Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant pleaded guilty to attempted assault in the first degree and attempted arson in the third degree. After a hearing held before a Judicial Hearing Officer (JHO), the JHO concluded that Defendant should be required to pay restitution to the insurer of the owner of the damaged apartment. The County Court fixed restitution in the amount recommended by the JHO. On appeal, the People conceded that the County Court had erred by delegating its authority to conduct the restitution hearing to a JHO. The Appellate Division remitted the case to the County Court for a new hearing. After a second restitution hearing, the County Court increased the restitution award by several hundred dollars. The Appellate Division affirmed. At issue on appeal was whether the sentencing court erred by relying upon exhibits and transcripts from the prior hearing conducted by the JHO. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the hearing held upon remittal met the standard set forth in prior cases. View "People v. Connolly" on Justia Law

Andre Harrison pleaded guilty to a criminal offense. Harrison moved to vacate the judgment, alleging that his attorney gave him erroneous advice about the immigration consequences of his guilty plea. Supreme Court denied the motion. While Harrison’s appeal was pending, he was deported. The Appellate Division dismissed Harrison’s appeal on the grounds that Harrison was appealing by permission. Defendant Marino Serrano also pleaded guilty to a criminal offense and was deported while his direct appeal was pending. The Appellate Term dismissed Serrano’s direct appeal on the grounds that Serrano’s continued legal participation was required. In these cases, the Court of Appeals was asked to clarify the application of People v. Venture, which held that the Appellate Division abused its discretion in dismissing two pending direct appeals due to the involuntary deportations of the defendants. The Court held (1) Ventura prohibits intermediate appellate court from dismissing pending direct appeals due to the defendant’s involuntary deportation regardless of the contentions raised by the defendant on appeal; (2) intermediate appellate courts retain their discretionary authority to dismiss permissive appeals due to the defendant’s involuntary deportation; and (3) accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division should be affirmed in Harrison and the order of the Appellate Term should be reversed in Serrano. View "People v. Harrison" on Justia Law

When Defendant was arrested he possessed a folding utility knife. After a jury trial, Defendant was found guilty of criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree. Defendant appealed, arguing that the People were required to establish that Defendant knew that the knife met the statutory definition of a gravity knife. The Appellate Division affirmed, holding that the knowledge element of the crime was satisfied by Defendant’s knowledge that he possessed a knife in general. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the mens rea prescribed by the Legislature for criminal possession of a gravity knife simply does not require the People to prove that defendants knew that the knife in their possession met the statutory definition of a gravity knife but only requires that defendants be aware of their physical possession of the knife. View "People v. Parrilla" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted for the assault and unlawful imprisonment of an eight-year-old boy during which he caused serious physical injury to the child with a dangerous instrument. Defendant was required to register as a sex offender pursuant to the Sex Offender Registration Act (SORA) and was adjudicated as a risk level three sex offender by the SORA hearing court. Defendant appealed, arguing that the SORA hearing court abused its discretion in adjudicating him a risk level three where the unlawful imprisonment conviction, the qualifying crime for SORA, did not involve a sexual component. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that, under the circumstances, it was not an abuse of discretion for the SORA court to decline to depart from the presumptive risk level three. View "People v. Howard" on Justia Law

After a trial, Defendant was convicted of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree and menacing in the second degree. Defendant appealed, arguing that the trial court violated his constitutional right to confront the witnesses against him by permitting the People to introduce DNA reports into evidence providing that Defendant’s DNA profile was found on the gun that was the subject of the charged possessory weapon offense without producing a single witness who conducted, witnessed, or supervised the laboratory’s generation of the DNA profile from the gun or Defendant’s exemplar. The Appellate Division affirmed. The Court of Appeals reversed and ordered a new trial, concluding that an analyst who witnessed, performed or supervised the generation of Defendant’s DNA profile, or who used his or her independent analysis on the raw data, must be available to testify. View "People v. John" on Justia Law

Defendant was charged with assault in the second degree and endangering the welfare of a child. The trial court allowed a recording to be admitted into evidence that the child’s father made on his cellphone in which Defendant told the child that he was going to beat him and that this would hurt more than a previous beating. Defendant appealed, arguing that the recording was inadmissible under N.Y. C.P.L.R. 4506 because no party to the conversation consented to the record. The Appellate Division affirmed. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding (1) the definition of consent, in the context of “mechanical overhearing of a conversation” pursuant to N.Y. Penal Law 250.00(2), includes vicarious consent, on behalf of a minor child; (2) “vicarious consent” requires a court’s determination that a parent or guardian had a good faith belief that the recording of a conversation to which the child was a party was necessary to serve the best interests of the child and that there was an objectively reasonable basis for this belief; and (3) there was an objectively reasonable basis for the child’s father to believe that recording what he was hearing was necessary to serve his son’s best interests. View "People v. Badalamenti" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was found guilty of murder in the first degree and related crimes. Defendant appealed, arguing that the trial court erred in precluding him from presenting third-party culpability evidence. The Appellate Division affirmed. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding (1) the standard set forth in People v. Primo that third-party culpability evidence should be evaluated in accordance with ordinary evidentiary principles does not infringe upon a defendant’s constitutional right to present a complete defense; and (2) applying the Primo standard in this case, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by precluding Defendant’s “ill-defined and speculative” third-party culpability evidence. View "People v. Powell" on Justia Law

Defendant was charged with the shootings of Mark Maldanado and Leo Walton. The jury found Defendant guilty of murder in the second degree for Walton’s death and assault in the first degree for the shooting of Maldanado. At issue on appeal was whether the trial court committed reversible error by failing to take action when defense counsel objected to T-shirts worn by certain spectators that bore a photograph of Walton. The Appellate Division affirmed. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding (1) the trial court erred in failing to instruct the spectators to remove the shirts or cover them upon defense counsel’s objection; but (2) the trial court’s error was harmless under the particular circumstances of this case. View "People v. Nelson" on Justia Law

Defendant was arrested on robbery charges and remanded to Rikers Island Correctional Facility. Following procedures laid out in an Operations Order and through the use of a subpoena duces tecum, the People acquired from the New York City Department of Correction dozens of recordings of telephone conversations that Defendant placed to his friends and family. The People used excerpts from those telephone calls at Defendant’s criminal trial. The jury convicted Defendant of two counts of third degree robbery and one count of possession of stolen property. Defendant appealed, challenging the admission of the recordings. The Appellate Division summarily affirmed. Defendant appealed, arguing that the Department’s practice of monitoring the intimate conversations of pre-trial detainees violated his right to counsel, exceeds the scope of the Department’s regulatory authority, and was conducted without Defendant’s consent. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that Defendant’s claims were either without merit or unpreserved and, therefore, did not warrant a new trial. View "People v. Johnson" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to criminal sale of a controlled substance in the third degree. At sentencing, Supreme Court noted that Defendant had failed to abide by the conditions of his plea agreement when he committed a marijuana offense after the plea proceeding and sentenced Defendant to an enhanced sentence of six years in prison. Defendant appealed, challenging the validity of his guilty plea. The Appellate Division reversed and vacated Defendant’s guilty plea, concluding (1) Supreme Court’s alleged error in inducing Defendant’s guilty plea with the promise of an unlawful sentence constituted a due process violation that presented a question of law for appellate review despite the absence of proper preservation, and (2) the lower court’s error affected the voluntariness of Defendant’s plea. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that Defendant had a reasonable opportunity to attack the legality of his guilty plea prior to the final imposition of his sentence and because he failed to object to the plea in the court of first instance, his challenge to the propriety of his guilty plea was not preserved for appellate review. View "People v. Williams" on Justia Law