Courts on AI / Algorithms in criminal justice
People v. Wright
New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Fourth Department · State appellate courts · NY · · 2026 NY Slip Op 04580 · No. 299 KA 23-00567 · opinion
The New York appellate court affirms a suppression ruling where officers heard a gunshot and then received a ShotSpotter activation. The opinion treats the activation as corroboration supporting reasonable suspicion for the ensuing pursuit and firearm recovery.
- Disposition
- The court affirmed the weapon-possession judgment and upheld the suppression ruling.
What the court wrote
Verbatim from the court's document (public domain). Ellipses mark omitted text; nothing is paraphrased.
at around 4:30 a.m. on the day in question, the police heard what they perceived—based on their training and experience—to be a gunshot ring out nearby, causing them to immediately respond to that area. While driving to the location, they received a ShotSpotter activation corroborating what they had heard. Arriving at the scene within a minute of hearing the gunshot, the police encountered just two individuals in the area, one of whom was defendant. The police observed that defendant was walking away from the scene, and was attempting to conceal a "small black object in his right hand," which he "kind of turned, [by] mov[ing] his hand in a manner" away from the police. One of the responding officers exited his vehicle and told defendant to stop and show his hands, at which point defendant started to run away, causing the police to chase after him in pursuit.
Authorities cited in the passage: People v. Thomas, 34 N.Y.3d 545 (2019)
compiled by the Cognesio LLP editorial teammethodas of 2026-09-07v0.1.1coding CC BY 4.0JSON Hugging Face GitHub
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