Matter of City of New York v. Gentile

Full title: In the Matter of CITY OF NEW YORK, Appellant, v. KEVIN GENTILE, Respondent

Court: Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, Second Department

Date published: Mar 2, 1998

248 A.D.2d 382 (N.Y. App. Div. 1998)

669 N.Y.S.2d 854

Opinion

March 2, 1998

Appeal from the Supreme Court, Queens County (Appelman, J.).

Ordered that the order is reversed, on the law, without costs or disbursements, and the application to quash is granted.

The Supreme Court erred in granting the defendant's application to discover certain police records in connection with his pending criminal action since there is no statutory basis for such discovery (see, Matter of Pirro v. LaCava, 230 A.D.2d 909, 910). Discovery which is unavailable pursuant to statute may not be ordered based on principles of due process because "there is no general constitutional right to discovery in criminal cases" (Matter of Miller v. Schwartz, 72 N.Y.2d 869, 870, citing Weatherford v. Bursey, 429 U.S. 545, 559). Therefore, the petitioner's motion to quash the subpoena should have been granted.

O'Brien, J. P., Ritter, Thompson, Friedmann and Goldstein, JJ., concur.