People v. Greene

163 Misc. 2d 187, 620 N.Y.S.2d 232, 1994 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 527
CourtCriminal Court of the City of New York
DecidedNovember 15, 1994
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 163 Misc. 2d 187 (People v. Greene) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Criminal Court of the City 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. Greene, 163 Misc. 2d 187, 620 N.Y.S.2d 232, 1994 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 527 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1994).

Opinion

OPINION OF THE COURT

Charles J. Heffernan, Jr., J.

This case presents a question of first impression: whether the People have complied with CPL 710.30 (1) (b) by serving an identification notice which lists the correct date and police witness, but which specifies the wrong time and place of that identification. For the reasons discussed below, this court concludes that the notice does not comport with the statutory requirement and suppression must result.

INTRODUCTION

The sequence of relevant events in this case is as follows. On April 18, 1994 defendant was arrested and charged with the crimes of an attempt to commit the crime of robbery and assault for events that allegedly occurred four days earlier at 4:00 p.m. at the intersection of Empire Boulevard and Flat-bush Avenue in Kings County. During defendant’s arraignment on April 19, 1994, the People served upon defendant and filed with the court a notice pursuant to CPL 710.30 (1) (b) of an identification of defendant that occurred on April 18, 1994 at 4:10 p.m. at the "scene”, as well as notice pursuant to CPL 710.30 (1) (a) of a statement attributed to defendant. On May 12, 1994, the People successfully moved to reduce the charges against defendant to an attempt to commit the crime of petit larceny (Penal Law §§ 110.00, 155.25) and assault in the third degree (Penal Law § 120.00 [1]). On August 11, 1994 defendant moved to suppress both the identification and the statement which were contained in the notices served at defendant’s arraignment. A hearing on that motion was held before this court on October 5 and 6, 1994.

THE SUPPRESSION HEARING

The People called one witness at the hearing, Detective Dominic Andreno of the 71st Precinct Robbery Unit. During his testimony the parties discovered that the sole identification in this case occurred on April 18, 1994, as stated in the CPL 710.30 (1) (b) notice, but that it took place not at the time [189]*189and place listed therein, but instead at approximately 12:30 p.m. at Clara Barton High School.

Defendant promptly moved for preclusion of evidence pertaining to the unnoticed identification as well as of an in-court identification of defendant by the complainant. The People opposed that motion. The parties subsequently filed legal memoranda.

THE POSITIONS OF THE PARTIES

Defendant’s Argument:

Defendant submits three arguments: (1) that the People’s failure to serve notice of the 12:30 p.m. identification inside Clara Barton High School must result in preclusion of all identification testimony by the complainant pursuant to CPL 710.30 (3) and People v McMullin (70 NY2d 855 [1987]) and People v Bernier (73 NY2d 1006 [1989]); (2) that notwithstanding any finding by the court that the identification in question was confirmatory, the People were required by CPL 710.30 (1) (b) to serve upon defendant notice of the correct date, time and place of the identification at issue; and (3) that the decisions of the Court of Appeals in McMullin and Bernier (supra) are controlling in this case, and that the holdings of the Appellate Division, Second Department, in People v Ocasio (183 AD2d 921 [1992], lu dismissed 80 NY2d 932) and People v Canute (190 AD2d 745 [1993]), do not require a different result in this case from that which defendant urges.

The People’s Argument:

The People advance three arguments in support of their position: (1) that notice of identification is not required where the defendant is known to the complaining witness; (2) should such notice be found necessary on the facts at bar, the notice that was served upon defendant was sufficient and timely; and (3) if the notice was not sufficient, it is amendable to cure any inaccuracies therein.

THE LEGAL ANALYSIS

The law in New York State is now settled that if a statutorily required identification notice is not timely served, evidence of both the unnoticed identification and the in-court identification by the witness in question is not admissible at trial, even if a court should find an independent source for [190]*190such identification (People v McMullin, supra; People v Bernier, supra).

The core question in this case is whether the People’s notice of identification, factually inaccurate as it is, nonetheless qualifies as sufficient under CPL 710.30 (1) (b) to withstand the preclusion motion. If it does, the motion must be denied; if it does not, the opposite result must follow.

CPL 710.30 reads in pertinent part as follows:

"1. Whenever the people intend to offer at a trial * * * (b) testimony regarding an observation of the defendant either at the time or place of the commission of the offense or upon some other occasion relevant to the case, to be given by a witness who has previously identified him as such, they must serve upon the defendant a notice of such intention, specifying the evidence intended to be offered.

"2. Such notice must be served within fifteen days after arraignment and before trial, and upon such service the defendant must be accorded reasonable opportunity to move before trial, pursuant to subdivision one of section 710.40, to suppress the specified evidence. For good cause shown, however, the court may permit the people to serve such notice thereafter and in such case it must accord the defendant reasonable opportunity thereafter to make a suppression motion.

"3. In the absence of service of notice upon a defendant as prescribed in this section, no evidence of a kind specified in subdivision one may be received against him upon such trial unless he has, despite the lack of such notice, moved to suppress such evidence and such motion has been denied and the evidence thereby rendered admissible as prescribed in subdivision two of section 710.40.” (Emphasis added.)

The Court of Appeals has adopted a policy of strict construction of and compliance with the CPL 710.30 notice requirements. The rationale for that standard was articulated in the seminal decision in People v O’Doherty (70 NY2d 479, 488-489):

"Although CPL 710.30 retains as its central purpose that of providing a defendant with the opportunity to obtain a pretrial ruling on the admissibility of statements to be used against him, the 1976 amendment was designed to serve an ancillary goal — the orderly, swift and efficient determination of pretrial motions. The impetus for the amendment was the enactment of article 255 of the Criminal Procedure Law (L 1974, ch 763, § 1), the omnibus pretrial motion provisions [191]*191which sought to impose order and speed on pretrial motion practice by requiring the defendant to make substantially all pretrial motions at one time, on one set of papers before one Judge, within 45 days after arraignment (see, CPL 255.20; Bellacosa, Practice Commentary, McKinney’s Cons Laws of NY, Book 11 A, CPL 255.10, at 437-438). Until the 1976 amendment, however, these goals were compromised by the prosecutor’s ability under CPL 710.30 to serve a notice on defendant at any time before trial, which triggered the defendant’s right to make an additional pretrial motion, requiring a hearing and resulting in additional delay. It was to alleviate this problem that the 1976 amendments to CPL 710.30, requiring notice to defendant within 15 days after arraignment, along with conforming changes to CPL 255.20 and CPL 700.70, were proposed (see,

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
163 Misc. 2d 187, 620 N.Y.S.2d 232, 1994 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 527, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-greene-nycrimct-1994.