Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant was convicted of murder in the second degree for strangling his roommate. The primary issue on appeal was whether the trial court properly admitted evidence of defendant's uncharged murder to rebut defendant's extreme emotional disturbance defense concerning the murder for which he was on trial. The court held that the evidence was properly admitted where defendant put his state of mind in issue and evidence of other uncharged crimes or prior bad acts could be admitted to rebut such fact. Additionally, the court rejected defendant's claim that he was denied effective assistance of trial counsel. Further, defendant's claim, raised in his pro se supplemental brief, that he did not authorize defense counsel to raise the extreme emotional disturbance defense involved matters which were dehors the record, and is therefore not reviewable by the court.

The Drug Law Reform Act of 2009 permitted resentencing for persons in the custody of the Department of Corrections who were serving an indeterminate sentence with a maximum term of more than three years for a Penal Law article 220 class B felony that was committed before January 13, 2005. Defendant Steward moved for resentencing on his March 2004 convictions for criminal sale of a controlled substance in the third and fourth degrees. Defendant Wright sought resentencing on his May 2005 conviction for criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree. The trial courts in Steward and Wright concluded that neither defendant was eligible for resentencing because each had been convicted of an "exclusion offense" as defined by CPL 440.46(5)(a)(i). The Appellate Division affirmed in each appeal, holding that the reference to "'predicate felony conviction' does not require that the defendant be so adjudicated." The court affirmed, holding that defendants had predicate felony convictions for an "exclusion offense."

Under the Drug Law Resentencing Act of 2009 (DLRA-3), certain defendants serving indeterminate sentences imposed pursuant to the now repealed Rockefeller Drug Laws for class B drug felonies, may apply for resentencing. Defendant applied for resentencing pursuant to the then recently enacted DLRA-3. The focus of this appeal was upon one threshold condition of eligibility for relief under DLRA-3, namely, that the applicant for resentencing not have committed what was referred to in subsection 5 of CPL 440.46 as an "exclusion offense." The court agreed with the Appellate Division's holding that the critical 10-year "look-back" period should extend from the date of the resentence application and affirmed the judgment.

Defendant was convicted of two counts of criminal sale of a controlled substance in the third degree, criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree, and criminal possession of a controlled substance in the fifth degree. At issue was whether Supreme Court abused its discretion by denying defendant's request for the substitution of assigned counsel and a Sandoval ruling which permitted the prosecutor to refer to defendant's prior drug-related felony convictions by naming the specific crimes, should he choose to testify. The court held that, pursuant to People v Hayes, Supreme Court did not abuse its discretion where, although the concerns of Sandoval still existed and could have been implicated in this case, the lower court weighed appropriate concerns and limited the scope of cross-examination.

Defendant was convicted of first degree murder and second degree murder. The principal issues on appeal where whether courtroom seating arrangements wherein court officers stationed themselves directly behind defendant during the course of his trial deprived him of his constitutional right to communicate confidentially with his attorney and prejudicially conveyed to the jury that he was dangerous, whether Supreme Court abused its discretion when it permitted the People under Molineux to introduce certain evidence of defendant's uncharged crimes, and whether the People's evidence elicited at trial exceeded the scope of such ruling. The court concluded that the positioning of the court officers in the case did not infringe upon defendant's constitutional right to counsel or deprive him of a fair trial and defendant's claim as to this issue was without merit. The court also held that Supreme Court exercised its sound discretion in permitting testimony about limited incidents of defendant's uncharged crimes leading to the shootings and the People adhered to the scope of the trial court's Molineux ruling. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.

Defendant appealed his convictions for health care fraud in the fourth degree and grand larceny in the third degree. The primary issue on appeal was the legal sufficiency of the evidence. The court held that defendant's convictions were supported by legally sufficient evidence where defendant knowingly and willfully provided materially false information to Medicaid. The court also held that defendant's speedy trial rights were not violated. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.

In 2007, defendant was indicted for charges related to the sexual assault of his step-granddaughter, Jane. When Jane was 19 years old, she informed police that she had been sexually assaulted by defendant on three occasions in 2002. When Jane was 14 years old, she underwent a medical examination that revealed she was 12 weeks pregnant, which she eventually claimed was a result of consensual, unprotected intercourse with a 14 year old boy in August 2002. At issue was whether the information that Jane disclosed to the police in 2002 was a "report" to the authorities that was sufficient to bar the availability of the tolling provision in CPL 30.10(3)(f) in connection with the indictment against defendant. The court held that the information Jane shared with the police in 2002 did not activate the statutes of limitations under CPL 30.10(3)(f) because she neither identified defendant as the perpetrator nor reported or revealed any of the sex offenses charged in the indictment. Under these facts, the statutes of limitations for the indicted sex crimes did not begin to run until Jane reached 18 years of age in January 2006. Therefore, the charged offenses were not time barred.

Defendant appealed his conviction of second-degree kidnapping, second-degree burglary, and other offenses against his former girlfriend. The court held that County Court abused its discretion as a matter of law when it denied defendant's for-cause challenge to a prospective juror who had personal and professional relationships with several of the witnesses expected to testify at defendant's trial. Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division was reversed and a new trial ordered.

Defendant plead guilty to first-degree rape in exchange for a promised determinate sentence of nine years imprisonment followed by five years of postrelease supervision. At issue was the enforceability of the appeal waiver. Applying the standard in People v. Lopez, the court held that the record failed to establish that defendant validly waived his right to appeal because the trial court failed to ensure that defendant grasped the minimal information pertaining to the appeal waiver it provided during the plea colloquy. The court agreed with the Appellate Division that testimony concerning complainant's identification of defendant in a lineup should have been suppressed since the People did not meet their burden in establishing probable cause for defendant's arrest. Accordingly, the court affirmed the Appellate Division's reversal of the judgment of conviction and sentence.

Defendant was convicted of petit larceny. At issue on appeal was whether defendant's swipe of an unlimited MetroCard in return for a fee, although decidedly criminal in nature, constituted larceny. The court held that it did not where there was no basis upon which the petit larceny charge in the accusatory instrument could be upheld. Defendant was not prosecuted under, and the court did not address the applicability of, the theft of services statute.