Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Respondent pleaded guilty to several violent sex offenses. As Respondent’s release date approached, the State commenced a N.Y. Mental Hyg. Law 10 proceeding seeking a determination that Respondent was a detained sex offender requiring civil management. Prior to trial, Respondent moved to preclude the State’s expert witness from presenting hearsay basis testimony about a rape he was never charged with committing. Supreme Court denied the motion. The State’s expert witness testified at trial, briefly describing the uncharged crime. The jury returned a verdict finding that Respondent suffered from a mental abnormality. Following a dispositional hearing, Supreme Court determined that Respondent was a dangerous sex offender in need of confinement and committed him to a secure treatment facility. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the trial court abused its discretion by allowing the expert witness to testify about the uncharged rape, but the error was harmless under the circumstances. View "State v. Charada T." on Justia Law

A grand jury charged Defendants, the president and CEO of a leading materials testing company and the company’s vice-president, with engaging in a pattern of criminal activity while intentionally conducting and participating in the affairs of a criminal enterprise. The indictment alleged that Defendants committed or allowed certain of the company’s employees to engage in illegal acts involving the falsification of test results, improper inspections of construction projects, and double-billing of clients. After a jury trial, both defendants were convicted of enterprise corruption and several non-enterprise corruption offenses. The Appellate Division modified by vacating the enterprise corruption convictions on the basis that the convictions lacked sufficient proof and were against the weight of the evidence. Both parties appealed. The Court of Appeals affirmed as modified, holding that the Appellate Division did not apply the proper legal standards when it reviewed the sufficiency of the evidence supporting Defendants’ convictions for enterprise corruption and that the People’s evidence was legally sufficient to support the enterprise corruption convictions. Remanded. View "People v. Kancharla" on Justia Law

Plaintiff initiated litigation to recover wrongfully diverted and concealed proceeds of a loan agreement, asserting that Defendants conspired to avoid repayment by denying their ownership and control over entities used to conceal converted funds. Before the conclusion of discovery in New York, federal authorities arrested Defendants, charging them with tax evasion and alleging a conspiracy to commit fraud on the New York court by forging documents and suborning perjury. A jury convicted Defendants of tax evasion, and the district court concluded that Defendants had perpetrated fraud on Supreme Court in New York. After Defendants’ sentencing, Plaintiff filed a motion to strike Defendants’ pleadings and for a default judgment. Supreme Court determined that Defendants had perpetrated a fraud on the court and granted the motion. The Appellate Division affirmed. The Court of Appeals affirmed in part, holding (1) where a court finds, by clear and convincing evidence, conduct that constitutes fraud on the court, the court may impose sanctions including striking pleadings and entering default judgment against the offending parties; and (2) with one exception, the record supported such sanctions against Defendants. View "CDR Creances S.A.S. v. Cohen" on Justia Law

Defendant struck and killed a pedestrian while driving an automobile and was subsequently transported to police headquarters. While Defendant’s attorney was pursuing telephone contact with law enforcement personnel, the police obtained Defendant’s consent to administer a breathalyzer test. After Defendant took the test, she was indicted for second-degree manslaughter, second-degree vehicular manslaughter, and two counts of driving while intoxicated. Defendant filed a motion to suppress the results of the breathalyzer test on the grounds that it had been administered in violation of her right to counsel. Supreme Court granted the motion and suppressed the chemical tests. The Appellate Division affirmed. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the police violated Defendant’s constitutional right to counsel because Defendant was not alerted to the lawyer’s communication before the breath test occurred and because the People did not demonstrate that a notification of this nature would have been unreasonable under the circumstances. View "People v. Washington" on Justia Law

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