Justia New York Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Defendant was convicted for a 2003 drug transaction and sentenced to prison. On November 25, 2009 defendant filed an application for resentencing under the 2009 Drug Law Reform Act (DLRA), CPL 440.46. On December 3, 2009, before the application had been ruled on, she was released on parole. At issue was whether defendant was eligible for resentencing because she was not presently in custody. The court held that a prisoner who applied for resentencing before being paroled was not barred from obtaining resentencing after her release where the statute's plain language only stated that an offender must be in custody when he or she applied for resentencing but did not require that custody continue until the application was decided. View "People v. Santiago" on Justia Law

Defendants committed class B felonies involving narcotics and were sentenced to indeterminate prison terms. All defendants were subsequently paroled, violated their parole, and were sent back to prison. After the enactment of the 2009 Drug Law Reform Act (DLRA), CPL 440.46, defendants applied for resentencing. At issue was whether the DLRA provided relief to reincarcerated parole violators. The court held that prisoners who have been paroled, and then reincarcerated for violating their parole, were not for that reason barred from seeking relief under the statute where the statute's plain language stated no such exception. View "People v. Paulin; People v. Pratts; People v. Phillips " on Justia Law

Claimants in these four cases were convicted of crimes for which they received indeterminate sentences. A statute required that such a sentence include a period of post-release supervision ("PRS"), but in each claimant's case, the sentencing judge failed to pronounce a PRS term. Claimants were nevertheless subjected to PRS, and in three of the four cases, were imprisoned for a PRS violation. They now seek damages from the State, asserting that they were wrongfully made to undergo supervision and confinement. The court held that all of the claims were without merit where the only error in Jonathan Orellanes' case was by the sentencing judge, which was barred by judicial immunity, and where Farrah Donald, Shakira Eanes, and Ismael Ortiz sued for false imprisonment but failed to plead the essential elements. Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division in each case was affirmed. View "Donald v. State; Eanes v. State; Orellanes v. State; Ortiz v. State" on Justia Law

Defendant was charged with attempted murder, assault, criminal possession of a weapon, and criminal possession of a controlled substance where defendant was arrested for a shooting death, defendant's gray minivan was subsequently searched, and cocaine was recovered from a compartment behind the ashtray of the front console. After a jury convicted defendant of some of the charges, defendant appealed the Supreme Court's denial of his motion to suppress physical evidence. At issue was whether the Appellate Division erred by upholding the denial of suppression on a basis that the Supreme Court had squarely rejected. The court held that the Appellate Division's decision with respect to the suppression was clearly erroneous under People v. LaFontaine where CPL 470.15(1) precluded that court from affirming denial of suppression on the basis of consent because the trial judge ruled in defendant's favor on the issue. Consequently, the court had to decide whether granting suppression would be harmless with respect to defendant's conviction for the other crimes. The court held that there was no reasonable possibility that the evidence supporting the potentially tainted count, a drug possession crime related to the cocaine discovered, had a spillover effect on the guilty verdicts for weapon possession and assault. Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division should be modified by remitting to the Supreme Court for further proceedings in accordance with the opinion, and as modified, affirmed. View "The People v. Concepcion" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of weapon possession crimes, reckless endangerment, and menacing and endangering the welfare of a child. At issue was whether there was a conflict of interest where the newly-elected district attorney, who had previously represented defendant, immunized a witness from prosecution. The court held that the prosecutor possessed discretion to decide when to immunize a witness from prosecution and the County Court was a competent authority to confer immunity when expressly requested by the district attorney to do so. Therefore, the district attorney's "permission" did not vest the special prosecutor with any more authority than he already enjoyed. Accordingly, defendant failed to demonstrate actual prejudice or a substantial risk of an abused confidence to warrant vacatur of his conviction. View "The People v. Abrams" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of second degree manslaughter and first degree reckless endangerment for her role in the events leading to the death of her son. At issue was whether there was sufficient evidence to support her convictions. The court held that there was sufficient evidence to support defendant's conviction for manslaughter in the second degree where defendant knew of the substantial and unjustifiable risk that her boyfriend would injure her son fatally and where the jury was also justified in finding that she consciously disregarded the risk. The court held, however, that the evidence was insufficient to support defendant's conviction of reckless endangerment where evidence that defendant not only knew of, but tried to conceal her boyfriend's abuse of her son, did not prove indifference. Accordingly, the court upheld the conviction of manslaughter and vacated the conviction of reckless endangerment. View "The People v. Lewie" on Justia Law

