People v. Ramos

141 Misc. 2d 930, 535 N.Y.S.2d 663, 1988 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 719
CourtNew York Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 12, 1988
StatusPublished

This text of 141 Misc. 2d 930 (People v. Ramos) 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. Ramos, 141 Misc. 2d 930, 535 N.Y.S.2d 663, 1988 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 719 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1988).

Opinion

OPINION OF THE COURT

Martin H. Rettinger, J.

The following constitutes the opinion, decision and order of the court.

[931]*931The People have brought the defendant to trial for allegedly engaging with two others in a series of sales of glassine packets of heroin on June 2, 1987 in front of 138-140 Ludlow Street. The People’s proof would consist of testimony of police officers assigned to the Narcotics Street Enforcement Unit that the defendants were seen making such sales by the police through binoculars from an observation post located directly above 138-140 Ludlow Street. These observations were made during the course of a police observation operation which commenced at 7:30 a.m. and continued into the early afternoon. Although seven persons were arrested by the police as buyers of the heroin from the defendant and his codefendants, the charges involving three of the buyers were dropped due to the inability of the People to furnish the Grand Jury with the essential testimony of a police officer involved in the arrest of these buyers. The case involving another one of these buyers was not prosecuted due to his having snorted the contents of his purchase immediately at the scene. Consequently, only the counts of criminal sale of a controlled substance in the third degree involving the sale of heroin to the three remaining apprehended buyers were charged in the indictment. In addition, a further count charged the defendants with criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree based upon the recovery by the police of 10 packets of heroin from a jacket that one of them had draped over a parking meter at the scene that was used as the "stash” for the observed sales.

After pretrial suppression hearings for defendant Ramos and codefendant Rios (the third defendant previously absconded and is the subject of a bench warrant) were concluded before Hon. Herbert Altman, the case was transferred to Part 41 for trial on April 4, 1988. On April 6, 1988 Rios pleaded guilty to a reduced charge pursuant to a plea bargain. Defendant Ramos proceeded to trial. After the jury was selected, the court on April 8, 1988 entertained the defendant’s motion to preclude the People from calling Police Officer Thomas Moore to testify at the trial, because he had destroyed his memo book containing his entries concerning this case as part of a quasi-ritual upon his retirement from the New York City Police Department. The motion was granted based upon the inability of the People to provide the defendant with this Rosario material pursuant to the holdings in People v Ranghelle (69 NY2d 56), People v Novoa (70 NY2d 490), and People v Jones (70 NY2d 547).

The presentation of the People’s case then proceeded with [932]*932the prosecutor’s opening statement to the jury. Defense counsel declined to make an opening statement. The People then called their first witness, Police Officer John Gallagher. Gallagher testified that at 7:30 a.m. on June 2, 1987, he and Officer Keenan entered the abandoned building located at 142 Ludlow Street and took up an observation post on the third floor at a fire escape facing the front of the building. He stated that they took turns viewing the events occurring on the street below them. One of them would lean out onto the fire escape, make the observations concerning drug-sale activity occurring on the street below them and would tell the other what he saw. The other would transmit this information over the radio to the pickup team of officers to arrest the buyers shortly after they left the site of the sale. Gallagher then testified that 10 minutes after they took up their observation post, he saw two men and a woman walking northbound on Ludlow Street. They stopped in front of 138-140 Ludlow Street, the building adjacent to 142 Ludlow Street. He then observed the female remove her jacket and hang it over a parking meter. He then switched positions with Officer Keenan. The People then introduced into evidence a diagram representing the physical layout of the buildings and the streets that were germane to the testimony. Gallagher then testified that after he switched positions with Keenan, he received a communication from Keenan who was then leaning out of the fire escape, about 7:50 a.m. Gallagher further testified that he relayed the communication to the pickup teams by radio and received a radio response from the pickup teams 3 or 4 minutes later.

The prosecutor then asked Gallagher where he was at 8:45 a.m. that morning. Gallagher asked permission to refer to some notes. Defense counsel then inquired as to the nature of the notes to which Gallagher wished to refer. Gallagher responded: "I was given some notes from the assistant district attorney which she made up.”

Defense counsel then was given an opportunity to review these notes, which consisted of a white sheet of paper, about 9 inches by 14 inches. Lines were drawn on the paper to create 10 vertical columns and 9 horizontal columns. The vertical column headings referred to the name of the buyers of the narcotics; the time of the buy and of the arrests; the officer manning the observation post for the buy; the location of the arrest of the buyer; the number of glassines recovered by the buyer; the apprehending officer’s name; the searching officer’s [933]*933name; which defendant made the hand-to-hand sale; and the voucher numbers. The horizontal columns referred to the name of each of the apprehended buyers. The effect of this chart was to summarize the pertinent information concerning each of the buys that had resulted in an arrest during the course of the police operation that was the subject matter of Gallagher’s testimony. In regard to the buyer Jose Rivera, the chart under the heading "number of glassines” had the entry "snorted and threw away envelope.”

Upon reviewing the document in issue, defense counsel immediately moved for a mistrial upon the ground that the utilization of this chart and the failure of the prosecutor to disclose its existence to the defense constituted prosecutorial misconduct.

The court then heard extensive argument on the motion. The prosecutor was given an opportunity to respond to the charge. She reminded the court that she was new to the case, having volunteered to step in for the unavailable original prosecutor shortly before the pretrial hearings were held. She informed the court that she had created the chart at her home no more than two days prior to the trial. She compiled the chart to aid her in sorting out and focusing the many narcotic sales and arrests in this police operation, which involved a number of different sellers, buyers and officers. She prepared the chart by analyzing and collating the information appearing on the arrest reports, the on-line booking sheets, computerized arrest reports and the vouchers that had been turned over to defense counsel as Rosario material. In addition, she had utilized the information she had learned through conversations with the officers involved in the case. She made photocopies of the chart and gave the police officer witnesses she intended to call at trial an opportunity to review it and the option to keep it, which Officer Gallagher did. She believed that the chart would enable the officers, as well as herself, to focus exclusively on the three distinct narcotics transactions that were the subject matter of the three counts in the indictment without venturing into the other transactions that had been dismissed (for the reasons related above), which constituted uncharged crimes.

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Related

United States v. Jorn
400 U.S. 470 (Supreme Court, 1971)
United States v. Dinitz
424 U.S. 600 (Supreme Court, 1976)
People v. Simmons
325 N.E.2d 139 (New York Court of Appeals, 1975)
People v. Bigelow
488 N.E.2d 451 (New York Court of Appeals, 1985)
People v. Ranghelle
503 N.E.2d 1011 (New York Court of Appeals, 1986)
People v. Novoa
517 N.E.2d 219 (New York Court of Appeals, 1987)
People v. Jones
517 N.E.2d 865 (New York Court of Appeals, 1987)
Brown v. Western Union Telegraph Co.
26 A.D.2d 316 (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, 1966)
People v. Goldfeld
60 A.D.2d 1 (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, 1977)
Potenza v. Kane
79 A.D.2d 467 (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, 1981)

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Bluebook (online)
141 Misc. 2d 930, 535 N.Y.S.2d 663, 1988 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 719, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-ramos-nysupct-1988.