The People of the State of New York, v. K. Jones, Defendant. (2026)

Pending is the defense's fully briefed, counseled omnibus motion.¹ It is resolved as follows. Because the parties are the primary audience, familiarity with the case and its procedural history is assumed.

It is hereby ORDERED that the branch of the motion seeking to invalidate the certificate of compliance (COC), strike the statement of readiness as illusory, and dismiss the accusatory instrument on C.P.L. § 30.30 grounds is DENIED. It is further ORDERED that the People must disclose all missing activity logs within 14 days after this decision is handed down; if they are unable to do so, the People must provide a sworn record of their attempts to obtain the activity logs. If the activity logs prove to have substantial information that is not duplicative of other discovery previously disclosed, the defense will be permitted to renew its motion to invalidate the COC and dismiss the accusatory instrument. It is further ORDERED that suppression hearings are GRANTED pertaining to the lawfulness of the entry and seizure (so-called Mapp/Payton), the propriety of the identification procedure (so-called Wade/Dunaway), and the voluntariness of the statements to officers (so-called Huntley/Dunaway). Any issues pertaining to preclusion, to alleged prior bad acts, or to discovery sanctions for the aforementioned nondisclosure of the activity logs are REFERRED to the trial court. Any application for relief not specifically mentioned is DENIED.

Regarding the validity of the COC, the record  ² reflects adequate pre-readiness outreach by the People which, when considered in tandem with their extensive discovery package and their same-day responses during conferral. This establishes reasonable efforts to comply with their statutory discovery obligations as assessed under all relevant C.P.L. § 245.50(5)(a) factors. See People v. Bay, 41 NY3d 200, 211-12 (2023).

The central allegedly missing discovery consists of several body-worn camera videos—"from Officers Rivera Santana, Lucero Garcia, Sgt. Allen, and Sgt. Allen's unidentified partner"—and activity logs. Defense's Mot. at 12-13. But as the People indicate in their response, the defense already received and accessed footage associated with Officers Santana and Garcia prior to filing this motion. People's Resp. at 28-29. The defense confirms this was the case in reply. See Defense's Reply at 10, 14.

So the actual count of missing videos is two, not four. And while two missing videos is far from ideal, the People disclosed extensive body-worn camera footage prior to declaring ready. Also, the conferral record reflects that Sgt. Allen and partner may have been "standing outside the apartment building" during or after the incident. Defense's Mot., Ex. E at 1; see also Defense's Reply at 15. This is not, in other words, a situation where the undisclosed footage was from officers who played a central role, or where the defense was otherwise without adequate documentation of the scene or arrest. There is nothing to suggest, for instance, that either missing officer was involved in the identification procedure or in taking the defendant's statements, or otherwise played a significant role in the case.

With one significant exception, the other missing material is generally minor and overshadowed by the volume of the People's disclosures, the reasonable attempts at outreach prior to declaring ready, the People's post-readiness efforts to inquire about and obtain the missing discovery (both to the extent independently relevant and to the extent these efforts shed light on pre-readiness attempts), as well as the People's prompt responses during conferral.³ Some of the material in question may not be discoverable; for instance, the defense does not advance a colorable argument about why, in this particular case, the disciplinary records of the non-testifying officers are relevant to the People's compliance with their discovery obligations under one of the non-impeachment rationales of C.P.L. § 245.20(1)(k). Cf. People v. Kasner, --- Misc 3d ---, 2026 NY Slip Op 26159, at *2 (App. Term, 1st Dept. 2026) ("[T]he court correctly determined that the People were not required to disclose impeachment materials for the nontestifying officers[.]").

The one exception is the officers' activity logs. As the defense points out, the People have not disclosed any complete activity logs in this case. And while the People's pre- and post-readiness efforts to obtain them compare favorably to what was deemed inadequate in People v. Rivera, 86 Misc 3d 1206(A), 2025 NY Slip Op. 50877(U), at *6 (N.Y.C. Crim. Ct., Bronx Co. 2025),⁴ the nondisclosure of the logs is a significant strike against the People's diligence, as the People do not provide an entirely satisfactory explanation for why this happened. Accordingly, while the People's efforts here are still just on the right side of diligence—the record adequately reflects efforts spread out over a reasonable timeframe to obtain the relevant missing discovery documents—the defense will be permitted to renew its motion to dismiss if the activity logs, which must be obtained and disclosed to the defense within 14 days of this decision, are not merely duplicative of the discovery already disclosed.

In sum, the § 245.50(5)(a) factors, all of which have been assessed even if not mentioned, ultimately weigh in favor of the People, who have met their burden of showing reasonable efforts and due diligence to comply with their discovery obligations. The missing material, while concerning, does not require invalidation and dismissal when, as here, the People provided the core of the discovery expected to be found and disclosed in a relatively straightforward case like this one. There also is no colorable challenge to the People's good faith. Thus, the branch of the defense motion that seeks to invalidate the COC, strike the statement of readiness, and dismiss the accusatory instrument on C.P.L. § 30.30 grounds is denied.

Regarding hearings, the defense should be permitted to test the lawfulness/voluntariness/suggestiveness of the entry, seizure, questioning, and identification procedures at an appropriate suppression hearing. Although the purported factual allegations from the defense are unsworn, and thus arguably inadequate to sustain the defense's burden under C.P.L. § 710.60(1)—see Defense's Mot. at 23-27—the People's response is similarly unsworn, see People's Resp. at 39-43. As the People consent to a hearing on the admissibility of the statements, see People's Resp. at 40, and as the accusatory instrument itself does not clarify the lawfulness of the entry into the apartment or the circumstances of the statement/identification, the hearings requested by the defense are granted in the interest of judicial economy.

Dated: October 13, 2026

Bronx, NY

David L. Goodwin

Judge of the Criminal Court

FOOTNOTES

1.   The version of this decision submitted for publication has been lightly redacted to remove certain identifying information.

2.   As is often the case, the People's chronology of their outreach is unsworn and placed in their memorandum of law instead of an affirmation; their response affirmation is instead limited to a brief summary of procedural posture and history. Moreover, the defense specifically objects to the unsworn nature of the People's record. See Defense's Reply at 13. But the People set out (albeit in summary fashion) their attempts to find missing discovery in the COC itself. Unlike in the companion case, these documented efforts are just enough, cast against the backdrop of the case, to establish the requisite record for due diligence purposes.

3.   The speed of these responses, it should be noted, can be measured in hours, whereas the delay before the defense's own responses can be measured in days.

4.   The August 2025 revisions to Article 245, which went into effect after Rivera and explicitly permitted assessment of the actual and potential impact of missing or belatedly disclosed discovery, also may have changed the calculus when activity logs are missing but the underlying body-worn camera footage from the same officers is available.

David L. Goodwin, J.