A turn for the worse – pretext stops and the 99 foot signal
By Jill PapernoSecond Assistant Monroe County Public Defender As the weather turns, it appears that the Rochester Police Department is embracing new methods of engaging in pretext stops. So we see less stops for walking in the street when the sidewalk was available, and failure to have a bell on a bike (which are only ticketed in certain parts of the city as far as I can tell – I haven’t seen any in...
read moreWhen, if ever, can a prosecutor properly argue that the type of evidence they normally rely on to obtain convictions is unreliable?
By Jill PapernoSecond Assistant Monroe County Public Defender A prosecutor may not intentionally mislead and does not have unfettered discretion as to how to present or characterize evidence in a case, due to the prosecutor’s dual role as both an advocate for the prosecution and public officer. Although we often cite People v Pelchat, 62 NY2d 97, in our motions relating to grand jury review, it is worth rereading the case that related to...
read moreCPL 710.30 – Observations about observations
By Jill Paperno Second Assistant Monroe County Public Defender CPL § 710.30 requires the prosecutor to provide notice to the defense within a statutory period when the prosecutor intends to offer a witness who has previously engaged in a police arranged identification procedure, when the witness will be testifying to…what? We know that if the identification procedure was not confirmatory, the identifying witness cannot engage in an in-court identification of the defendant if there...
read moreWhen jurors don’t hear all the testimony
Judiciary Law § 510 provides that to be qualified as a juror a person must: (1) be a citizen of the United States, and a resident of the county, (2) be not less than eighteen years of age, (3) not have been convicted of a felony, and (4) be able to understand and communicate in the English language. Under this section, a hearing impaired juror may sit, but only if he or she “is...
read moreAnd speaking of guns . . . How much is the gun industry worth?
Check out the “The Business of Guns, recently published by Minute MBA at: http://www.onlinemba.com/blog/business-of-guns. This short but informative video illustrates the financial might of the gun industry in the United States. So much for a “well regulated” militia. Thanks to Minute MBA for passing this...
read moreShotspotter – Now you see it, now you don’t
By Jill PapernoSecond Assistant Monroe County Public Defender The NSA is not the only organization that monitors the day to day activities of citizens. But you already knew that. One piece of technology that has sprouted up in our own backyard – the city of Rochester – in the last couple of years is called “Shotspotter.” The company that created this device refers to it as a “gunshot detection system.” The Shotspotter technology uses...
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