Title: The People v. James Kadarko

State: new-york

Issuer: New York Appellate Court

Document:

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This opinion is uncorrected and subject to revision before
publication in the New York Reports.
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No. 54  
The People &c., 
            Appellant, 
        v. 
James Kadarko, 
            Respondent.
T. Charles Won, for appellant.
Alexandra Keeling, for respondent.
PIGOTT, J.:
Defendant was indicted and tried for allegedly robbing
food deliverymen on five separate occasions.  During the course
of jury deliberations, the jury sent several notes to the court. 
At issue on this appeal is the treatment of one of those notes,
which stated:
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"Are still divided as follows regarding alleged
robberies on:
7/14/04
8 to 4
7/26/04
11 to 1
7/20/04
10 to 2
8/3/04
11 to 1
8/9/04 
11 to 1."
Upon receiving the note, the trial judge, outside the presence of
the jury, explained the note's contents to counsel.  Believing it
inappropriate for him to show counsel the numerical breakdown of
the votes, the judge declined to do so.  Instead, he informed
counsel that the note gave divisions among the jurors as to each
robbery and date and that out of the five there were three
different divisions.  He further revealed that the numbers did
not indicate whether the majority of the jury was voting to
convict or acquit. 
The judge then provided counsel with an opportunity to
be heard.  Neither the prosecutor nor defense counsel objected to
the court withholding the specific numbers.  Instead, defense
counsel asked that the judge find the jury "hung" and declare a
mistrial -- a motion that was denied.  The court then informed
counsel that he was going to give the jury another Allen charge
and that he would show counsel the entire note after he had done
so.  Neither counsel objected.  
Following the Allen charge and resumption of
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deliberations by the jury, the judge showed counsel the note with
the number divisions.  There was no further discussion or
objection voiced by either party.  The jury ultimately convicted
defendant on one count, but remained divided on all of the
others, resulting in a mistrial being declared with respect to
those counts.  
Defendant appealed, arguing, among other things, that
the trial judge committed a mode of proceedings error when he
failed to inform counsel of the verbatim contents of the jury's
note including the numerical divisions.  The Appellate Division,
with one Justice dissenting, agreed and reversed defendant's
conviction(People v Kadarko, 56 AD3d 102, 107-108 [1st Dept
2008]).  The dissenting Justice argued that the "slip" of the
trial judge, which prompted no objection, could not amount to a
mode of proceedings error (id. at 108-109) and granted the People
leave to appeal to this Court.  We agree with the dissenting
Justice and now reverse.
In People v O'Rama (78 NY2d 270 [1991]), we held that
CPL 310.30 imposes two distinct duties on a court that receives a
note from the jury: first, a duty to notify counsel about the
note, and second, a duty to provide a "meaningful response" (id.
at 276).  We defined "meaningful notice" as notice of the actual
specific contents of the jurors' note (id.)  The court's failure
to disclose the specific contents of the note, we held, "had the
effect of entirely preventing defense counsel from participating
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meaningfully in [a] critical stage of the trial and thus
represented a significant departure from the organization of the
court or the mode of proceedings prescribed by law" (id. at 277,
279). 
Later, in People v Starling (85 NY2d 509 [1995]), we
held that when defense counsel is given notice of the contents of
a jury note and has knowledge of the substance of the court's
intended response, counsel must object to preserve the claim for
appellate review. 
In People v Kisoon (8 NY3d 129 [2007]), where the court 
failed to read the note aloud and simply responded to the note on
its own, we found that failure, as in O'Rama, to have deprived
counsel of an opportunity to accurately analyze the jury's
deliberations and frame intelligent suggestions for the court's
response (id. at 135).  Such a failure, we held, is "inherently
prejudicial."  
In the present case, unlike in O'Rama and Kisoon, the
error does not amount to a failure to provide counsel with
meaningful notice of the contents of the jury note or an
opportunity to respond.  Here, the judge informed counsel of the
contents of the note and that he was specifically withholding the
numbers from counsel until after the jury had retired to resume
deliberations.  Defense counsel voiced no objection to this
procedure either before or after the entire contents of the note
were revealed by the judge.  Although the court's decision not to
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read the entire note until after the jury had resumed
deliberations may have been error, it was not a mode of
proceedings error and the court later corrected itself, without
objection or request for further instruction by either party.  
Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division should
be reversed and the case remitted to that court for consideration
of the facts and issues raised but not determined on the appeal
to that court.
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
Order reversed and case remitted to the Appellate Division, First
Department, for consideration of the facts and issues raised but
not determined on the appeal to that Court.  Opinion by Judge
Pigott.  Judges Ciparick, Graffeo, Read, Smith and Jones concur. 
Chief Judge Lippman took no part.
Decided April 6, 2010