Opinion
09-27-2016
The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Manahan REYES, Defendant–Appellant.
Seymour W. James, Jr., The Legal Aid Society, New York (Lawrence T. Hausman of counsel), for appellant. Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., District Attorney, New York (Kelly L. Smith of counsel), for respondent.
Seymour W. James, Jr., The Legal Aid Society, New York (Lawrence T. Hausman of counsel), for appellant.
Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., District Attorney, New York (Kelly L. Smith of counsel), for respondent.
FRIEDMAN, J.P., ANDRIAS, RICHTER, GISCHE, KAHN, JJ.
Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Maxwell Wiley, J. at suppression hearing; Bruce Allen, J. at jury trial and sentencing), rendered March 23, 2012, convicting defendant of robbery in the first degree (12 counts), attempted robbery in the first degree (3 counts), robbery in the second degree (4 counts) and of attempted robbery in the second degree, and sentencing him to an aggregate term of 5 years, unanimously affirmed.
The motion court properly denied defendant's motion to suppress showup identifications. The showup was conducted in close geographic and temporal proximity to the crime “as part of an unbroken chain of fast-paced events” (People v. Vincenty, 138 A.D.3d 428, 429, 28 N.Y.S.3d 686 [1st Dept.2016] ), including the convergence of numerous witnesses upon the location where the police were holding defendant, and the circumstances, viewed collectively, were not unduly suggestive (see e.g. People v. McNeil, 39 A.D.3d 206, 209, 834 N.Y.S.2d 99 [1st Dept.2007], lv. denied 13 N.Y.3d 861, 891 N.Y.S.2d 695, 920 N.E.2d 100 [2009] ; People v. Gatling, 38 A.D.3d 239, 831 N.Y.S.2d 157 [1st Dept.2007], lv. denied 9 N.Y.3d 865, 840 N.Y.S.2d 894, 872 N.E.2d 1200 [2007] ). The fact that the prompt showup involved multiple witnesses does not require suppression, and nothing indicates that the witnesses influenced each other in making their simultaneous identifications (see People v. Love, 57 N.Y.2d 1023, 1024, 457 N.Y.S.2d 474, 443 N.E.2d 948 [1982] ; People v. Vincenty, 138 A.D.3d at 429, 30 N.Y.S.3d 11 ).
Defendant did not preserve his arguments that the officer conducting the showup made suggestive preidentification comments about recovered property, or that the People failed to establish the absence of suggestive comments by the officers who transported witnesses to the showup, and we decline to review them in the interest of justice. As an alternative holding, we find them unavailing.