People v Kadenhead
2026 NY Slip Op 04680
July 24, 2026
Appellate Division, Fourth Department
Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431.
This decision is uncorrected and subject to revision before publication in the Official Reports.
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, APPELLANT,
v
DARIUS KADENHEAD, DEFENDANT-RESPONDENT.
Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Division, Fourth Judicial Department
Decided on July 24, 2026
509 KA 25-00573
Present: Lindley, J.P., Montour, Ogden, Nowak, And Delconte, JJ.
MICHAEL J. KEANE, DISTRICT ATTORNEY, BUFFALO (HARMONY A. HEALY OF COUNSEL), FOR APPELLANT.
THE LEGAL AID BUREAU OF BUFFALO, INC., BUFFALO (LEAH N. FARWELL OF COUNSEL), FOR DEFENDANT-RESPONDENT.
Appeal from an oral order of the Erie County Court (Andrew C. LoTempio, A.J.), dated March 12, 2025. The oral order granted that part of defendant's omnibus motion seeking to suppress a handgun.
[*1]
It is hereby ORDERED that the oral order so appealed from is reversed on the law, that part of the omnibus motion seeking to suppress the handgun is denied, and the matter is remitted to Erie County Court for further proceedings on the indictment.
Memorandum: In this prosecution for criminal possession of a weapon that arose from an encounter with law enforcement officers in a hallway outside of defendant's apartment in Buffalo that occurred during an ongoing investigation of defendant for the alleged homicide of a victim in Jamestown, the People appeal from an oral order (see generally People v Elmer, 19 NY3d 501, 507-508 [2012]) granting that part of defendant's omnibus motion seeking to suppress a handgun as the fruit of an unlawful arrest. The People contend that County Court erred in determining that the law enforcement officers lacked probable cause to arrest defendant for the homicide and that the law enforcement officers committed a Payton violation by arresting defendant in an area considered part of his home. We agree with the People on those points, and we therefore reverse the oral order, deny that part of the omnibus motion seeking to suppress the handgun, and remit the matter to County Court for further proceedings on the indictment.
As a preliminary matter, however, we agree with defendant that the court properly determined that the law enforcement officers immediately initiated a level four intrusion, i.e., an arrest, when they encountered defendant in a hallway outside of his apartment on January 25, 2024. The evidence admitted at the suppression hearing establishes that, during a planned operation and immediately upon defendant's exit from his apartment into the interior hallway of his multi-unit apartment building, several law enforcement officers with firearms drawn, including one who aimed a laser sight at defendant's head, quickly surrounded defendant from two different sides of the hallway, demanded that defendant turn around, face the wall, and place his hands behind his back, and put defendant in handcuffs, physically restrained him, and began to frisk him—all within a matter of about 30 seconds. Based on that evidence, we conclude that defendant "was in fact arrested during [the law enforcement officers'] encounter with him[ inasmuch as] he was detained under threat of police firearms and by words and acts, which while short of stating that he was being arrested, made it clear that he was not free to leave" (People v Brnja, 50 NY2d 366, 372 [1980]; see People v Johnson, 102 AD2d 616, 626 [4th Dept 1984], lv denied 63 NY2d 776 [1984]).
We nonetheless agree with the People that the de facto arrest was supported by the requisite probable cause. The police "may arrest a person without a warrant when [they] ha[ve] [*2]probable cause to believe that such person has committed a crime" (People v Johnson, 66 NY2d 398, 402 [1985]). "Probable cause 'does not require proof sufficient to warrant a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt but merely information sufficient to support a reasonable belief that an offense has been . . . committed' by the person arrested" (People v Shulman, 6 NY3d 1, 25 [2005], cert denied 547 US 1043 [2006], quoting People v Bigelow, 66 NY2d 417, 423 [1985]). "When determining whether the police had probable cause to arrest, the inquiry is not as to [the person's] guilt but as to the sufficiency for arrest purposes of the grounds for the arresting officer's belief that [the person] was guilty" (id. at 25-26 [internal quotation marks omitted]). "[T]he basis for such a belief must not only be reasonable, but it must appear to be at least more probable than not that a crime has taken place and that the one arrested is its perpetrator" (People v Carrasquillo, 54 NY2d 248, 254 [1981]). " '[T]he legal conclusion [as to whether probable cause existed] is to be made after considering all of the facts and circumstances together' " (Shulman, 6 NY3d at 26). "A synoptic evaluation is essential because '[v]iewed singly, these may not be persuasive, yet when viewed together the puzzle may fit and probable cause found' " (id.).
