NY Court of appeals reverses arson conviction over illegal arrest

Listen to this article

The New York State Court of Appeals has reversed an arson conviction because of an illegal arrest.

Defendant Miguel Angel Palacios pleaded guilty to second-degree arson after the trial court denied his motion to suppress a statement he made after his arrest.

At the suppression hearing, a New York City Police Department (NYPD) detective testified that he created a “probable cause I-card” for the defendant based on a conversation with a witness who reported the arson. But the arresting officers did not testify, and the prosecution presented no other evidence regarding the circumstances of the arrest.

Although the “fellow officer rule” permits an arresting officer to rely on information communicated by another officer to establish probable cause, the prosecution must present evidence demonstrating that the arresting officer actually received the information and relied on it to make the arrest.

In Palacios’ case, the prosecution failed to meet that burden, therefore his statement should have been suppressed, the Court of Appeals ruled.

“We therefore reverse,” Judge Caitlin J. Halligan wrote in the decision released last week.

In February 2017, an NYPD detective spoke with a witness about an alleged arson in Queens. According to the witness, he was trapped on the second floor of a building after two men lit a mattress on fire in the building’s stairwell, and he was forced to run through the burning mattress to escape.

The witness told the detective that one of the people who set the mattress on fire was Palacios, who he identified in a photograph.

The detective then created a “probable cause I-card” for the Palacios, who was arrested the next day by patrol officers and questioned about the arson.

Palacios also was a suspect in a recent unrelated robbery, so another detective who was investigating that crime joined the interview.

The interview was videotaped and conducted in Spanish. Palacios made an incriminating statement and was later charged with first-degree assault and second-degree arson.

Palacios’ attorney moved to suppress the statement as the fruit of an unlawful arrest and requested a hearing on probable cause and the voluntariness of the statement.

At the hearing, the prosecution only called the detective who created the I-card. That detective testified about his conversation with the witness and his creation of a probable cause I-card.

The I-card was not entered into evidence, and the detective did not explain what information it contained, how other officers were able to access it, or whether the arresting officers had actually done so.

The detective also did not testify about the circumstances of the defendant’s arrest, beyond stating that he was apprehended by patrol, taken to the precinct offices, and put into a cell.

The prosecution introduced, as evidence, the video of the interview, and provided the court with a transcript that they claimed translated the interview into English. The transcript was prepared by an unidentified person in the prosecutor’s office and did not contain a statement certifying its accuracy.

Palacios’ lawyer objected to the transcript being used as evidence or an aid in interpreting the videos. The judge used it as an aid but did not enter it as an exhibit.

The judge denied the suppression motion, ruling that the detective had probable cause to arrest Palacios and, under the fellow officer rule, communicated that probable cause to the arresting officers by creating the I-card despite the lack of any evidence showing the content of the I-card, the identity of the arresting officers, whether they knew about the I-card, or why they arrested the defendant, according to the decision.

Under the fellow officer rule, even if an arresting officer lacks personal knowledge sufficient to establish probable cause, the arrest will be lawful if the officer acts on the direction of, or as a result of, communication with a superior or fellow officer, or another police department, as long as the police had information sufficient to constitute probable cause to make the arrest.

The judge also ruled that the use of the English-language transcript did not preclude the prosecution from showing that the defendant was properly administered Miranda warnings.

Palacios subsequently pleaded guilty to second-degree arson and was sentenced to 11 years in prison, followed by five years of post-release supervision.

The Appellate Division affirmed, and Palacios appealed to the Court of Appeals.

The prosecution must present evidence that the arresting officer received the information communicated by the I-card and relied on it in arresting the defendant, Halligan noted.

“Here, the People presented no direct evidence that, prior to arresting the defendant, the arresting officers were aware of the I-card and relied upon it in effectuating the defendant’s arrest,” Halligan wrote.

The arresting officers did not testify at the suppression hearing, and the detective did not testify about the circumstances of the arrest, according to the decision.

“This evidence is too limited to establish that the arresting officers stopped and arrested the defendant in reliance on probable cause allegedly communicated by the I-card,” Halligan wrote.

“The circumstances here do not support an inference that a communication establishing probable cause occurred between the detective and the officers. We conclude that the People failed to provide evidence sufficient to show a communication between the officers based on the I-card, and therefore failed to meet their burden at the suppression hearing to establish probable cause for the defendant’s arrest,” she wrote.

“Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division should be reversed, the defendant’s motion to suppress statement evidence granted, and the case remitted to Supreme Court for further proceedings on the indictment,” she wrote.

[email protected] / (585) 232-20235