THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK v. ERIC SANTIAGO (2026)

Jenay Nurse Guilford, Center for Appellate Litigation, New York (Rina V. DeFrancesco of counsel), for appellant.

Darcel D. Clark, District Attorney, Bronx (Joseph P. Tucker of counsel), for respondent.

Judgment, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Audrey E. Stone, J. at motion to controvert and suppression hearing;  Seth A. Steed, J. at plea and sentencing), rendered March 15, 2024, convicting defendant of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree (three counts), and sentencing him to concurrent terms of 31/212 years, followed by three years of postrelease supervision on each count, unanimously affirmed.

The record supports the court's conclusion that the warrantless entry into defendant's apartment was justified under the emergency doctrine (see People v. Doll, 21 NY3d 665, 671 [2013], cert denied 572 U.S. 1022 [2014];  People v. Mitchell, 39 N.Y.2d 173, 177–178 [1976], cert denied 426 U.S. 953 [1976] ).  The officers received a 911 call reporting that someone was shot in the building;  found a bullet on the floor in the caller's apartment which, based on its trajectory, appeared to have originated from defendant's apartment directly overhead;  and detected the odor of gunpowder coming from defendant's apartment, indicating that a firearm was discharged from within that unit.  Additionally, the officers reasonably found that defendant's affirmative response to the officers' question whether “everything” was “okay” and defendant's statement that he was simply “watching TV” were suspicious in light of the surrounding circumstances and “contradicted by [the] information known to the police” (People v. May, 135 AD3d 598, 599 [1st Dept 2016], lv denied 27 NY3d 1002 [2016] ).  “Thus, the police were confronted with a serious danger that defendant was concealing the full details of the shooting, and that another victim or victims might be in his apartment” (id.;  see People v. DePaula, 179 A.D.2d 424, 426 [1st Dept 1992] ).  Accordingly, defendant's motion to suppress the evidence seized as the result of that search, including the evidence seized pursuant to the search warrant that was subsequently issued, was properly denied.

We perceive no basis for reducing the term of postrelease supervision.