Here, the evidence admitted at the suppression hearing establishes that, on January 24, 2024, the tenant who actually rented the victim's apartment in Jamestown found the victim deceased in the apartment and then reported the discovery to a neighbor, who then accompanied the tenant back to the apartment and called 911 to report the discovery of the victim's body. The police thereafter discovered that the victim had sustained a fatal gunshot wound to the back of the head. As of that day and into the next, the murder weapon had not been located. During their investigation into the homicide, the police obtained security footage that depicted the hallway outside of the victim's apartment. The security footage showed the victim and another male entering the victim's apartment on January 22, 2024, but only the yet-to-be-identified male left the victim's apartment later that same day. The investigative section commander with the investigating police department testified that, after obtaining a still photograph from the security footage and conducting further investigation, the police determined that defendant was the other male shown entering the apartment with the victim on January 22, 2024. Indeed, another officer recognized the other male—defendant—as the same person with whom he had a brief street encounter on January 22, 2024 in an alleyway on the backside of the victim's apartment complex, i.e., defendant's presence at the victim's apartment complex was independently confirmed by a law enforcement source. Notably, during the street encounter that day, defendant partially misrepresented his name by giving his middle name as his surname. The police thus developed knowledge that defendant was the other male depicted leaving the victim's apartment that same day. Based upon the police department's review of the relevant duration of the security footage, however, no one else, including the victim, ever exited or entered the apartment from January 22, 2024 until January 24, 2024, i.e., the day that the victim's body was discovered and the discovery was reported to the police. Contrary to the court's determination and the dissent's assertion, the fact that the timestamp on the security footage was inaccurate by approximately 8 to 12 hours is immaterial. The investigative section commander specifically testified that the dates were accurate, and we conclude that the pertinent information discerned from the security footage for purposes of the probable cause determination is that no one else entered or exited the apartment from January 22, 2024 until January 24, 2024.
Consequently, "[b]y this point, the police had knowledge that defendant [appeared to be] the last known person to see the victim alive when he [entered the apartment with the victim]" (People v Williams, 239 AD3d 1090, 1095 [3d Dept 2025], lv denied 44 NY3d 985 [2025]; see Shulman, 6 NY3d at 26). We reject the dissent's suggestion that the probable cause determination is undermined by the fact that the tenant who discovered the victim's body and reported the discovery to the neighbor was uncooperative insofar as he left the scene before the police arrived and was initially named as a person of interest as well. " '[I]n dealing with probable cause . . . we deal with probabilities,' " and we conclude that it is more probable than not that defendant, the person last seen entering the victim's apartment when the victim was known to be alive, rather than the tenant who discovered the victim's body or the neighbor who called 911 to report the discovery, was the perpetrator (Carrasquillo, 54 NY2d at 254, quoting Brinegar v United States, 338 US 160, 175 [1949]). Additionally, the police knew that defendant, suspiciously, had not been entirely honest about his name during the police encounter that day outside of the victim's apartment building (see generally Williams, 239 AD3d at 1095). The police also knew that defendant was on parole supervision for prior offenses (see generally [*3]People v Thomas, 42 NY3d 236, 241 [2024]). Thus, " 'after considering all of the facts and circumstances together' " (Shulman, 6 NY3d at 26), we conclude that "[t]he foregoing facts, taken together, were sufficient to supply the requisite probable cause for defendant's de facto arrest" (Williams, 239 AD3d at 1095).
