Newsday.com – Samuel Maullp – Associated Press Writer
New York (AP) – Police detectives who decided to search a person they saw rifling through a woman’s purse in a doorway were acting reasonably, even though their suspect turned out to be transgendered, a state appeals court ruled Tuesday.
The 4-0 ruling by the state Supreme Court’s Appellate Division reversed a lower court’s decision to suppress evidence the detectives seized from defendant Stephen Lomiller, 42, who was charged with possession of stolen property.
Justice James A. Yates had originally ruled that the detectives’ didn’t have cause to approach and interrogate a person of “unquestionably” transgender appearance on the basis of “simple possession of a purse.”
But the appeals court said the detectives appeared genuinely unaware that Lomiller lived as a woman.
Detective Daniel Danaher testified that Lomiller “looked like a man,” to the officers, thus raising legitimate suspicions about the purse, the appeals judges wrote.
The defendant’s arrest photograph shows Lomiller wearing a dark jacket over a red sweater or tee-shirt, and “what seems to be two to three days’ growth of beard,” the court wrote.
The judges said Lomiller “also claimed to be wearing eyeliner, but it is not discernible in the arrest photograph, and the fact that he is wearing an earring and a ponytail is not necessarily feminine.”