displaying a shield, held up his hand, motioned for the defendant to wait and sounded his siren. The defendant then drove his mini-van around a UPS truck and onto the sidewalk in an effort to proceed on his way. He was thereupon stopped by P.O. Wallen, and a subsequent check of his license and registration revealed that his license to drive in this State was suspended 36 times on 10 dates and had never been reinstated. The officer testified that, although the basis for the stop was that the defendant did drive on the sidewalk, a traffic offense, no summons was issued for any Vehicle and Traffic Law infraction.
LAW
At the threshold of any motion to suppress evidence is the preliminary determination that a defendant has standing to challenge the search. ( People v Ponder, 54 NY2d 160 [1981].) The People contend that the motion to suppress should be denied, ab initio, without the necessity of conducting a hearing. They argue that because the defendant does not have a privacy interest in the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) records, he lacks standing to challenge their discovery. The defendant correctly asserts that in the case of motor vehicle searches, his standing emanates not from any privacy interest in the documents, but from the stop and detention of his person. He urges this court to find that the stop of his vehicle was pretextual at best, and to suppress the DMV records as the tainted fruit of the poisonous tree. ( Wong Sun v United States, 371 US 471 [1963]; People v May, 81 NY2d 725 [1992]; People v Ingle, 36 NY2d 413 [1975].) Although, generally, a favorable standing ruling would permit a defendant to reach the merits at a hearing, the prosecution raises an issue equally as crucial to the ultimate determination of a suppression ruling. They contend that even assuming, arguendo, the unlawfulness of the police action at the inception, the evidence which constitutes the subject of the motion must be that which is embraced by the exclusionary rule and urge this court to find that the DMV documents fall outside the contemplated purpose of this constitutional violation. Whereas in most cases, implicit in the initial granting of a hearing is the determination that the challenged evidence is subject to exclusionary rule sanctions, when that evidence consists of the DMV abstract, that issue has not been squarely resolved and requires some analysis. (See, People v Smith, 170 Misc 2d 486 [Crim Ct, NY County 1996, Newman, J.] [DMV records are independently created by State agency and are, However, as previously noted, I would have denied suppression without a hearing for the reasons previously stated.