People v Balkman
2020 NY Slip Op 06838 [35 NY3d 556]
Decided on November 19, 2020
Contract Criminal Appeals Lawyer Stephen Preziosi at 1-800-APPEALS (1-800-277-3257)
Issue:
The Fourth Amendment and Reasonable Suspicion
Whether police violated NY Const, art I, § 12 and US Const IV Amend by stopping a vehicle without reasonable suspicion where the stop was based on the officer’s mobile data terminal (MDT) showing a “similarity hit” with the registered owner of the vehicle and someone with an outstanding warrant, though the defendant, who was arrested, was neither the registered owner nor the person with the warrant.
Holding:
“Similarity Hit” Not Specific or Articulable
The Court held that police failed to provide the information contained in the MDT “similarity hit” and did not provide any other evidence of reasonable suspicion, violating NY Const, art I, § 12 and US Const IV Amend by unlawfully stopping the vehicle.
Facts:
Police stopped a vehicle when his MDT notified him there was a “similarity hit,” indicating “something similar” about the registered owner of the vehicle and a person with an outstanding warrant. According to the officer, a similarity hit is generated “based on the name of the registered owner, the date of birth, and other aliases.” Acting on the MDT and nothing more, the officer pulled over the driver of the vehicle, who was not the owner or the person with the warrant. As the officer stepped around the vehicle to look at registration and inspection stickers, he spotted a handgun on the floor of the passenger seat, where Balkman was sitting. Police arrested Balkman and afterward checked the MDT information and discovered “that the person with the warrant did not, in fact, match the vehicle’s registered owner or anyone else in the vehicle.”
County Court denied Balkman’s motion to suppress the evidence obtained from the stop, and the Appellate Division affirmed.
*Author’s note: A mobile data terminal (MDT) consists of a
screen and keypad that are linked to the databases of the New York Department
of Motor Vehicles. The MDT runs plate numbers and provides information on the
vehicle’s registration and inspection status, including whether the registered
owner has an outstanding arrest warrant or order of protection. The officer
testified that the system considers “certain parameters” when identifying “similarity
hits,” but he did not know how the DMV set those parameters.
Analysis:
Reasonable Suspicion Means Specific, Articulable Facts
Balkman’s motion to suppress the evidence challenged the sufficiency of the factual predicate for the stop; therefore the burden was on the People to provide sufficient evidence and establish that the stop was lawful (see People v Doldt, 61 NY2d 408, 415 [1984]; People v Lypka, 36 NY2d 210, 214 [1975]. The Court held that a vehicle stop is lawful if based on “a reasonable suspicion that the driver or occupants of the vehicle have committed, are committing, or are about to commit a crime” (People v Hinshaw, 35 NY3d 427, 430 [2020]. A stop based on reasonable suspicion will be upheld so long as the intruding officer can point to “specific and articulable facts which, along with any logical deductions, reasonably prompted the intrusion” (People v Brannon, 16 NY3d 596, 602 [2011]).
Reasonable Suspicion Not Presumed by Database Information
While information generated by running a license plate number through a government database may provide police with reasonable suspicion to stop a vehicle, (see People v Bushey, 29 NY3d 158, 160 [2017]), the information’s sufficiency to establish reasonable suspicion is not presumed (see Dodt, NY2d at 416). In Dodt, the Court held that the People’s probable cause showing was insufficient because they failed to offer evidence of the content of the teletype communication upon which the police relied to arrest the defendant (id. at 412). The Court explained that “where an arrest or search is made without a warrant, the reviewing court must be supplied with the description upon which the police acted and sufficient evidence to make its own independent determination of whether the person arrested or the item seized reasonably fit that description” (id. at 415). When police act on a teletype communication, “the prosecution’s burden is not discharged absent proof regarding the contents of the communication received” (id. at 416).
The reasoning of Dodt applies here. The People presented no evidence about the content of the “similarity hit” provided by the MDT, nor what particular data of the registered owner of the vehicle and the person with the warrant matched, nor what kinds of data matches in general result in “similarity hits.” Without such evidence, the court could not independently evaluate whether the police had reasonable suspicion to make the stop. Accordingly, the lower court’s order was reversed, the defendant’s motion to suppress was granted, and the indictment was dismissed.