further inculpatory statements later in the evening in the presence of State Trooper Maureen Tuffey.

Defendant contends on appeal that the inculpatory statements given at the State Police barracks at approximately 9:00 p.m. on July 20, 1989 should have been suppressed because she was allegedly in custody and was not provided her Miranda rights. The relevant inquiry in determining whether a person was in custody so as to entitle that person to Miranda rights is whether a reasonable person, innocent of any crime, would have reasonably believed that he or she was under arrest (see, People v Murphy, 188 AD2d 742; People v Bell, 182 AD2d 858, 859, lv denied 80 NY2d 927). In our view, County Court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that defendant was not in custody prior to being given her Miranda rights.

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Bluebook (online)
192 A.D.2d 783, 596 N.Y.S.2d 549, 1993 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 3770, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-finkle-nyappdiv-1993.