PEOPLE v. MARTE (2025)

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Neil Ross, J., at suppression hearing;  Althea E. Drysdale, J., at trial and sentencing), rendered February 2, 2023, convicting defendant of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree, and sentencing him, as a second violent felony offender, to a term of nine years, unanimously affirmed.

The court properly denied defendant's motion to suppress the gun he discarded while being chased by police officers.  Considering the totality of the circumstances, the officers’ directives for defendant to “stop” and to “come back” did not amount to a seizure (see People v. Bora, 83 N.Y.2d 531, 535–536, 611 N.Y.S.2d 796, 634 N.E.2d 168 [1994]).  At the least, the officers possessed reasonable suspicion when defendant turned and ran while apparently holding something close to his waistband or pocket with his right hand.  Therefore, the pursuit and recovery of the gun were justified (see People v. Parker, 32 N.Y.3d 49, 56, 84 N.Y.S.3d 838, 109 N.E.3d 1138 [2018]).

The court did not improperly admit statistical or expert testimony.  The testimony of evidence collection officer Hennginston Bernard and of Heather Nelson, an assistant director at OCME, was admissible to complete the narrative (see People v. Matos, 34 A.D.3d 253, 823 N.Y.S.2d 148 [1st Dept. 2006], lv denied 8 N.Y.2d 882, 203 N.Y.S.2d 923, 168 N.E.2d 722 [2007]).  Officer Bernard's testimony did not include a statistical or inferential claim about the likelihood of the defendant leaving fingerprints on the gun.  Instead, he described routine forensic limitations in recovering fingerprints from guns in general.  Similarly, Nelson's explanation regarding OCME protocols served to contextualize the occurrence of contamination, not to imply the defendant's guilt.  This background testimony did not constitute the sort of probabilistic testimony that we disapproved of in People v. Kelsey, 194 A.D.2d 248, 250–253, 606 N.Y.S.2d 621 (1st Dept. 1994) but was akin to “[t]he brief and limited background evidence ․ with respect to the narcotics trade and ‘buy and bust’ operations” that we found was properly admitted in (People v. Tevaha, 204 A.D.2d 92, 94, 611 N.Y.S.2d 179 [1st Dept. 1994], affd 84 N.Y.2d 879, 620 N.Y.S.2d 786, 644 N.E.2d 1342 [1994]).

We perceive no basis for reducing defendant's sentence.