PEOPLE v. COREY (2022)

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

It is hereby ORDERED that the judgment so appealed from is unanimously reversed on the law, the plea is vacated, that part of defendant's omnibus motion seeking to suppress his statements is granted to the extent of suppressing his statements in the hospital other than “I'm beat up,” and the matter is remitted to Cayuga County Court for further proceedings on the indictment.

Memorandum: On appeal from a judgment convicting him upon his plea of guilty of, inter alia, criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree (Penal Law § 265.03 [3]), defendant contends that County Court erred in refusing to suppress the statements he made to an officer while defendant was receiving treatment at a hospital. We agree in part.

It is well settled that “both the elements of police custody and police interrogation must be present before law enforcement officials constitutionally are obligated to provide the procedural safeguards imposed upon them by Miranda” (People v. Spirles, 136 A.D.3d 1315, 1316, 25 N.Y.S.3d 462 [4th Dept. 2016], lv denied 27 N.Y.3d 1007, 38 N.Y.S.3d 116, 59 N.E.3d 1228 [2016], cert denied ––– U.S. ––––, 137 S.Ct. 298, 196 L.Ed.2d 220 [2016] [internal quotation marks omitted]). Here, it is undisputed that defendant was in police custody at the time he made the statements and that no one read defendant his Miranda warnings prior to defendant making the statements.

The officer testified at the suppression hearing that defendant “called [the officer] over” to his bed and said “I'm beat up,” after which the officer asked defendant “what happened.” Defendant then explained the circumstances surrounding how he allegedly came into possession of a weapon he was not legally authorized to possess. We conclude that defendant's initial statement, “I'm beat up,” was not subject to suppression because it was “ ‘spontaneous and not the result of inducement, provocation, encouragement or acquiescence’ ” (People v. Rodriguez-Rivera, 203 A.D.3d 1624, 1626, 164 N.Y.S.3d 745 [4th Dept. 2022]). The court, however, erred in refusing to suppress the remainder of his statements, which were made in response to the officer's question that was intended to elicit a response, and thus those statements cannot be said to have been “genuine[ly] spontane[ous],” i.e., they were not “ ‘spontaneous in the literal sense of that word as having been made without apparent external cause’ ” (People v. Ibarrondo, 150 A.D.3d 1644, 1645, 54 N.Y.S.3d 245 [4th Dept. 2017]; see People v. Paulman, 11 A.D.3d 878, 879, 782 N.Y.S.2d 884 [4th Dept. 2004], affd 5 N.Y.3d 122, 800 N.Y.S.2d 96, 833 N.E.2d 239 [2005]; People v. Sylvester, 187 A.D.3d 798, 799-800, 131 N.Y.S.3d 388 [2d Dept. 2020], lv denied 36 N.Y.3d 976, 138 N.Y.S.3d 462, 162 N.E.3d 691 [2020]; People v. Ackerman, 162 A.D.2d 793, 794, 558 N.Y.S.2d 216 [3d Dept. 1990]).

In the absence of any proof that defendant would have pleaded guilty even if the relevant statements were suppressed, we conclude that the plea must be vacated “ ‘[i]nasmuch as the erroneous suppression ruling may have affected defendant's decision to plead guilty’ ” (People v. Glanton, 72 A.D.3d 1536, 1538, 899 N.Y.S.2d 504 [4th Dept. 2010]).