PEOPLE v. TOLENTINO (2009)

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Rena K. Uviller, J.), rendered September 28, 2005, convicting defendant, upon his plea of guilty, of aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle in the first degree, and sentencing him to a term of 5 years' probation, unanimously affirmed.

The court properly denied, without granting a hearing, defendant's motion to suppress Department of Motor Vehicles records relating to the suspension of his driver's license.   Defendant moved to suppress these records as fruits of an allegedly unlawful vehicular stop, during which the police obtained defendant's pedigree information and thereby obtained his DMV information through a computer check.

Although a defendant need not establish a privacy interest in an alleged fruit of a preexisting violation of his or her Fourth Amendment rights, we agree with those courts (see e.g. People v. Cobb, 182 Misc.2d 808, 703 N.Y.S.2d 341 [Crim. Ct., Kings County 1997] ) that have concluded that DMV records are not suppressible fruits.  “The ․ identity of a defendant ․ is never itself suppressible as a fruit of an unlawful arrest ․” (Immigration & Naturalization Serv. v. Lopez-Mendoza, 468 U.S. 1032, 1039, 104 S.Ct. 3479, 82 L.Ed.2d 778 [1984] ).   Thus, “there is no sanction to be applied when an illegal arrest only leads to discovery of [a person's] identity and that merely leads to the official file” (United States v. Guzman-Bruno, 27 F.3d 420, 422 [9th Cir.1994], cert. denied 513 U.S. 975, 115 S.Ct. 451, 130 L.Ed.2d 360 [1994] [internal quotation marks omitted] ).   Furthermore, the DMV records were compiled independently of defendant's arrest (see People v. Pleasant, 54 N.Y.2d 972, 973-974, 446 N.Y.S.2d 29, 430 N.E.2d 905 [1981], cert. denied 455 U.S. 924, 102 S.Ct. 1285, 71 L.Ed.2d 466 [1982];  People v. Bargas, 101 A.D.2d 751, 752, 475 N.Y.S.2d 837 [1984] ).

We perceive no basis for reducing the sentence.