Ten Simple Rules
The below are general rules, often subject to obscure exceptions, and if unusual factors warrant, even very good general advice is best ignored (hence the name). Still, there are things which are not news, but worth a reminder. 1 – In your opening statement don’t take on a burden, don’t offer or promise to prove things. 2 – You are entitled to know the precise contents of jury notes, so long as they bear...
read more710.30 Un-noticed statements and voluntariness
Please join me as we take a trip deep into the weeds. Fact – the People are required to serve a 710.30 notice when they intend to use statements of the defendant, which meet other criteria which will not be enumerated here. Fact – Sometimes the People do not serve a 710.30 notice as to some or all statements meeting those criteria. Fact – The Appellate Division, Fourth Department, has ruled that using such...
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...
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