Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant was convicted of first-degree rape, first-degree sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child. At issue was whether Supreme Court abused its discretion when it dismissed a hearing-impaired prospective juror for cause. The court held that Supreme Court did not abuse its discretion by granting the cause challenge to venire member 1405 because the record supported the determination that his hearing impairment would have unduly interfered with his ability to be a trial juror. Defendant's remaining contentions did not require reversal. Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division was affirmed.

Defendant was indicted on one count of first-degree robbery and on one count of grand larceny in the fourth degree. At issue was whether defendant's written statement threatening to shoot a robbery victim with a gun constituted legally sufficient evidence that he was in actual possession of a dangerous instrument at the time of the crime to support the charge of robbery in the first degree. The court held that a defendant's statement that he was in possession of a dangerous instrument, standing alone, did not supply sufficient proof to establish actual possession of a dangerous instrument at the time of the crime to support the charge of first-degree robbery. The court held that this type of statement - whether in the form of a verbal threat or a handwritten note - not only established the threat of physical force necessary to support the charge of third-degree robbery. Accordingly, the People must furnish additional proof, separate and apart from a defendant's statement, that would permit a rational fact finder to infer that a defendant was in actual possession of a dangerous instrument.

The common question in these appeals was whether the courts fulfilled their responsibility to make a "searching inquiry" before allowing defendants to give up the right to a lawyer and conduct their defenses pro se. The court held that, in both cases, the inquiries were deficient because defendants were not adequately advised of the dangers and disadvantages of self-representation.

Following a nonjury trial, the County Court acquitted defendant of intentional assault in the first degree, but convicted her of second-degree reckless assault and endangering the welfare of a child. On appeal, defendant argued that the evidence was legally insufficient to support her conviction for reckless assault. The court held that the order of the Appellate Division should be modified by reducing defendant's conviction for reckless assault in the second degree to criminally negligent assault in the third degree, and by remitting to the Appellate Division for further proceedings.

Defendant was charged with criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree. At issue was whether the County Court's error in sustaining the prosecutor's objection to defense counsel's question of defendant was harmless. The court held that the Appellate Division properly found that the County Court erred when it denied defendant an opportunity to explain fully the statements he made while in police custody since defendant's statements were both pertinent and probative. The court held, however, that the error was not harmless. The court held that defendant's remaining contentions lacked merit. The order was reversed and a new trial ordered.

This appeal involved litigation that arose from the 1993 terrorist bombing incident in the parking garage of the World Trade Center complex (WTC). At issue was whether the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (Port Authority) was performing a governmental or proprietary function in its provision of security at the premises. And if the Port Authority was engaged in such a governmental function, whether it exercised discretion in its security decision-making to entitle it to the common-law defense of governmental immunity. The court held that, pursuant to the court's precedents, the provision of security for the benefit of a greater populace involved the allocation of police resources and constituted the performance of a governmental function. The court also held that the governmental immunity doctrine required it to find that the Port Authority was insulated from tortious liability where the court afforded deference to the exercise of discretion by the officials of municipalities and governmental entities.

Plaintiffs commenced this hybrid declaratory judgment action/article 78 proceeding, seeking a declaration that the implementation of Local Law No. 3-2011 in relation to the November 8, 2011 general election was null and void for lack of compliance with the Nassau County Charter. At issue was whether the metes and bounds descriptions in Local Law No. 3-2011 applied to the 2011 general election or whether they were the first part of a three-step process to take effect in 2013. The court held that Supreme Court properly declared that Local Law No. 3-2011 was in accord with Nassau County Charter 112, but that its implementation was null and void in connection with the November 8, 2011 general election for lack of compliance with Nassau County Charter 113 and 114. Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division, insofar as appealed from, should be reversed, without costs, and the order and judgment of Supreme Court reinstated.

Benito Acevedo was convicted of criminal sale of controlled substance in the third degree and possession of a controlled substance in the third degree and sentenced as a predicate felony offender with a prior violent felony to a prison term of six years and three years of post-release supervision. Dionis Collado was convicted of two counts of second degree robbery and was then adjudged a second violent felony offender and sentenced to concurrent eight-year prison terms. At issue was whether a resentencing sought by a defendant to correct an illegally lenient sentence was effective to temporally resituate the sentence and thus alter the underlying conviction's utility as a predicate for enhanced sentence. The court held that the decisive feature in these cases was that the sentencing errors defendants sought to correct by resentencing were errors in their favor. The court also held that resentence was not a device appropriately employed simply to alter a sentencing date and thereby affect the utility of a conviction as a predicate for the imposition of enhanced punishment. Therefore, the Sparber relief defendants obtained was not effective to avoid the penal consequences of reoffending. Accordingly, the judgment of the Appellate Division was reversed and the order of the Supreme Court reinstated.

Defendant was convicted for a 2003 drug transaction and sentenced to prison. On November 25, 2009 defendant filed an application for resentencing under the 2009 Drug Law Reform Act (DLRA), CPL 440.46. On December 3, 2009, before the application had been ruled on, she was released on parole. At issue was whether defendant was eligible for resentencing because she was not presently in custody. The court held that a prisoner who applied for resentencing before being paroled was not barred from obtaining resentencing after her release where the statute's plain language only stated that an offender must be in custody when he or she applied for resentencing but did not require that custody continue until the application was decided.

Defendants committed class B felonies involving narcotics and were sentenced to indeterminate prison terms. All defendants were subsequently paroled, violated their parole, and were sent back to prison. After the enactment of the 2009 Drug Law Reform Act (DLRA), CPL 440.46, defendants applied for resentencing. At issue was whether the DLRA provided relief to reincarcerated parole violators. The court held that prisoners who have been paroled, and then reincarcerated for violating their parole, were not for that reason barred from seeking relief under the statute where the statute's plain language stated no such exception.