In addition to maintaining this blog on its website, ETKS has long-maintained a separate blog entitled “New York Criminal Defense,” accessible at http://newyorkcriminaldefense.blogspot.com/.
Knowing Where a Gun is Kept Does Not Establish Possession
The Appellate Division, Fourth Department, in People v Carmichael (2009 NY Slip Op 09788 [4th Dept 12/30/09]), held that the evidence is legally insufficient to support a conviction of criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree where, upon his arrest, the defendant told the police that the gun was in a safe located on a closet shelf in his mother’s bedroom and that he lived in his mother’s house. Defendant gave the...
read morePermissible for sitting Supreme Court justice to serve as grand jury foreperson
In People v. Davis, (12/30/09), the Fourth Department held that reversal was not required where a sitting Supreme Court justice sat as foreperson of the grand jury that indicted the defendant because she was not a part of the superior court that impaneled the grand jury. Defendant argued that a grand jury is impaneled by a superior court and constitutes a part of such court (CPL 190.05), and that as such, every supreme court...
read more18 minutes of blank tape – still
In People v. Hammons (12/30/09) the Fourth Department held that the trial court “did not abuse its discretion in refusing to give an adverse inference charge concerning the failure of the police to record defendant’s interrogation. It is well settled that the police have no obligation to record an interrogation (see People v Childres, 60 AD3d 1278, 1279, lv denied 12 NY3d 913), and that the failure to record a defendant’s interrogation electronically does...
read moreWeight, weight, don’t tell me
The recent packet of Fourth Department decisions (12/30/09) includes a number of appeals arguing (unsuccessfully, in every case but one) that the defendant’s conviction was not supported by the weight of credible evidence, giving the court an opportunity to restate the applicable standard for review of such claims. In People v. Goff, the only case where defendant obtained relief on a weight of credible evidence claim this time around (likely because the testimony of...
read moreMelendez-Diaz revisited, in a hurry
The Supreme Court will hear argument in Briscoe v. Virginia on January 11, 2010, a case revisiting the need for live testimony when introducing lab reports established by Melendez-Diaz. Prof. Richard Friedman, who writes the Confrontation Blog will argue for the defense. The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyer’s amicus brief was co-authored by a Washington PDS lawyer and Jeffrey Fisher, who argued Melendez-Diaz and Crawford v. Washington and in the “our rock stars...
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