Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

Petitioners, 23 transportation vendors, commenced a CPLR article 78 proceeding to prevent the Department of Education ("DOE") from implementing allegedly illegal bid solicitations related to a school transportation contract. At issue was whether certain specifications in the bid solicitations of the DOE comported with the public bidding laws. The court held that the "Employee Protection Provisions" ("EPPs") contained in the solicitation were subject to heightened scrutiny and held that the DOE had not proven that the EPPs were designed to save the public money, encourage robust competition, or prevent favoritism. The court, however, applied the rational basis review to the remaining disputed bid specifications and held that the DOE's actions regarding pricing of school transportation and discounted payment arrangements were rational business judgments that lie within the DOE's discretion.

Defendant was convicted of second degree manslaughter and first degree reckless endangerment for her role in the events leading to the death of her son. At issue was whether there was sufficient evidence to support her convictions. The court held that there was sufficient evidence to support defendant's conviction for manslaughter in the second degree where defendant knew of the substantial and unjustifiable risk that her boyfriend would injure her son fatally and where the jury was also justified in finding that she consciously disregarded the risk. The court held, however, that the evidence was insufficient to support defendant's conviction of reckless endangerment where evidence that defendant not only knew of, but tried to conceal her boyfriend's abuse of her son, did not prove indifference. Accordingly, the court upheld the conviction of manslaughter and vacated the conviction of reckless endangerment.

Defendant was indicted for second degree murder, second degree assault, and second degree weapon possession in connection with a shooting. Defendant had also been arrested for a drug crime in Manhattan where he was represented by counsel for the drug charge. Counsel for his drug charge told detectives that defendant "was represented by counsel and that they should not question him." In defendant's view, if counsel made this assertion and gave this direction, the right to counsel had attached, and the statements subsequently given by defendant in the absence of counsel must be suppressed even though counsel was not, in fact, representing defendant in the murder case. Thus, at issue was whether the appellate court erred in denying defendant's motion to suppress inculpatory statements that he made to the police, after defendant was arraigned and released on his own recognizance for the drug charge and the detective arrested him for the "homicide," on the ground that they were obtained in violation of his right to counsel. The court concluded that it had never held that an attorney could unilaterally create an attorney-client relationship in a criminal proceeding in this fashion, and declined to do so now. The court also concluded that counsel made no statements during the arraignment on the drug crime even arguably related to the homicide and there was no ambiguity about whether defendant could have intended to invoke his right to counsel before making the inculpatory statements. Therefore, the court affirmed the order of the appellate court and held that nothing about defendant's conduct suggested that he meant to invoke his right to counsel before he made the statements and counsel had not already conspicuously represented defendant in an aspect of the homicide matter, causing the indelible right to attach.

Defendant was convicted of murder in the second degree and other crimes for the shooting of an individual in 2002. Defendant's principal argument on appeal was that his trial counsel's failure to object to certain remarks made by the prosecutor in summation constituted ineffective assistance of counsel and deprived him of a fair trial. Defendant also challenged the lineup in which he was identified by two witnesses as unduly suggestive. The court held that defendant failed to meet his burden of demonstrating a lack of strategic or other legitimate reasons for his defense lawyer's failure to object in a single instance. The court also held that it was entirely plausible that counsel chose not to object because the prosecutor's remarks impugned the People's witnesses as well as defendant and therefore were consistent with his own theory that the People's witnesses were simply not credible. The court further held that the fact that the witnesses knew that the suspect whom they had tentatively identified from a photographic array would be in a lineup did not, under the circumstances of the case, "present a serious risk of influencing the victim's identification of defendant from the lineup."

Defendant was charged with multiple counts of first and second degree robbery, as well as various weapon possession offenses where the charges stemmed from a robbery that occurred outside a Manhattan nightclub. At issue was whether the trial court abused its discretion in imposing a five-minute limitation on counsel for the questioning of jurors during each round of voir dire. The court held that the trial court erred in adhering to the unusually short time restriction after defense counsel objected based on the seriousness and number of charges, the identity of the victim, and certain characteristics of prospective jurors that were revealed during examination by the court.

Defendant was convicted of murder in the second degree where defendant, an experienced archery hunter, shot an arrow from his compound bow towards his neighbor's yard, fatally striking the victim. On appeal, defendant principally contended that he was entitled to an intoxication charge. The court held that there was insufficient evidence to support an inference that defendant was so intoxicated as to be unable to form the requisite intent. The court held, however, that the uncontradicted record evidence, including defendant's own account, supported the conclusion that his overall behavior on the day of the incident was purposeful. Accordingly, defendant was not entitled to an intoxication charge.

Defendant pleaded guilty to criminal possession and sale of a controlled substance in the third degree and promptly appealed his conviction arguing that the supreme court erred in its suppression ruling. At issue was whether the People must timely object to defendant's failure to prove standing in order to preserve that issue for appellate review. The court held that the People were required to alert the suppression court if they believed that defendant had failed to meet his burden to establish standing where the preservation requirement served the added purpose of alerting the adverse party of the need to develop a record for appeal. Accordingly, because the People failed to preserve the issue, the appellate division erred in entertaining it and the matter was reversed and remanded.

Respondent, a resident of Southold, but not a resident of Fishers Island, filed with the Suffolk County Board of Elections a petition designating himself a candidate in the September 2009 primary election. Petitioners filed objections to the designated petition, alleging that it was invalid because respondent did not meet a residency requirement. At issue was the constitutionality of the residency requirement for the elected position of town justice/town board member, Fishers Island, Town of Southold, Suffolk County. The court held that the residency requirement did not violate the equal protection clause and that the residency requirement passed the rational basis test where the residency requirement imposed only reasonable, nondiscriminatory restrictions upon the right to vote; where any Southold resident who would otherwise be eligible to run for political office could run for the Fishers Island seat; where the residency requirement affected the right to vote, but only in an incidental way; and where the legislative history of the residency requirement articulated several rational bases for the residency requirement and retaining the dual town justice/town board member seat.

Respondent, a designee of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, petitioned for an order under Mental Health Hygiene Law 9.60 requiring assisted outpatient treatment ("AOT") for Miguel M. At issue was whether the Privacy Rule adopted by the federal government pursuant to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act ("HIPAA"), 42 U.S.C. 1320d-2, prohibited respondent from disclosing, at the petition hearing, records from two hospitals related to three occasions on which Miguel was hospitalized. The court held that the Privacy Rule prohibited the disclosure of a patient's medical records to a state agency that requested them for use in a proceeding to compel the patient to accept mental health treatment where the patient had neither authorized the disclosure nor received notice of the agency's request for the records. Accordingly, the medical records at issue were not admissible in a proceeding to compel AOT.

Defendant was convicted for unauthorized use of a vehicle in the second degree, criminal mischief in the third degree, criminal possession of stolen property in the fifth degree, and possession of burglar's tools. At issue was whether defendant's conviction for unauthorized use of a vehicle in the second degree was supported by legally sufficient evidence. The court held that the evidence adduced at trial was legally sufficient to sustain defendant's conviction where a rational jury could have found that defendant broke into the vehicle at issue by "popping" out the driver's side door lock, entered the car without consent, unscrewed and ripped apart the driver's side dashboard, and stole the vehicle's light control module; and where defendant's unauthorized entry coupled with multiple acts of vandalism and the theft of a part unquestionably interfered with the owner's possession and use of the vehicle.