Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

Pursuant to a contract with the State of New York, defendant agreed to provide various courier services via air and ground transportation. Plaintiffs own a trucking company and served as an independent contractor to defendant, providing ground shipping services to defendant within the state. In this qui tam action, the court was asked to consider whether plaintiffs' claims on behalf of the State of New York, pursuant to the New York False Claims Act (FCA), State Finance Law 187 et seq., were federally preempted by the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 (ADA), 49 U.S.C 47173[b][1]. The court held that they were and that the market participant doctrine was inapplicable. Plaintiffs' remaining contentions were deemed without merit.

Defendant pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree assault, a violent felony offense. At issue was whether "a determinate sentence of imprisonment actually imposed" included the mandatory period of postrelease supervision (PRS) for purposes of calculating the duration of an order of protection issued at sentencing. After reviewing revisions of the Penal Law, the court held that it did and affirmed the order of the Appellate Division.

Defendant was convicted of criminal sale of a controlled substance in the first degree and conspiracy in the second degree. On appeal, defendant raised several issues, including the contentions that he should have been granted a suppression hearing in regard to the eavesdropping warrant issue, that his postrelease supervision team had been illegally imposed in his absence, and that his prison sentence was harsh and excessive. The Appellate Division rejected all of defendant's claims, except the challenge to his postrelease supervision sentence, which the People conceded. The court affirmed the Appellate Division's holding that suppression of wiretap evidence based on the prosecution's violation of CPL 700.50(3) was not warranted without a showing of prejudice, and found that defendant failed to allege any prejudice and had a full opportunity to challenge the legality of the warrant when he received notice of it at his arraignment. That court modified and, as modified, affirmed Supreme Court's judgment, remitting the matter for the sole purpose of the imposition of a postrelease supervision term in defendant's presence. Defendant's remaining arguments were without merit.

Defendant was convicted of criminal charges related to an underlying dispute regarding cab fare. On appeal, the court addressed the relation between a claim of right defense and a mistake of fact defense in the second-degree robbery context. The court concluded that, in the circumstances of this case, the two defenses were equivalent. The jury heard evidence that defendant had negotiated a $4 cab fare even though she carried $21; tried to pay the cabdriver the agreed fare from money he had given her as change, after retrieving from him the money she had paid him; scratched and bit the cabdriver in an effort to take money from him; and produced a knife while continuing to demand money. Considering the facts in the light most favorable to the People, the jury could have rationally concluded that defendant had no good faith belief that the bills she tried to take were hers, but was instead trying to take money she knew was another's. Accordingly, the court affirmed the conviction.

Verizon attached a box to a building that plaintiffs owned and used the box to transmit telephone communications to and from Verizon's customers in other buildings. Plaintiffs claimed that Verizon took their property without paying them just compensation and deceived them into believing that no compensation was owed. The court held that plaintiffs have stated a valid "inverse condemnation" claim for just compensation, and that the claim was not time-barred. However, their claim for an alleged violation of General Business Law 349 was barred by the statute of limitations, and their unjust enrichment claim was legally insufficient. The court also held that the courts below properly denied plaintiffs' motion for class certification.

Defendant, who worked as a teacher's assistant, was alleged to have sexually abused a four-year-old boy left in her care. Defendant was convicted of all counts charged and she subsequently appealed. At issue was the admissibility of expert testimony proffered on the issue of reliability of a confession. While in a proper case, expert testimony on the phenomenon of false confessions should be admitted, the expert here did not propose testimony relevant to this defendant or her interrogation. As a result, the trial judge did not abuse his discretion when he declined to hold a Frye hearing to assess whether any principles about which the expert proposed to testify were generally accepted in the scientific community, or to permit the expert to testify. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.

Defendant, a former member of the New York City Police Department, was charged with twelve counts of perjury in the first degree. The charges arose after defendant falsely answered questions posed to him on cross-examination during the criminal trial of Erik Crespo. Defendant was found guilty of three counts of perjury in the first degree and one count of perjury in the third degree. The court granted the People and defendant leave to appeal. The court agreed with the Appellate Division that the evidence was sufficient to support the finding that the statement made by defendant that he never questioned Crespo was material to the Crespo trial. More specifically, it was relevant to the jury's determination on whether Crespo's statement to his mother was truly spontaneous and voluntary or whether it was triggered by police conduct that could reasonably have been anticipated to evoke such a statement. Defendant's contention that the evidence was insufficient to prove intent was not preserved for review and his further assertion that the statements were a result of a perjury trap was without merit. On defendant's appeal, the judgment was affirmed. The People's appeal should be dismissed upon the ground that the Appellate Division modification was not "on the law alone or upon the law and such facts which, but for the determination of law, would not have led to... modification."

Defendant was indicted for several crimes after he drove a pickup truck into a police officer, injuring her seriously. After defendant was convicted of second degree assault, defendant wanted the jury to consider one of the offenses for which defendant was indicted. The People argued that they have discretion to withdraw such a count, not a lesser included offense. The court held that a prosecutor did not have the unilateral power to dismiss a count of a grand jury indictment over a defendant's objection. Whether such a count should be dismissed at the prosecutor's request was an issue to be decided by the court in its discretion.

Defendant pleaded guilty to criminal possession of marijuana in the fifth degree. On appeal, defendant argued that the accusatory instrument charging him with that crime was jurisdictionally deficient because it failed to adequately allege that he was in a "public place" and that the marijuana was "open to public view" - two elements of the fifth degree possession offense. The court concluded that the allegations were jurisdictionally sufficient and affirmed the judgment.

Petitioner was on parole in January 2009 when he was arrested for arson in the third degree and related offenses stemming from two separate incidents involving the same victim. Petitioner subsequently commenced a CPLR 70 proceeding for a writ of habeas corpus and the petition was dismissed under CPL 520.10(2) where the judge concluded that the statute did not preclude a judge from setting a single form of bail. The Appellate Division affirmed. The court reversed and held that CPL 520.10(2)(b) prohibited a court from fixing only one form of bail.