Opinion
December 2, 1993
Appeal from the County Court of Rensselaer County (Dwyer, Jr., J.).
On this appeal defendant contends that her warrantless arrest was unlawful because it was predicated upon the unauthorized disclosure of a confidential communication (see, CPLR 4505) and that her confession made thereafter must be suppressed as the "fruit of the poisonous tree". We disagree. The "clergyman-penitent" privilege is an evidentiary rule proscribing the revelation of privileged communications at a trial when the privilege is asserted by the protected party (see, Bender, New York Evidence § 12.01 et seq.). Here, revelation of defendant's confession to the police provided probable cause for her arrest and subsequent prosecution.
Cardona, White, Mahoney and Casey, JJ., concur. Ordered that the judgment is affirmed.