People v. Hao Lin

46 Misc. 3d 20, 998 N.Y.S.2d 558
CourtAppellate Terms of the Supreme Court of New York
DecidedNovember 26, 2014
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 46 Misc. 3d 20 (People v. Hao Lin) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Terms of the Supreme Court 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. Hao Lin, 46 Misc. 3d 20, 998 N.Y.S.2d 558 (N.Y. Ct. App. 2014).

Opinion

OPINION OF THE COURT

Memorandum.

Ordered that the judgment of conviction is reversed, on the law, and the matter is remitted to the Criminal Court for a new trial.

On January 2, 2008, the People charged defendant, in an information, with aggravated driving while intoxicated (Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1192 [2-a]), driving while intoxicated (per se) (Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1192 [2]), driving while intoxicated (common law) (Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1192 [3]), driving while impaired (Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1192 [1]), reckless driving [22]*22(Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1212), failing to obey a traffic control device (Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1110), and failing to signal when turning (Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1163 [d]). The information alleged that, on January 2, 2008 at about 12:30 a.m., on 86th Street in Kings County, defendant’s automobile was observed “swerving back and forth across multiple lanes of traffic.” After committing additional traffic infractions, defendant was stopped, whereupon a police officer observed defendant with numerous indicia of intoxication and arrested defendant. A chemical test of defendant’s breath revealed a blood alcohol content of .25 of one percentum by weight.

Prior to trial, the People announced that the operator of the Intoxilyzer 5000 instrument used to measure defendant’s blood alcohol content had retired out of state and was not presently available to testify, and that, in the operator’s place, they would offer the testimony of another officer who was certified to operate the Intoxilyzer 5000 device and who was present at defendant’s test, operating a video camera. Defendant objected to the admission of the test results absent an opportunity to cross-examine the tester. The Criminal Court overruled the objection, and, at the trial, the witness testified to his credentials, his experience administering Intoxilyzer 5000 tests, and his observations of defendant’s test. The jury convicted defendant of the two counts of driving while intoxicated (Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1192 [2], [3]) and acquitted defendant of the remaining counts.

On appeal, defendant argues (1) that the admission of the testimony of the witness who had observed the test violated his rights under the Confrontation Clause to confront the tester (see Bullcoming v New Mexico, 564 US —, —, 131 S Ct 2705, 2717 [2011]; Crawford v Washington, 541 US 36 [2004]); (2) that the prosecutor’s summation remarks denied him a fair trial; and (3) that the acquittal of the charge of driving while impaired is repugnant to his conviction of common-law driving while intoxicated. For the reasons that follow, the judgment convicting defendant of Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1192 (2) and (3) is reversed and these counts are remitted to the Criminal Court for a new trial.

Evidence is testimonial when its primary purpose is to “establish or prove past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution” (Davis v Washington, 547 US 813, 822 [2006]) and takes the form of “an out-of-court substitute for trial testimony” (Michigan v Bryant, 562 US 344, —, 131 S Ct 1143, 1155 [2011]). Documents “created solely for an evidentiary [23]*23purpose . . . made in aid of a police investigation” are testimonial (Bullcoming, 564 US at —, 131 S Ct at 2717 [internal quotation marks and citation omitted]; see People v Pealer, 20 NY3d 447, 454 [2013] [characterizing a blood analysis laboratory report as testimonial because it was “generated for law enforcement purposes in order to establish a necessary element of the charged offenses”]; see also People v Brown, 13 NY3d 332, 340 [2009]). An Intoxilyzer 5000 test result printout is testimonial by these standards, and, normally, absent a showing of the unavailability of the tester or a prior opportunity to cross-examine the tester (Bullcoming, 564 US at —, 131 S Ct at 2713), the person who performed the test must be produced for cross-examination if the test results are to be admitted into evidence.

In Bullcoming, the Supreme Court rejected, on Confrontation Clause grounds, a state’s attempt to admit a laboratory report via the testimony of “another [laboratory] analyst who was familiar with the laboratory’s testing procedures,” because the witness “had neither participated in nor observed the test on [defendant’s] blood sample” (564 US at —, 131 S Ct at 2709). In a concurring opinion, Justice Sotomayor emphasized that “[i]t would be a [very] different case if, for example, a supervisor who observed an analyst conducting a test testified about the results or a report about such results” (564 US at —, 131 S Ct at 2722). However, the standards to be applied to determine whether the expertise of the proposed substitute witness who had observed the test and his or her personal knowledge of the test at issue is sufficient to permit meaningful cross-examination remain unclear (see Flournoy v Small, 681 F3d 1000, 1005 [9th Cir 2012] [“the degree of proximity the testifying witness must have to the scientific test” is an “unresolved area( )”]; Meras v Sisto, 676 F3d 1184, 1192 [9th Cir 2012, Bea, J., concurring] [the issue of the qualifications of a substitute witness is an open one, as Bullcoming expressly declined to “ ‘address what degree of involvement... is sufficient’ ” (quoting Bullcoming, 564 US at —, 131 S Ct at 2722)]; compare United States v Hernandez, 479 Fed Appx 636, 641 [5th Cir 2012], with People v Umpierre, 37 Misc 3d 775 [Sup Ct, Bronx County 2012]).

In general, forensic laboratory procedures, which may involve the application of expertise involving the handling of the evidence to be tested, preparing an instrument to perform an analysis, the procedures followed to conduct the analysis, and the interpretation of test results, represent a significant amount of [24]*24information “meet for cross-examination” (Bullcoming, 564 US at —, 131 S Ct at 2714; see also Melendez-Diaz v Massachusetts, 557 US 305, 311 n 1 [2009] [“chain of custody, authenticity of the sample, (and the) accuracy of the testing device” are salient matters for authenticating test results]). However, in the case of an Intoxilyzer 5000 breath analysis, the scope of potential cross-examination necessary to satisfy Confrontation Clause concerns is attenuated. First, “documents pertaining to the routine inspection, maintenance and calibration of breathalyzer machines are nontestimonial under Crawford and its progeny” (People v Pealer, 20 NY3d at 456; e.g. People v Cook, 111 AD3d 1169, 1170 [2013]; People v Hulbert, 93 AD3d 953 [2012]; People v Lent, 29 Misc 3d 14 [App Term, 2d Dept, 9th & 10th Jud Dists 2010]; People v Lebrecht, 13 Misc 3d 45 [App Term, 2d Dept, 9th & 10th Jud Dists 2006]). Thus, all issues relating to the determination of whether a testing device is working properly prior to the commencement of a test are resolved by certified copies of documentation relating to the inspection, maintenance and calibration of the instrument and any solutions used, the admission of which, pursuant to the business records exception to the hearsay rule, requires no testimony by those responsible for the inspections, maintenance, and calibrations (Pealer, 20 NY3d 447).

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Bluebook (online)
46 Misc. 3d 20, 998 N.Y.S.2d 558, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-hao-lin-nyappterm-2014.