People v. Mora

149 Misc. 2d 446, 565 N.Y.S.2d 382, 1990 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 665
CourtNew York Supreme Court
DecidedNovember 30, 1990
StatusPublished

This text of 149 Misc. 2d 446 (People v. Mora) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Mora, 149 Misc. 2d 446, 565 N.Y.S.2d 382, 1990 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 665 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1990).

Opinion

OPINION OF THE COURT

Caesar Cirigliano, J.

At issue in this case are the notice provisions of CPL 710.30. This section directs, in pertinent part, that "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.” (CPL 710.30 [1] [b].) This notice must "be served within [15] days after arraignment and before trial” (CPL 710.30 [2]). "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 trial” (CPL 710.30 [3]).

The question presented here is whether the People’s failure to serve CPL 710.30 notice should be excused and the unnoticed identification admitted at trial if this court finds that the identifications made in this case were not arranged by the police.

Defendant, Michael Mora, charged with robbery in the first degree, was identified by two civilian witnesses, Fred Jones [448]*448and Rachel Robinson, shortly after the robbery was committed. The two witnesses identified the defendant at the same time and under the same circumstances. CPL 710.30 notice was served as to the identification made by Fred Jones, but was not served for Rachel Robinson and the defense objected to the receipt of Robinson’s testimony on that basis. The circumstances surrounding Rachel Robinson’s identification of the defendant came to light at the Wade hearing conducted with the consent of the People upon the defendant’s motion to suppress the identification made by the noticed witness, Fred Jones.

The facts can be briefly stated. At approximately 1 o’clock in the morning, and two minutes after they received a radio run of a robbery in progress in a private house, Officer Jaeger and his partner arrived at the location and saw two Hispanic men walking past the front of this house. One of the men, identified as the defendant, had an object in his hand and appeared to give something to a young woman who then walked into the house in question.

Officer Jaeger questioned the two men briefly, then asked them to wait there a few minutes and told his partner to stay with them. Neither officer had his gun drawn, and the men were not restrained in any manner. They simply waited and made no attempt to flee.

Officer Jaeger walked up to the house identified in the radio run, stepped into the front vestibule and there spoke with Fred Jones and his girlfriend, Rachel Robinson. Fred Jones told Officer Jaeger that he had just been robbed of a video cassette recorder and some keys. Then, without any prompting, as he looked out through the open front door, he pointed to the defendant, who was still waiting on the sidewalk near the front of the house, and said that the defendant was one of the perpetrators of the robbery. He did not identify the other individual as having been involved in the robbery. Rachel Robinson also identified the defendant as she looked through the open door. Officer Jaeger believed that Fred Jones may have seen the defendant again after he was arrested and handcuffed, when Fred Jones walked outside.

When it became apparent at this hearing that Rachel Robinson had identified the defendant, defense counsel informed the court that he had not received notice pursuant to CPL 710.30 of her identification and objected to the receipt of this evidence. Thus, though counsel participated in the hear[449]*449ing conducted as to the noticed witness in which evidence was adduced as to the unnoticed witness, he did not waive the preclusion protection of CPL 710.30. (People v Bernier, 73 NY2d 1006, 1008.)

The prosecutor did not know why notice was served as to one of these witnesses and not the other and could not offer a reason for this omission. The People cannot therefore be permitted to serve a late notice for "good cause shown” (CPL 710.30 [2]). (See, People v McMullin, 70 NY2d 855; People v O’Doherty, 70 NY2d 479.) Nor are the People otherwise exempt from the service of such notice. (See, e.g., People v Gissendanner, 48 NY2d 543, 552 [CPL 710.30 not applicable in situations where "the defendant’s identity is not in issue, or * * * the protagonists are known to one another”].)

The People argued, however, that they were not required to serve CPL 710.30 notice because the identifications made in this case were not "police-arranged”.

This very argument was made by the People and considered by the Court of Appeals in a recent case for the first time. (See, People v Newball, 76 NY2d 587.) In Newball, the defendant contended that identification testimony given by an undercover officer should not have been received at trial because the People failed to serve CPL 710.30 notice. The People argued, inter alla, that the challenged identification was not the result of a police-arranged identification procedure and thus "did not constitute a previous identification within the intendment of the statute.” (People v Newball, supra, at 591.)

The Newball court found that the identification in question was arranged by the police and held that "[b]ecause that officer’s prior identification of defendant was police-arranged, and was not within the category of confirmatory identifications recently described by this Court as being of a kind not 'ordinarily burdened or compromised by forbidden suggestiveness’ * * * the People’s failure to comply with the notice requirements of CPL 710.30 was improper”. (People v Newball, supra, at 589.)

Thus, the clear implication of this decision is that a non-police-arranged identification is exempt from the notice requirements of CPL 710.30.

Therefore, following Newball (supra), if the identification made in the case at bar was not the result of a police-or-ranged procedure then the People were not under a duty to [450]*450serve CPL 710.30 notice and their failure to do so does not entitle the defendant to the remedy of preclusion. On the other hand, if the identification was police-arranged, and because the People’s failure to serve CPL 710.30 notice cannot be otherwise excused, the witness’s testimony must be precluded.

In order to make this crucial determination, it is necessary to have a working definition of the term "police-arranged”. While there is no doubt that a lineup or a showup conducted at a precinct is a police-arranged identification procedure, the various forms taken by police-citizen encounters outside the confines of a precinct are not so readily categorized.

The extent of police involvement in a street encounter is often a question of degree. That is the case here, and I am guided in my determination by the Newball decision (supra). In Newball, the undercover police officer, whose identification testimony was challenged for lack of notice, was provided with a description of the defendant and was directed to the defendant’s location by a fellow officer. The Newball

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Related

Wong Sun v. United States
371 U.S. 471 (Supreme Court, 1963)
People v. Gissendanner
399 N.E.2d 924 (New York Court of Appeals, 1979)
People v. Hicks
500 N.E.2d 861 (New York Court of Appeals, 1986)
People v. O'Doherty
517 N.E.2d 213 (New York Court of Appeals, 1987)
People v. McMullin
517 N.E.2d 1341 (New York Court of Appeals, 1987)
People v. Bernier
539 N.E.2d 588 (New York Court of Appeals, 1989)
People v. Newball
563 N.E.2d 269 (New York Court of Appeals, 1990)
People v. Patrick
130 A.D.2d 687 (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, 1987)

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Bluebook (online)
149 Misc. 2d 446, 565 N.Y.S.2d 382, 1990 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 665, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-mora-nysupct-1990.