Opinion
December 14, 1987
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Queens County (Zelman, J.).
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed.
Upon the exercise of our factual review power, we are satisfied that the evidence established the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and that the verdict was not against the weight of the evidence (see, CPL 470.15). The police officers' testimony in this case cannot be characterized as "`manifestly untrue, physically impossible, contrary to experience, or self-contradictory,'" so as to warrant discounting it (People v Garafolo, 44 A.D.2d 86, 88).
The defendant's second contention, that the automobile search in question was unconstitutional, is also without merit. He urges that this court apply a broader protection under N Y Constitution, article I, § 12, to circumscribe the limits of the automobile exception to the US Constitution Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures as promulgated in United States v Ross ( 456 U.S. 798). The defendant's arguments are based on similar extensions of protections that the New York Court of Appeals sanctioned in People v Class ( 67 N.Y.2d 431) and People v P.J. Video ( 68 N.Y.2d 296, cert denied ___ US ___, 107 S Ct 1301). However, neither the facts nor the policy considerations underlying these two decisions are apposite at bar.
United States v Ross (supra) permits an automobile search based only on the same probable cause standards which would permit a disinterested Magistrate to issue a warrant under State constitutional standards. Hence, since such a probable cause standard exists in this case, the defendant has been accorded all the constitutional protections to which he is entitled (see, People v Langen, 60 N.Y.2d 170, cert denied 465 U.S. 1028). Thompson, J.P., Lawrence, Rubin and Spatt, JJ., concur.