We also agree with the People that the court erred in determining that the law enforcement officers committed a Payton violation in arresting defendant. "[A]bsent exigent circumstances, the Fourth Amendment 'prohibits the police from making a warrantless and nonconsensual entry into a suspect's home in order to make a routine felony arrest' " (People v Shaw, — NY3d —, —, 2026 NY Slip Op 00961, *3 [2026], quoting Payton v New York, 445 US 573, 576 [1980]). Here, however, the court erred in determining that there was a Payton violation because, regardless of the manner in which access to the apartment complex may have been secured, the record establishes that defendant was "not arrested in his own apartment but in the common hallway of a [multi]-apartment building . . . and thus had no reasonable expectation of privacy" (People v Siler, 197 AD2d 842, 843 [4th Dept 1993], lv denied 82 NY2d 903 [1993]; see People v Murray, 233 AD2d 956, 956 [4th Dept 1996], lv denied 89 NY2d 927 [1996]; People v Marzan, 161 AD2d 416, 416 [1st Dept 1990], lv denied 76 NY2d 860 [1990]; cf. People v Lott, 102 AD2d 506, 510 [4th Dept 1984]; see also People v Espinal, 161 AD3d 556, 557 [1st Dept 2018], lv denied 32 NY3d 1064 [2018]; People v Bellamy, 118 AD3d 1113, 1115 [3d Dept 2014], lv denied 25 NY3d 1159 [2015]; see generally People v Peters, 18 NY2d 238, 244 [1966], affd sub nom. Sibron v New York, 392 US 40 [1968]).
All concur except Ogden and Nowak, JJ., who dissent and vote to affirm in the following memorandum: We agree with the majority that County Court properly determined that law enforcement officers immediately initiated a level four intrusion when they arrested defendant in a hallway outside of his apartment in Buffalo on January 25, 2024. However, we disagree with our colleagues that the court erred in concluding that the People failed to establish probable cause that defendant was the perpetrator of a homicide reported in Jamestown the previous day. In our view, the majority improperly substitutes its own credibility determinations for those of the suppression court, which was in a superior position to observe and assess the credibility of the witnesses. Inasmuch as the "court's credibility determination is entitled to great deference and . . . nothing in the record justifies a contrary determination" (People v Scullin, 234 AD3d 1308, 1310 [4th Dept 2025]), we would affirm the suppression of the handgun found on defendant's person at the time of his arrest. Thus, we dissent.
The sole evidence that purportedly connected defendant to the Jamestown homicide consisted of several days' worth of video surveillance footage taken from outside the victim's apartment in Jamestown, which the police reviewed on January 24, 2024. The following day, defendant was surrounded at gunpoint by a team of Jamestown and Buffalo police officers and FBI agents in a hallway outside of his apartment in Buffalo, a handgun was found on his person, and he was arrested and charged with the instant weapon possession offense that is the subject of this prosecution; he was not charged with the Jamestown homicide at that time.
To attempt to establish probable cause for the arrest, the People called a Jamestown police lieutenant who testified that video surveillance footage showed a man ultimately identified as defendant going into the victim's apartment with the victim and then leaving alone on January 22, 2024, two days before the victim's body was found with a gunshot wound to the head. The lieutenant further testified that, "[b]ased upon [his] department's review of the surveillance video, . . . there was nobody else that was viewed exiting [the victim's apartment] between January 22nd and January 24th when the police arrived."
On cross-examination, the lieutenant testified that he reviewed the video footage for a period of only two to three hours, and did not personally review the entirety of the footage to which his department had access. He said that a detective who was not called to testify "was in charge of essentially that portion of the investigation," and the lieutenant therefore based his testimony on the detective's review of the surveillance footage. In addition to admitting that the timestamp on the video "was off by like eight to twelve hours," the lieutenant agreed that three hours was not enough time to review the entire video, which spanned several days. The court ultimately sustained defendant's objection to the admission of the surveillance footage itself, a ruling that the People do not contest on appeal. The court did not simply find that "the time [*4]stamp on the video was inappropriate," but also found that "nobody testified as to . . . how they determined what the actual time was."
