Summary
In People v Sosa (246 AD2d 387 [1st Dept 1998], lv denied 91 NY2d 945), for example, the Court held that defendant's actions in throwing a bag two to three feet in front of him onto a busy sidewalk and then walking 10 to 15 feet away demonstrated that he had neither a subjective nor objective expectation of privacy in the item.
Summary of this case from People v. DerrellOpinion
January 15, 1998
Appeal from the Supreme Court, New York County (Dorothy Cropper, J.).
Defendant's suppression motion was properly denied. Where a defendant seeks suppression of evidence, he bears the burden of demonstrating that he has standing to contest the police conduct at issue by establishing that he had a legitimate expectation of privacy in the place or object searched ( People v. Whitfield, 81 N.Y.2d 904). The test for determining whether standing has been established is whether the defendant exhibited a subjective expectation of privacy in the item searched and whether society would recognize defendant's expectation of privacy as objectively reasonable ( People v. Ramirez-Portoreal, 88 N.Y.2d 99, 108). "Standing to challenge a search is not established by asserting a possessory interest in the goods seized — defendant must assert a privacy interest in the place or item searched" ( supra, at 108). Defendant's actions of throwing the bag 2 to 3 feet in front of him onto a busy city sidewalk, and then turning his back and walking 10 to 15 feet away from it, in an obvious effort to distance himself from it, demonstrated neither a subjective nor an objective expectation of privacy. Once it is demonstrated that a defendant lacks standing, the issue of whether he abandoned the item seized need not be addressed; however, as the court below concluded, defendant's discarding the bag as he did clearly evinced an intent to abandon the property ( see, People v. Sanabria, 216 A.D.2d 29, lv denied 86 N.Y.2d 846).
Furthermore, in view of the foregoing, defendant's subsequent statement to the police after the administration of his Miranda warnings was properly ruled admissible.
Concur — Ellerin, J.P., Nardelli, Williams, Andrias and Colabella, JJ.