Crime and Punishment, Part 2; Where you end up usually depends on where you start
The other catalyst was Steve Earle’s “Ellis Unit One,” written from the perspective of a regular-Joe, death row prison guard who’s not handling the stress of his job real well: . . .Last night I dreamed that I woke up with straps across my chest,And something cold and black running through my lungs,And even Jesus couldn’t save me, though I know he did his best,But he don’t live on Ellis Unit One. So he...
read moreCrime and Punishment, Part 1
A couple of things (not counting but maybe not unrelated to the new Pope’s turn toward inclusiveness – what Frank Bruni in this morning’s NYT called “a refreshing example of humility in a world with too little of it”) got me thinking about crime and punishment, forgiveness (or not), how our criminal justice system deals with offenders, and whether the results are equitable, or rational, or based on sound premises. This was the first....
read moreA 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 more
