Opinion
Argued February 19, 2009.
Decided March 26, 2009.
APPEAL, by permission of a Justice of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the First Judicial Department, from an order of that Court, entered April 24, 2008. The Appellate Division affirmed a judgment of the Supreme Court, New York County (Ronald A. Zweibel, J., at hearing; Arlene R. Silverman, J., at trial and sentence), which had convicted defendant, upon a jury verdict, of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the first degree.
Following an in camera Darden hearing, Supreme Court denied defendant's motion to suppress evidence supplied by a confidential informant.
The Appellate Division concluded that the court properly denied defendant's suppression motion; that disclosure of the hearing minutes, even with redactions, would jeopardize the safety of the informant; and that the informant's information provided ample basis to conclude that he or she had a basis for his or her knowledge that defendant was in possession of narcotics and sufficed to establish probable cause to arrest.
People v Lowe, 50 AD3d 516, affirmed.
Legal Aid Society, New York City ( Amy Donner and Steven Banks of counsel), for appellant.
Robert M. Morgenthau, District Attorney, New York City ( Marc Krupnick and Alan Gadlin of counsel), for respondent.
Before: Judges CIPARICK, GRAFFEO, READ, SMITH, PIGOTT and JONES
OPINION OF THE COURT
The order of the Appellate Division should be affirmed.
The lower courts' determinations of probable cause, a mixed question of law and fact, are supported by the minutes of the in camera hearing conducted pursuant to People v Darden ( 34 NY2d 177), and are thus beyond our further review. Accordingly, defendant's motion to suppress was properly denied.
We have considered defendant's remaining contentions and find them to be without merit.
Chief Judge LIPPMAN taking no part.
Order affirmed in a memorandum.