Gun conviction reversed over illegal search

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A state appeals court has reversed a gun conviction and dismissed the indictment because of an illegal search by police.

Defendant Delvin Boatwright was convicted in February 2023, before state Supreme Court Justice Thomas E. Moran, of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon.

In a recent decision, the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court, Fourth Department, unanimously reversed the conviction, granted a defense motion to suppress physical evidence, and dismissed the indictment.

“We agree with defendant that Supreme Court erred in refusing to suppress physical evidence, including two handguns, because they were recovered during an unlawful inventory search of the vehicle in which he was a passenger, and therefore reverse,” the Fourth Department wrote.

“An inventory search is exactly what its name suggests, a search designed to properly catalogue the contents of the item searched,” the panel wrote.

“Inventory searches may not be used as a ruse for a general rummaging in order to discover incriminating evidence, and, unlike a traffic stop, will be constitutionally invalid where the search was merely a pretext to search for evidence of a crime,” the court wrote.

“Only a lawfully impounded vehicle may be subjected to an inventory search, and the People bear the threshold burden of demonstrating that the subject vehicle was lawfully impounded at the time of the inventory search,” the court wrote.

According to the testimony at the suppression hearing, a Rochester Police Department (RPD) officer initiated a traffic stop of a vehicle he witnessed pass through a red light.

As the vehicle slowed and pulled over, a passenger exited the back passenger-side door and fled on foot, while repeatedly looking back at the officer and reaching for his waistband, according to the decision.

The officer did not pursue the fleeing individual. Instead, he approached the two remaining occupants in the vehicle — the driver and Boatwright, the front-seat passenger.

While approaching the car, the officer noticed that the vehicle had a temporary state of Texas paper license plate, which, according to the officer, had been the subject of a recent anti-fraud bulletin issued by the New York State Police.

The driver did not produce any other documentation regarding the vehicle’s registration.

Th officer concluded that the car was not registered, based on his assumption that the temporary paper license plate was invalid, according to the decision.

But the officer had no information to verify whether the temporary paper license plate was actually invalid.

Regardless, the officer determined that the vehicle was not roadworthy and would be towed under Rochester Police Department policy.

The officer then detained Boatwright and the driver and conducted an inventory search of the vehicle with the assistance of another officer, and they found two handguns.

“Based on the evidence, we agree with defendant that the People failed to meet their burden at the suppression hearing of demonstrating that the vehicle was lawfully impounded pursuant to RPD policy at the time of the inventory search inasmuch as the officer was not in possession of information that the vehicle was not registered at the time he decided that it would be towed,” the court ruled.

“Thus, the court erred in refusing to suppress the evidence recovered in the vehicle,” the Fourth Department wrote.

“We therefore reverse the judgment, grant that part of defendant’s omnibus motion seeking to suppress physical evidence and dismiss the indictment against him,” the court ruled.

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