The state’s highest court set a new standard this month for how police officers communicate with each other when making an arrest based on information in law enforcement databases.
If an officer wants to arrest someone based on information another officer has entered in an online database, they have to communicate, either verbally or in writing, with the officer – or with someone in the officier’s bureau – who entered that information into the department’s electronic system to ensure probable cause for the person’s arrest actually exists, the New York Court of Appeals ruled in an unanimous decision, published last week.
That, the court said, would ensure any arrest is actually made based on information police put in their internal database.
New York Law School professor Kirk Burkhalter called the decision, which reversed a lower court’s ruling on the issue, an important one.
“This is really a check on police power to ensure the police are not overreaching with regards to the Bill of Rights, primarily the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments,” said Burkhalter, who teaches criminal procedure courses. “It’s actually, I think, very important.”
That’s because police departments, particularly the NYPD, are constantly informed by various court decisions, said Burkhalter, who’s also a retired NYPD detective.
“This decision will eventually go to the New York State Police Department’s legal division,” Burkhalter said. “Which will, I guarantee you, put out some type of legal memo to all police officers recommending a certain standard of behavior with regards to [information sharing] and stopping folks … to ensure that police officers are operating consistently with this decision.”
The decision stems from a 2017 case where NYPD officers arrested a Queens man after a note, referred to as an I-card, had been made in an online NYPD database by another officer stating that there was probable cause for the man’s arrest. However, in court hearings, the detective who entered that information into the NYPD’s system did not explain what information the I-card contained, how other officers were able to access it or whether the arresting officers had actually done so.
The Queens man didn’t dispute that the detective had probable cause to arrest him when the I-card was made, but argued that, because there was no evidence the detective had communicated with the officer who arrested him, there was no way to be certain the arresting officer actually arrested him based on the I-card, or the detective’s evidence there was probable cause to arrest him.
The Court of Appeals agreed with him, ruling that ensuring officers communicate with each other would ensure arresting officers actually receive and rely on the information communicated by an I-card.
“The district attorney’s office really could not present a lot of information about any form of direct communication between the arresting officer and the detective,” Burkhalter said. “There should be some effort to reach out to verify or get further information, even though there’s probable cause. There was something missing here that gave the courts a moment of pause.”
The Queens District Attorney’s office, which prosecuted the case, told amNewYork Law it was “reviewing the decision” in a statement and declined to comment further.
Police frequently make arrests based on tips from other officers who have probable cause to arrest someone. Burkhalter said when he worked patrol shifts as a cop, he’d ask detective squads in his area if they were currently looking for anyone they had probable cause to arrest. He’d then make arrests based on the descriptions he’d been given after hearing the detective’s justification for the probable cause of their arrest.
That communication, he said, is what the Court of Appeals wants to ensure happens in every arrest case involving officers sharing information with each other.
“We don’t necessarily want a police state where someone sits on a computer and enters into the database, ‘I have probable cause against Kirk Burkhalter,’ for example, and a police officer goes to arrest Kirk Burkhalter without knowing any other information,” Burkhalter said. “We want the police to talk a little bit more and just proceed with a little bit more diligence.”
