A Manhattan appeals court overturned a drug possession conviction, saying police improperly searched a suspect’s jacket when it was beyond the defendant’s “grabbable area.”
A 4-1 majority of the Appellate Division, First Department, said the defendant in People v. Morales, 918/09, “was sitting handcuffed inside a police car, the jacket was outside lying on the vehicle’s trunk, and numerous officers were on the scene,” and thus “there was no reasonable possibility that defendant could have reached it.”