The People were required to demonstrate that it was at least more probable than not that defendant was the person who shot the victim in Jamestown (see People v Carrasquillo, 54 NY2d 248, 254 [1981]; People v Colon, 151 AD3d 1915, 1916 [4th Dept 2017]). The suppression court's conclusion as to whether probable cause existed " 'is to be made after considering all of the facts and circumstances together' " (People v Shulman, 6 NY3d 1, 26 [2005], cert denied 547 US 1043 [2006], quoting People v Bigelow, 66 NY2d 417, 423 [1985]), which necessarily must include gaps in the evidence or facts supporting contrary conclusions. Here, the Jamestown police officers who responded to the 911 call made by the victim's neighbor interviewed a number of witnesses, none of whom implicated defendant in any way. Furthermore, the neighbor who called 911 was not the person who initially discovered the body; instead, a man the lieutenant described as "another person that actually rented [the victim's] apartment" told the neighbor about the victim's body on the morning of January 24, 2024. After doing so, that tenant apparently gave the neighbor a key to the apartment and then fled before police arrived, and he remained a person of interest in the homicide.
"Great weight must be accorded to the determination of the suppression court because of its ability to observe and assess the credibility of the witnesses, and its findings should not be disturbed unless clearly erroneous or unsupported by the hearing evidence" (People v Moore, 218 AD3d 1295, 1296-1297 [4th Dept 2023], lv denied 40 NY3d 1013 [2023] [internal quotation marks omitted]; see Scullin, 234 AD3d at 1309). In determining that the People failed to meet their burden, the suppression court identified evidence that was lacking from the hearing. For example, the People did not establish the date or time of death of the victim, nor did they present any evidence to suggest that the murder may have occurred two days before the victim's body was discovered, when defendant was last in the victim's apartment. The court further noted that "there was no DNA, there was no other [eyewitness], there was no blood, no fiber, no fingerprints, no ballistics, nothing else attaching this defendant to this crime other than maybe coming out of the apartment on maybe the date of the death and maybe the time of the death or around it."
Thus, the only evidence for the court to consider to find probable cause was the lieutenant's testimony about the unadmitted surveillance footage. The majority bases its ruling on the lieutenant's testimony that the surveillance footage showed that defendant was the last person with the victim before he was shot and killed, but the record does not reflect that the court found that portion of his testimony credible. The court appeared to accept that defendant was actually the person shown on the video footage leaving the victim's apartment at some point before the victim's body was found, but then determined that defendant's mere presence at the victim's apartment was insufficient to establish probable cause for his arrest (see Ybarra v Illinois, 444 US 85, 91 [1979], reh denied 444 US 1049 [1980]; People v Cruz, 221 AD3d 1423, 1427 [4th Dept 2023], lv denied 41 NY3d 1001 [2024]; People v Jones, 234 AD2d 1002, 1002 [4th Dept 1996], lv denied 89 NY2d 1095 [1997]). Thus, the court did not appear to credit the lieutenant's testimony that the rest of the footage—which the lieutenant admittedly did not view himself—essentially ruled out the possibility that anyone else accessed the victim's apartment prior to the shooting. Considering the totality of the lieutenant's testimony, including his admissions about the other tenant who fled before police arrived and the lack of other evidence implicating defendant, we conclude that "the evidence at the hearing amply supports the court's determination not to credit the police testimony" that the video surveillance footage sufficiently provided probable cause for defendant's arrest (Scullin, 234 AD3d at 1310).
In light of our determination, it is not necessary to address the People's remaining contention.
Entered: July 24, 2026
Ann Dillon Flynn
Clerk of the Court