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People v. Walters

187 A.D.2d 472 Court N.Y. App. Div. Decision date 1992-11-02 English

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p. 472
The People of the State of New York, Respondent, v Carol Walters, Appellant.

Appeal by the defendant from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Kings County (Starkey, J.), rendered June 29, 1989, as amended June 5, 1991, convicting her of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the second degree, upon her plea of guilty, and imposing sentence. The appeal brings up for review the denial, after a hearing, of that branch of the defendant’s omnibus motion which was to suppress evidence seized pursuant to a search warrant.

Ordered that the judgment, as amended, is affirmed

On May 24, 1988, police officers, executing a search warrant based upon information supplied by a confidential informant, entered the defendant’s apartment and recovered, among other things, eight and one-half ounces of cocaine. On appeal, the defendant contends, among other things, that the Aguilar-Spinelli test, concerning the reliability and the basis of knowledge of the confidential informant, was not sufficiently satisfied by the warrant application submitted by the police officer (see, Aguilar v Texas, 378 US 108 ; Spinelli v United States, 393 US 410 ).

With respect to the determination of whether or not an informant is reliable, the courts may consider a number of factors (see, People v Rodriguez, 52 NY2d 483 ). In the case at

p. 473
bar, the informant was a registered police informant who had previously, on at least one other occasion, provided reliable information to the same officer who obtained the instant search warrant, resulting in a seizure of a large quantity of narcotics. The defendant’s contention that this one prior tip is insufficient to establish reliability is without merit (People v Proctor, 155 AD2d 624 , 625). "Applying a quantitative rather than a qualitative analysis of an informant’s reliability places a burden on the police in using confidential informants not contemplated by the standard articulated by the Court of Appeals of 'some minimum, reasonable showing that the informant was reliable’ ” (People v Proctor, supra, at 625 , quoting People v Griminger, 71 NY2d 635 , 639).

We also reject defendant’s contention that the search warrant affidavit fails to establish the basis of the informant’s knowledge. Generally, an informant’s personal observations are sufficient to establish a basis of knowledge (see, People v Bigelow, 66 NY2d 417 ; People v Johnson, 66 NY2d 398 ). Since the informant related that he "has observed a large amount of narcotics in this location,” a common-sense interpretation of the language leads to the conclusion that the informant’s knowledge was based upon personal observation (see, Illinois v Gates, 462 US 213 ; People v Johnson, 66 NY2d 398 , supra). Therefore, we conclude that the search warrant application was sufficient to satisfy the Aguilar-Spinelli test and, accordingly, the court properly denied suppression of the evidence.

We find that the sentence imposed was neither harsh nor excessive (see, People v Suitte, 90 AD2d 80 ).

We have considered the defendant’s remaining contentions and find them to be without merit. Rosenblatt, J. P., Ritter, Pizzuto and Santucci, JJ., concur.

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