EVIDENCE WAS SUPPRESSED AND INDICTMENT DISMISSED
When the defendants were charged with drug and weapon offenses, (after a search warrant was executed at a Queens residential property), a motion was made to suppress the evidence and to dismiss the indictment, given that the search warrant was “overbroad” and lacking the requisite particularity required by law.
In order to pass federal and state constitutional muster, warrants must specifically identify the places to be searched and the property to be seized. Since this warrant failed to satisfy that standard, the Queens County Supreme Court granted the defendants’ suppression and dismissal request.
On appeal, the Appellate Division, Second Department, also had some issues with the underlying paperwork, which described the “Subject Location,” as “`a two-story, two-family home,’ with a ‘right main entrance’ and a ‘left main entrance,’ in which ‘[t]he right entrance opens up to a living room, a kitchen, and bedrooms at the residence,’ and ‘[t]he left entrance opens up to a set of stairs that lead up to a living room, a kitchen and bedrooms at the rear of the residence.’”
Since the police were aware that the building had two separate apartments, which were not individually referenced in the warrant, the AD2 thought that that ambiguity was fatal to the case, since, (among other things), it was unclear that “separate probable cause determinations” were made.
And since "severance" wasn't possible (because of the lack of clarity), the underlying determination was affirmed.
More care was clearly warranted here ….
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DECISION