THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK v. GOLLA CAMP POTTER (2026)

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

Calendar Date:  September 10, 2026

Appeal from a judgment of the County Court of Washington County (Kelly McKeighan, J.), rendered June 25, 2021, convicting defendant upon his plea of guilty of the crime of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree.

In November 2020, law enforcement officers went to defendant's motel room seeking a parolee.  Defendant permitted the officers to enter the room, whereupon they observed cocaine and drug paraphernalia in plain view and, after obtaining a warrant, discovered additional evidence, including a loaded firearm.  In connection therewith, defendant was charged by indictment with several weapons and drug crimes.  Defendant moved to suppress the physical evidence obtained during the search of his motel room, which motion was denied after a hearing.  Defendant thereafter entered an Alford plea to criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree (see Penal Law § 265.03[3] ) in satisfaction of the indictment, and he was thereafter sentenced, as a second felony offender, to a prison term of eight years, to be followed by five years of postrelease supervision.  Defendant appeals, solely challenging County Court's denial of his motion to suppress the physical evidence recovered from his motel room.  We affirm.

“[L]aw enforcement may lawfully conduct a warrantless search of a premises when they have obtained the voluntary consent of a party who possesses the requisite degree of authority and control over it” (People v. Edwards, 124 AD3d 988, 989 [3d Dept 2015] [internal quotation marks and citation omitted], lv denied 25 NY3d 1201 [2015] ).  “Whether in a particular case an apparent consent was in fact voluntarily given or was in submission to an express or implied assertion of authority, is a question of fact to be determined in the light of all the circumstances” (People v. Crispell, 223 AD3d 941, 942 [3d Dept 2024] [internal quotation marks and citations omitted], lv denied 41 NY3d 964 [2024];  see People v. Miller, 159 AD3d 1053, 1054 [3d Dept 2018] ).

State Trooper Matthew Sersen testified that, when he and the other officers arrived at defendant's motel room, they found the door slightly ajar, knocked loudly, announced themselves and asked for defendant to come to the door.  Defendant did so and, in response to questioning, told the officers that he had not seen the parolee for a while.  Sersen further testified that he requested entry into defendant's room to confirm the parolee's absence, and defendant stepped back, stated that he did not mind if the officers entered and permitted them to do so.  Sersen, accompanied by local police and parole officers, then entered defendant's room.  Video taken from defendant's cell phone shows that one of the officers asked to look into a back area, to which defendant responded, “Yeah, I guess so.”  Though the video captures defendant commenting later that he did not ask the officers “to come in here,” and that he opened the door in response to their purported threat to kick it down, defendant's comment is unsupported by the video, which begins after officers had already gained entry to the room.  Defendant's comment is also inconsistent with his earlier video-recorded statements that the officers had been “nothing but good” to him and, in any event, controverted by Sersen's testimony.  County Court, which was in the best position to observe the witnesses, determined Sersen to be credible, and, insofar as his account was not incredible as a matter of law (see People v. Wright, 155 AD3d 1452, 1453 [3d Dept 2017], lv denied 30 NY3d 1121 [2018] ), we defer to that court's credibility determination (see People v. Douglas, 89 AD3d 1147, 1147–1148 [3d Dept 2011], lv denied 18 NY3d 882 [2012] ).  Although there were four to five officers present and defendant was not advised of his right to refuse consent, the totality of circumstances – defendant's prior experience with law enforcement, his apparent cooperation with the officers upon entry, the fact that he was not handcuffed when he gave consent to the officers to enter – supports County Court's finding that defendant voluntarily consented to the officers' initial entry (see People v. Brinkley, 174 AD3d 1159, 1163 [3d Dept 2019], lv denied 34 NY3d 979 [2019];  People v. Robinson, 156 AD3d 1123, 1129 [3d Dept 2017], lv denied 30 NY3d 1119 [2018] ).  Consequently, the denial of defendant's motion to suppress physical evidence recovered from his motel room will not be disturbed.

Reynolds Fitzgerald, Fisher, Powers and Mackey, JJ., concur.

ORDERED that the judgment is affirmed.

Aarons, J.P.