Seized evidence thrown out in case against Gerald Workman.
Syracuse Police Officers Brian Murphy and James Lane cart away 40 guns seized last year from Gerald Workman's home. An Onondaga County judge ruled the evidence can't be used against Workman.Syracuse, NY - An Onondaga County judge today concluded law enforcement officials used the city and county secondhand merchandise ordinances as a “ruse” to conduct an illegal search of a North Side man’s home last year.
Authorities recovered several hundred thousand dollars in property during the June 2009 search of Gerald Workman’s home at 1222 N. State St. and at a West Side warehouse. Police contended the 77-year-old Workman was using his home and warehouse to store a cache of stolen property.
Onondaga County Judge William Walsh today ruled the District Attorney’s Office cannot use any of that recovered property to prosecute Workman on charges of criminal possession of stolen property.
Walsh concluded the city and county laws governing the operation of secondhand merchandise businesses were unconstitutional. In a 58-page decision, he concluded the ordinances did not include sufficient safeguards against warrantless searches by police.
Sheriff’s detectives and Syracuse police reported recovering more than $300,000 in gems, jewelry, gold and silver, coins, power tools, compressors and large industrial heaters in a raid on Workman’s home and warehouse June 17, 2009.
Onondaga County Judge William WalshWhile Walsh ordered the prosecution evidence suppressed, he did not dismiss the case against Workman. The lawyers will be back in court Sept. 13 to report on what next happens with the case.
Assistant District Attorney Laura Fiorenza today said her office would be reviewing Walsh’s lengthy written decision to determine whether to appeal to a higher court in order to keep the case alive. Defense lawyer Terrance Hoffmann has been trying to get the property returned to Workman.
"It's a wake-up call to the police, the City Council and the County Legislature to be a lot more thoughful in drafting these laws," Hoffmann said of Walsh's decision. "You can't have laws that allow the police to circumvent constitutional rights."
A law might be a good tool for law enforcement but not if it strips the citizens of their constitutional rights and protections, he said. That's why there is a need for constant civilian oversight of police, he added.
If the prosecution seeks to appeal Walsh's decision, the criminal case would be put on hold, Hoffmann said. But he noted Walsh already has verbally directed the prosecution to return to Workman any property not subject to the charges in the pending indictment.
If the prosecution does not appeal, the defensse will seek to have that indictment dismissed at the next court appearance, Hoffmann said.
In his decision, Walsh noted the two local laws – the city’s Secondhand Dealer Ordinance which was passed in 1962 and the Onondaga County Precious Metal Jewelry Local Law #3 which was passed in 1981 – allow for limited use of warrantless searches as an administrative tool and only for civil regulation of secondhand dealers.
In Workman’s case, the laws were improperly used to pursue a criminal investigation by skirting the defendant’s rights, the judge noted.
Walsh concluded the city ordinance improperly gives police “carte blanche to conduct searches and seizures of secondhand business dealers at their whim and caprice, without any judicial oversight whatsoever, requiring the business owner to surrender their constitutional rights in the process, and carries penal sanctions for noncompliance.”
The judge noted the county’s law didn’t even apply in Workman’s case because the city ordinance existed to cover businesses in Syracuse. But Walsh noted the county law, while more limited than the city ordinance, was also constitutionally flawed.
The county law misleads business owners into believing noncompliance subjects them to criminal conviction and sanctions and leaves law enforcement officials with “a misconception regarding the authority vested in them” by the law, Walsh noted.
The judge noted Sheriff’s detectives who testified before a grand jury and in the suppression hearing indicated “they have historically used it for criminal law enforcement purposes, as evidenced by the fact that its enforcement is tasked primarily to the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office Burglary Unit” and that Workman and a second resident of his home would have been arrested on the spot for refusing to comply.
The county law “leaves far too much discretion to police officers in the field, without the benefit of proper judicial oversight and it fails to pass constitutional muster,” Walsh wrote.
The judge concluded authorities had clearly targeted Workman as part of a criminal investigation “based upon their long held suspicions that he was acting as a fence of stolen goods.”
Their use of the “administrative search” provisions of the local laws “was merely a ruse employed by the detectives to effect a warrantless entry and search of Mr. Workman’s premises in order to uncover additional evidence of criminal activity,” Walsh wrote.
That was improper, he concluded, noting the state’s highest court previously ruled administrative searches are permissible only to promote civil regulations and not to carry out a criminal investigation. Discovery of criminal activity incidental to such a search is okay but cannot be the basis for the search in the first place, Walsh wrote.
The police already had a sufficient basis for seeking a search warrant given evidence authorities had already staged two controlled buys of stolen property at Workman’s home, the judge noted.
“What the court finds most troubling is that the hearing testimony reveals not only an essential misunderstanding of the local secondhand dealer laws on the part of those tasked with the primary responsibility of enforcing them, but also an awareness on the part of the detectives that the conduct of their investigation was constitutionally suspect,” Walsh wrote.
Onondaga County Sheriff Kevin Walsh today said he had not yet seen the judge's decision. He said he would withhold comment until seeing what the District Attorney's office plans to do.
Syracuse Police First Deputy Chief David Barrette was unavailable for comment on the judge's decision.
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