Justia New York Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

In the first case involved in this appeal, Defendant pleaded guilty to criminal possession of marihuana. Defendant appealed, asserting that his plea was invalid because the record did not affirmatively demonstrate the waiver of his Boykin rights. The Appellate Term affirmed. In the second case, Defendant pleaded guilty to criminal sale of marihuana. Defendant appealed, arguing, as in the first case, that the waiver of his Boykin rights was nonexistent. The Appellate Term affirmed. The Court of Appeals reversed in both cases, holding that because the records in both cases were silent as to Defendant's waiver of his Boykin rights, the pleas must be vacated.View "People v. Tyrell" on Justia Law

In 2000, Defendant pleaded guilty to attempted assault in the first degree. The trial court orally sentenced Defendant to a fifteen-year determinate sentence of incarceration without pronouncing the term of postrelease supervision (PRS) required under N.Y. Penal Law 70.45. In 2008, the Legislature enacted N.Y. Penal Law 70.85, which makes an exception to section 70.45 by allowing a determinate sentence without a term of PRS to stand as a legal sentence. In 2010, the People moved to resentence Defendant under N.Y. Penal Law 70.85, and Supreme Court resentenced Defendant under section 70.85 to a determinate term of fifteen years without PRS. Defendant appealed, claiming that section 70.85 was unconstitutional because he denied him the right to vacate his guilty plea. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that section 70.85 is a constitutionally permissible legislative remedy for the defectiveness of a plea. View "People v. Pignataro" on Justia Law

Defendant, the son of a Dead Sea Scrolls scholar, launched an internet campaign to attack the integrity and harm the reputation of other Dead Sea Scrolls academics and scholars. To accomplish his goal of discrediting and harming these individuals, Defendant used pseudonyms and impersonated real academics and scholars in communicating with academics, museum administrators, and reporters. A jury convicted Defendant on thirty counts, including several counts of identity theft, criminal impersonation, forgery, and aggravated harassment. The Court of Appeals affirmed the convictions for nine counts of criminal impersonation in the second degree and all the convictions for forgery and vacated the remainder of the convictions, holding (1) the mere creation of email accounts in others’ names, which accounts are not used, does not constitute criminal conduct; (2) the aggravated harassment statute is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad; (3) the People did not sustain their burden of proof that Defendant was guilty of unauthorized use of university computers; and (4) there was insufficient evidence to support Defendant’s convictions of identity theft in the second degree. View "People v. Golb" on Justia Law

In 1968, Respondent pleaded guilty to rape and robbery. A federal court later vacated Respondent’s convictions. In 1978, Respondent was convicted of rape in the first degree. After Respondent was released on parole, he pleaded guilty in 1996 to rape in the first degree. Prior to Respondent’s release from custody, the State filed a petition under N.Y. Mental Hyg. Law 10 seeking a determination that Respondent was a detained sex offender requiring civil management. Respondent moved to preclude expert testimony relating to both the 1968 charges and an uncharged rape Respondent allegedly committed in 1978. Supreme Court denied the motion. After a trial, the jury returned a verdict finding that Respondent suffered from a mental abnormality qualifying him for civil management under article 10. Supreme Court subsequently ordered Respondent committed to a secure treatment facility. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding (1) basis hearsay related to Respondent’s 1968 indictments for rape and robbery met minimum due process requirements and was properly admitted at trial; and (2) basis hearsay about Respondent’s uncharged rape was unreliable and should have been excluded, but its admission was harmless error. View "State v. John S." on Justia Law

Petitioners and other members of the East Meadow Teachers Association displayed picketing signs from their cars parked where parents were dropping their children off at Woodland Middle School. The Board of Education of the East Meadow Union Free School District (District) charged Petitioners with misconduct related to the demonstration, claiming that Petitioners created a safety risk by parking their cars so that students had to be dropped off in the middle of the street instead of at curbside. Petitioners were found guilty of misconduct. Petitioners appealed, arguing that the disciplinary proceedings against them violated their right to free speech. Supreme Court denied the petitions. The Appellate Division reversed after applying the two-part balancing test set forth in Pickering v. Board of Education of Township High School. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding (1) the picketing demonstration was a form of speech protected by the First Amendment; but (2) Petitioners’ interests in engaging in constitutionally protected speech in the particular manner they employed on the day in question were outweighed by the District’s interests in safeguarding students and maintaining effective operations at the middle school. View "Santer v. Bd. of Educ. of E. Meadow Union Free Sch. Dist." 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

Petitioners were two medical providers whose patients included individuals insured by the State’s primary health benefit plan. The State Comptroller reviewed Petitioners’ billing records as part of an audit of billing practices in the health care industry for claims paid by the State. While Petitioners conceded that the State paid eighty percent of the costs of their services, Petitioners challenged the Comptroller’s authority to audit their books. Supreme Court concluded that the Comptroller lacked constitutional authority to audit Petitioners because Petitioners were “not a political subdivision of the State.” The Appellate Division modified Supreme Court’s orders to reinstate the audits. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the State Constitution does not limit the Comptroller’s authority to audit, as part of its audit of State expenditures, the billing records of private companies that provide health care to beneficiaries of a State insurance program. View "Martin H. Handler, M.D., P.C. v. DiNapoli" on Justia Law

Petitioner sought disclosure under the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) from the New York State Teachers’ Retirement System and the Teachers’ Retirement System of the City of New York (“retirement systems”) of the names of the retirement systems’ members. After the retirement systems refused to provide the names, Petitioner brought N.Y. C.P.L.R. 78 proceedings to compel disclosure. Supreme Court dismissed the petitions, and the Appellate Division affirmed. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that N.Y. Pub. Off. Law 89(7) exempts from disclosure under FOIL only the home addresses, not the names, of retirees who receive benefits from public employees’ retirement systems. View "Empire Ctr. for N.Y. State Policy v. N.Y. State Teachers' Ret. Sys." 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

After a jury trial, Defendants were convicted of first-degree robbery. Defendants appealed, arguing, among other things, that their counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to assert as an affirmative defense that one of two weapons displayed during the gunpoint robbery was not "a loaded weapon from which a shot, readily capable of producing death or serious physical injury, could be discharged" pursuant to N.Y. Penal Law 160.15. The Appellate Division affirmed. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding (1) defense counsel were not ineffective for neglecting to challenge the sufficiency of the evidence or for failing to put the affirmative defense before the jury; and (2) the record supported the lower courts' determination that the robbery victim's showup identification of Defendants was proper. View "People v. Howard" on Justia Law