People v Mendoza
2008 NY Slip Op 03492 [50 AD3d 478]
April 22, 2008
Appellate Division, First Department
Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431.
As corrected through Wednesday, June 18, 2008


The People of the State of New York, Respondent,
v
Silva Mendoza, Appellant.

[*1] Steven Banks, The Legal Aid Society, New York (Karen M. Kalikow of counsel), for appellant.

Robert T. Johnson, District Attorney, Bronx (Robert R. Sandusky, III of counsel), for respondent.

Judgment, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Troy K. Webber, J., on motion; David Stadtmauer, J., at plea and sentence), rendered June 9, 2006, convicting defendant of promoting prison contraband in the first degree, and sentencing him, as a second felony offender, to a term of 2 to 4 years, unanimously affirmed.

The court properly denied, without a hearing, defendant's motion to suppress contraband that correction officers discovered in his pocket during a search they conducted while defendant was an inmate at Rikers Island, since his factual allegations, even if accepted as true, would not have warranted a conclusion that the search was unreasonable (see CPL 710.60 [3]). While defendant's allegations may have stated a Fourth Amendment claim in the context of a search of a person at liberty, defendant did not address the diminished Fourth Amendment rights of a prison inmate (see Bell v Wolfish, 441 US 520, 557 [1979]). The facts alleged in defendant's moving papers did not set forth a basis for suppression, given the prison context (see Hudson v Palmer, 468 US 517, 529 [1984]; People v Frye, 144 AD2d 714 [1988], lv denied 73 NY2d 891 [1989]). We have considered and rejected defendant's remaining arguments. Concur—Lippman, P.J., Saxe, Gonzalez and Nardelli, JJ.