People v. Greene

36 A.D.3d 219, 824 N.Y.S.2d 48
Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York·Decided November 9, 2006·Published·Cited by 3 cases

Opinion

[221] OPINION OF THE COURT

Sullivan, J.E

In October 2001, defendant and Julio Cuello, known as Tigerito, got into a fight over a woman, as a result of which defendant’s face was cut from the left ear to his chin. Defendant was treated at Lincoln Hospital for his wound, which was stitched and bandaged. That incident provided the impetus for a subsequent shooting incident that led to the death of Anthony Berrios. The primary issue on appeal from defendant’s conviction for that homicide is his claim that certain information provided by a Lincoln Hospital administrator as to the treatment of a person for a facial wound was obtained in violation of the statutory physician-patient privilege,* as it relates to defendant. As a result, he argues, the information obtained from the violation and its fruits — his arrest and identification from a photo array and in a lineup — implicated a constitutionally protected right and must be suppressed.

The suppression hearing adduced the following evidence. Assigned to the shooting death of 16-year-old Berrios, which had occurred at Eastburn Avenue and the service road of the Cross-Bronx Expressway on the morning of October 17, 2001, Detective Elliott learned from the victim’s aunt that the “word on the street” was that the killing was in revenge for a slashing of a “male black” at the Rumba Club several days earlier. Tigerito, the slasher, told Detective Elliott that he had heard that the shooters were “some black guys” from around 168th Street and College Avenue. Detective Elliott also interviewed Tony Coston, who related that at about one o’clock on the morning of the shooting, he had heard gunshots and saw a “male black” with a gun pursue a “young Spanish boy” down Weeks Avenue toward the Cross-Bronx Expressway. Coston heard more gunshots and heard the black man say, “I told you to stay off the block.”

On October 18, Detective Elliott went to Lincoln Hospital and asked an administrator, Ms. Brown, “if there was any male blacks that were treated on October 13 for any kind of slash wounds to the face” or “if anyone came in for a slashing to the face on that date, October 13th.” Ms. Brown gave Detective El[222] liott an admission slip with defendant’s name and address, 2080 Barnes Avenue, and told him that defendant had received stitches on the left side of his face. That same day, in a police car, Detective Elliott showed Tony Coston a computer-generated black and white photo array containing a “couple of years old” photograph of defendant. Coston recognized two people in the array, one of whom was defendant, but he “wasn’t too sure” of his identification and “didn’t want to say yes or no” because it was nighttime and the light in the police car was “pretty bad.” Coston asked to see a more recent photograph or a live person under better lighting conditions.

Having learned from police computer records that defendant had been arrested several times around 168th Street and College Avenue, Detective Elliott searched that area. On October 20, he saw defendant at 168th Street and Findlay Avenue. As the detective approached, defendant removed a silver gun from his waistband and threw it into a garbage can. The detective arrested defendant, who had a “fresh,” “long” scar from below his ear to close to his chin on the left side of his face, and retrieved the gun, a loaded .357 magnum.

The following day, Detective Elliott went to Coston’s home and showed him a new photo array containing defendant’s arrest photograph, but not the photograph of the other person Coston had previously recognized in the first array. This time, Coston recognized defendant’s photograph “right away.” That same day, four hours later, Coston viewed a lineup at the Bronx Homicide Task Force. Although the five fillers ranged in age from 30 to 35, and defendant was 23 at the time, Detective Elliott, who would not have conducted the lineup if the fillers had not fit defendant’s description, thought they “all looked similar.” After viewing the lineup for a few seconds, Coston identified defendant.

In urging suppression of the pretrial identifications as fruit of the poisonous tree, defendant argued that the information obtained from Lincoln Hospital violated defendant’s physician-patient privilege as set forth in CPLR 4504 and his right to privacy under the Fourth Amendment. Defendant also argued that the second photo array and lineup were suggestive because only defendant, and not the second person whom Coston had recognized in the first photo array, appeared in them.

The prosecutor argued that the information obtained from Lincoln Hospital was not protected by the physician-patient privilege, which does not extend to readily observable physical [223] phenomena that do not involve a patient’s medical treatment. Moreover, he argued, any abridgment of the statutorily conferred physician-patient privilege in furtherance of a criminal investigation does not implicate a constitutional right so as to warrant suppression. Finally, the prosecutor argued that the second photo array and lineup identifications were attenuated from any CPLR 4504 violation because they resulted from an intervening event, defendant’s arrest for weapon possession.

The court, implicitly finding a statutory violation, determined that a breach of the physician-patient privilege does not implicate a constitutional right and that, hence, evidence so obtained need not be suppressed. The court also concluded that the second photo array was not improperly suggestive, noting that Coston viewed two entirely different photographs of defendant in different positions in the two arrays, one taken approximately two years before the other, and he was unable to make an identification in the first array. The court also noted that an examination of the photo arrays reveals that there was a sufficient degree of resemblance among the participants and that none of them had any distinctive features or “stood out.” Since the second array was not suggestive, it did not taint the lineup. The court found that the lineup was not itself suggestive because the participants had similar coloring and facial features and there was nothing distinctive about defendant or his clothing. Nor, concluded the court, was there anything to suggest that the witness was given any indication as to which individual to select.

The trial transcript shows that in October 2001, at the Rumba nightclub, Tigerito slashed defendant in a dispute over a woman with whom they had both danced that evening. Jose Ramos, who knew defendant well, observed this altercation. Afterwards, defendant went to the hospital, where he was stitched and bandaged. As a result of the incident at the nightclub, Ramos formulated a plan to kill Tigerito, a drug “boss” who operated around 175th Street and Weeks Avenue, and his “crew” as revenge for the slashing.

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People v. Greene, 36 A.D.3d 219, 824 N.Y.S.2d 48 (N.Y. Ct. App. 2006).

36 A.D.3d 219 (People v. Greene) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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