Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

After a jury trial, Defendant was charged with burglary in the second degree. The People sought permission to admit a witness’s grand jury testimony into evidence, alleging that Defendant had forfeited his right to preclude the admission of the testimony because he procured the witness’s unavailability by coercing her into invoking her Fifth Amendment privilege. The trial court granted the People’s motion and submitted the witness’s grand jury testimony for the jury’s consideration. The jury returned a verdict convicting Defendant as charged. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the trial court properly ruled that Defendant forfeited his right to preclude the admission of the witness’s grand jury testimony by his wrongdoing because there was clear and convincing circumstantial evidence that Defendant was a cause of the witness’s refusal to testify. View "People v. Smart" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of rape. During the prosecution, Defendant sought disclosure of the complainant’s mental health records. After an in camera review of the records, which contained thousands of documents, the trial court selected twenty-eight pages for disclosure. Defendant appealed, arguing that the trial court abused its discretion in withholding the undisclosed documents. The Appellate Division affirmed. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding (1) the trial court could reasonably think there was no more than a remote possibility that disclosure of the records it withheld would lead to Defendant’s acquittal; and (2) the trial court was within its discretion in finding the records’ relevance to be outweighed by the complainant’s legitimate interest in confidentiality. View "People v. McCray" on Justia Law

Defendant and his codefendants were charged via a sixty-one count indictment with several crimes arising from a sophisticated scheme to steal property through the use of forged credit cards. The case proceeded to trial on twenty-six of the counts. The jury found Defendant guilty on twenty of the twenty-six counts. Defendant appealed, arguing (1) the trial court ran afoul of N.Y. Crim. Proc. Law 310.20(2) when it submitted to the jury a verdict sheet containing the locations of the designated offenses; and (2) law enforcement’s warrantless installation of a GPS tracking device on Defendant’s vehicle violated this Court’s holding in People v. Weaver and the holding of the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Jones. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding (1) the trial court appropriately included the annotations on the verdict sheet so that the jury could distinguish the submitted counts; and (2) Defendant’s constitutional rights were violated by the warrantless installation of the GPS tracking device on his vehicle, but the violation was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. View "People v. Lewis" on Justia Law

Defendant was charged with second-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth-degree. Supreme Court submitted to the jury the indicted charge of second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter as a lesser included offense. The jury acquitted Defendant of murder and found him guilty of first-degree manslaughter. Defendant appealed, arguing that the trial court erred by refusing to submit a second-degree manslaughter charge to the jury because a reasonable view of the evidence supported the conclusion that he killed the victim recklessly. The Appellate Division affirmed. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the record did not reasonably support the conclusion that Defendant acted with mere recklessness. View "People v. Rivera" on Justia Law

These four cases involved criminal appeals that were not pursued for more than a decade after the filing of a notice of appeal. The Appellate Division dismissed the appeal in each case. The Court of Appeals (1) affirmed the dismissals in three of the cases, as the procedure followed in these cases did not deny the defendants of any constitutional right, nor did the Appellate Division abuse its discretion in dismissing the appeals; and (2) remitted the fourth case to the Appellate Division so that counsel could be appointed to represent the defendant in opposing the dismissal of his appeal, as the Appellate Division erred in denying this defendant’s appeal before assigning him counsel on that appeal and giving counsel a chance to review the record. View "People v. Perez" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of manslaughter in the first degree. On appeal, Defendant argued that the trial court erred by not submitting to the jury the question of whether the People’s key witness was an accomplice and, if so, whether his testimony was sufficiently corroborated. The Appellate Division affirmed the conviction, concluding that the witness could not reasonably be considered to have participated in the crime and that there was overwhelming evidence corroborating his testimony. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the evidence created a factual issue as to whether the witness was an accomplice, and the trial court’s failure to charge the jury with an “accomplice-in-face” instruction was not harmless. View "People v. Sage" on Justia Law

In 2001, Defendant was found guilty of robbery and other crimes and sentenced to terms of imprisonment. Supreme Court later ordered that Defendant be resentenced, determining that Defendant’s sentence was illegal because it did not include a mandatory term of post-release supervision (PRS). After Defendant was conditionally released, Supreme Court resentenced Defendant by imposing a term of PRS. In 2009, the maximum term of Defendant’s prison sentence passed. In 2010, Defendant filed a motion to set aside his second sentence, arguing that the imposition of PRS constituted double jeopardy because he was out of prison on conditional release when it was imposed. Supreme Court granted the motion and resentenced Defendant, reimposing the terms of his completed initial sentence. The Appellate Division dismissed the People’s appeal, concluding that imposing PRS in this case would constitute double jeopardy. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding (1) Defendant had not acquired a legitimate expectation of finality in his sentence because the direct appeal of the sentence Defendant served was not over; and (2) therefore, the prohibition against double jeopardy was not implicated in this case. View "People v. Cintron" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was found guilty of murder in the second degree for suffocating her stepdaughter. The Appellate Division found the jury verdict was against the weight of the evidence and modified the County Court’s judgment by reducing the murder conviction to a conviction of second-degree manslaughter. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding (1) Defendant’s confession to the police following the child’s death was sufficiently corroborated by independent evidence at trial to support Defendant’s conviction; (2) the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting certain letters into evidence, as they were sufficiently redacted; and (3) Defendant was not denied effective assistance of trial counsel. View "People v. Santiago" on Justia Law

Upon responding to a burglary report at an apartment building, police officers observed Defendant in the building’s stairwell. When the officers arrested Defendant for trespassing, one of the officers opened Defendant’s shoulder purse, which contained a loaded handgun. Defendant was subsequently indicted for criminal possession of a gun in the second degree and criminal trespass in the second degree. The trial court denied Defendant’s motion to suppress the gun, and, after a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of the counts charged. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding (1) the People bear the burden of demonstrating the presence of exigent circumstances in order to conduct a warrantless search of a closed container incident to arrest; and (2) in this case, the People failed to meet that burden as a matter of law. View "People v. Jimenez" on Justia Law

Defendant was charged with third-degree sexual abuse, forcible touching, and public lewdness for rubbing his exposed penis against another man’s buttocks without the victim’s consent. Defendant pleaded guilty to forcible touching in full satisfaction of the information. Defendant appealed, contending that the information was jurisdictionally defective because it stated that Defendant simply “rubbed” his groin and exposed his penis against the victim’s intimate parts, which conduct did not fulfill the “forcible” component of the crime. The Appellate Term affirmed. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that any bodily contact involving the application of some level of pressure to the victim’s sexual or intimate parts qualifies as a forcible touch within the meaning of N.Y. Penal Law 130.52. View "People v. Guaman" on Justia Law