Defendant was indicted for second degree murder, second degree assault, and second degree weapon possession in connection with a shooting. Defendant had also been arrested for a drug crime in Manhattan where he was represented by counsel for the drug charge. Counsel for his drug charge told detectives that defendant "was represented by counsel and that they should not question him." In defendant's view, if counsel made this assertion and gave this direction, the right to counsel had attached, and the statements subsequently given by defendant in the absence of counsel must be suppressed even though counsel was not, in fact, representing defendant in the murder case. Thus, at issue was whether the appellate court erred in denying defendant's motion to suppress inculpatory statements that he made to the police, after defendant was arraigned and released on his own recognizance for the drug charge and the detective arrested him for the "homicide," on the ground that they were obtained in violation of his right to counsel. The court concluded that it had never held that an attorney could unilaterally create an attorney-client relationship in a criminal proceeding in this fashion, and declined to do so now. The court also concluded that counsel made no statements during the arraignment on the drug crime even arguably related to the homicide and there was no ambiguity about whether defendant could have intended to invoke his right to counsel before making the inculpatory statements. Therefore, the court affirmed the order of the appellate court and held that nothing about defendant's conduct suggested that he meant to invoke his right to counsel before he made the statements and counsel had not already conspicuously represented defendant in an aspect of the homicide matter, causing the indelible right to attach. View "The People v. Pacquette" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of murder in the second degree and other crimes for the shooting of an individual in 2002. Defendant's principal argument on appeal was that his trial counsel's failure to object to certain remarks made by the prosecutor in summation constituted ineffective assistance of counsel and deprived him of a fair trial. Defendant also challenged the lineup in which he was identified by two witnesses as unduly suggestive. The court held that defendant failed to meet his burden of demonstrating a lack of strategic or other legitimate reasons for his defense lawyer's failure to object in a single instance. The court also held that it was entirely plausible that counsel chose not to object because the prosecutor's remarks impugned the People's witnesses as well as defendant and therefore were consistent with his own theory that the People's witnesses were simply not credible. The court further held that the fact that the witnesses knew that the suspect whom they had tentatively identified from a photographic array would be in a lineup did not, under the circumstances of the case, "present a serious risk of influencing the victim's identification of defendant from the lineup." View "The People v. Brown" on Justia Law

Defendant was charged with multiple counts of first and second degree robbery, as well as various weapon possession offenses where the charges stemmed from a robbery that occurred outside a Manhattan nightclub. At issue was whether the trial court abused its discretion in imposing a five-minute limitation on counsel for the questioning of jurors during each round of voir dire. The court held that the trial court erred in adhering to the unusually short time restriction after defense counsel objected based on the seriousness and number of charges, the identity of the victim, and certain characteristics of prospective jurors that were revealed during examination by the court. View "The People v. Steward" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of murder in the second degree where defendant, an experienced archery hunter, shot an arrow from his compound bow towards his neighbor's yard, fatally striking the victim. On appeal, defendant principally contended that he was entitled to an intoxication charge. The court held that there was insufficient evidence to support an inference that defendant was so intoxicated as to be unable to form the requisite intent. The court held, however, that the uncontradicted record evidence, including defendant's own account, supported the conclusion that his overall behavior on the day of the incident was purposeful. Accordingly, defendant was not entitled to an intoxication charge. View "The People v. Sirico" on Justia Law