PEOPLE v. CISSE (2025)

Judgment, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Audrey Stone, J., at suppression hearing;  Raymond Bruce, J., at plea and sentencing), rendered December 11, 2023, convicting defendant of criminal possession of a firearm, and sentencing him to a jail term of 364 days;  and judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Miriam Best, J.), rendered January 11, 2024, convicting him, upon his plea of guilty, of attempted assault in the first degree, and sentencing him to a term of seven years, to run concurrently with the sentence on his Bronx conviction, unanimously affirmed.

The court properly denied defendant's suppression motion under his Bronx County indictment.  Inasmuch as the police had only observed defendant, without engaging or interfering with him in any way, before defendant abandoned the firearm on the wheel of a parked van, the police conduct did not constitute even a level one intrusion (see People v. Rivera, 147 A.D.3d 563, 563, 47 N.Y.S.3d 303 [1st Dept. 2017], lv denied 29 N.Y.3d 1000, 57 N.Y.S.3d 722, 80 N.E.3d 415 [2017];  see also People v. Thornton, 238 A.D.2d 33, 667 N.Y.S.2d 705 [1st Dept. 1998]).  Accordingly, there is no basis for finding that defendant's abandonment of the firearm was prompted by any unlawful conduct by the police.  The record also supports the court's finding that, regardless of the legality of the police pursuit, the seizure was lawful under the doctrine of abandonment (see People v. Boodle, 47 N.Y.2d 398, 402, 418 N.Y.S.2d 352, 391 N.E.2d 1329 [1979], cert denied 444 U.S. 969, 100 S.Ct. 461, 62 L.Ed.2d 383 [1979]).

This Court lacks jurisdiction on appeal from the judgment of conviction under defendant's New York County indictment to review the suppression ruling under a different indictment (see generally People v. Juarez, 31 N.Y.3d 1186, 1187, 82 N.Y.S.3d 336, 107 N.E.3d 556 [2018] [“no appeal lies from an order arising out of a criminal proceeding absent specific statutory authority”]).  In any event, nothing in the record suggests that the Bronx suppression ruling affected defendant's decision to plead guilty under the New York County indictment.