Ed Nowak — Appellate Superstar
Its been two week since Ed Nowak has announced his plans to retire after serving thirty years as the Monroe County Public Defender. Since then numerous people have expressed to me their appreciation of Ed’s impressive accomplishments as Public Defender. Many have referenced Ed’s ability to attract and keep highly qualified attorneys and support staff dedicated to providing high quality representation to our clients. Others have focused their comments on Ed’s contributions, both on...
read moreIt’s Ineffective To Not Raise Claims of Ineffectiveness
t a recent CLE on Appellate Ethics the question was raised as to whether it was a good use of appellate counsel’s time to raise claims of ineffective assistance of counsel (IAC), given the small number of reversals on that ground. I resisted the temptation to answer that, using that logic and given the small percentage of reversals on any issue, perhaps it is a waste of time for an attorney to work on...
read moreSeptember 2007 Fourth Department Decisions
There were only two reversals in criminal appeals this term, People v Rodriguez (2007 NY Slip Op 07123)(Here, discussed previously) and People v Jones 2007 NY Slip Op 07249)(Here), in which after a remand for the trial court to make fact finding on whether the search was consensual, the Court that the People did not meet their burden of demonstrating the legality of the police conduct, and thus the court suppressed the tangible evidence...
read moreRenewal Required
The need to renew previously made requests has been in the news recently with lots of reminders that if you don’t a request to be on the “Do Not Call Registry” you can expect a bunch of unwanted phone calls ( Example). And for years New York courts have been reminding us, in not quite so friendly a fashion, a defendant’s legal sufficiency arguments are not properly preserved for appellate review unless a motion...
read moreNo Authority for No Kids
Three years ago there was world wide media coverage of a decision by a Family Court judge in upstate New York which ordered that a woman with a history of drug abuse not have have any more children (Example: here ). The actual language of the order was that the woman shall not get pregnant again until and unless she has actually obtained custody and care of [all her children]. This do not procreate...
read moreOh!
In People v Rivera, 2007 NY Slip Op 06583,the Court of Appeals had an opportunity to provide courts and practitioners guidance as to the circumstances when a prospective juror’s use of the words “try” and “believe,” in response to being questioned about whether he could be fair, is so equivocal that a for cause challenge must be granted. Perhaps the best measure of how difficult it has been for lower courts to apply the...
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