Gun Court – proposed voluntary discovery agreement
As correctly noted by my good pal Anonymous, I neglected to post the Gun Court voluntary discovery agreement – here it is: VOLUNTARY DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT CR # ________________ It is hereby agreed between the parties to the above-entitled action: 1. For those criminal cases referred to the Monroe County Gun Crimes Part, the District Attorney of Monroe County will, as soon as practicable, provide pre-indictment discovery to the defendant’s attorney of record, for the...
read moreInformation on the new Monroe County Gun Court Part
The following description of the “Gun Crimes Part” was generated as a result of meetings with Supreme Court Justice Thomas Moran, District Attorney Sandra Doorley and Monroe County Public Defender Timothy Donaher, as well as several others. We are sharing this with you so that you will become aware of the process. This memo does not reflect any endorsement of the process by ETKS or its attorneys: Gun Crimes Part There is a new...
read moreStatutory presumptions, Part 2: Factual predicates are required to justify the use of presumptions
Recall that we noted in the last post that presumptions may not be invoked where the underlying facts needed to support them are not present (see People v Zekaj, 191 AD2d 663 [2nd Dept 1993]; People v Wilt, 105 AD2d 1089 [4th Dept 1984]). When are the underlying facts insufficient to warrant invoking a presumption? As you might expect, there’s no black on white rule, so we’ll lay out the considerations below. Consider...
read moreDon Thompson comments on the Monroe County District Attorney’s proposed conviction integrity unit
“Local attorney Donald Thompson, who has been involved in the reversal of several murder convictions in Monroe County, said New York is lagging behind other states by not mandating the videotaping of interrogations — which police sometimes do in Monroe County — and adjusting witness identification procedures to acknowledge the weaknesses of past processes. ‘Sometimes it’s not good to be one of the 13 colonies,’ he said. ‘We do things because we always have done...
read moreMr. Guilty, I presume? The use of statutory presumptions in criminal prosecutions.
This is the first in a series of several blog posts on statutory presumptions in criminal prosecutions, many of which deal with guns and drugs (presumption that all occupants possess a firearm found in a vehicle [Penal Law § 265.15(3)]; presumption that all occupants of a vehicle knowingly possess controlled substance not concealed on a occupant’s person [Penal Law § 265.25(1)]; presumption of knowing possession by all occupants of controlled substances or marijuana in...
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