Source: https://nycriminallaw.wordpress.com/category/trial-courts/
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 00:34:54+00:00

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Unanswered Jury Notes: Cause for New Trial?
Posted on October 9, 2018 by Anna Piszczatowski | Comments Off on Unanswered Jury Notes: Cause for New Trial?
In People v. Parker (Ct. App. 6/28/2018) (Rivera, J.), the Court granted the defendants’ request for a new trial due to the trial court’s failure to provide “meaningful notice” of two jury notes to defense counsel. The defendants were convicted of Robbery 2º after allegedly robbing thousands of dollars from a commercial establishment.
On the second day of jury deliberations, the jury sent three notes to the court: one note requested definitions of the charged crimes and testimony linking witnesses to where the defendants were seen and caught; a second note requested further testimony relating to fingerprint evidence; and a third requested testimony from the victim and his wife. In response to the jury’s notes, the court initially responded to solely the first note and subsequently dismissed the jury for a one-hour lunch break. However, immediately after the break and without receiving response to its latter two notes, the jury entered a verdict.
Under CPL § 310.30, a trial court is required to direct that the jury be returned to the courtroom after notice has been given to the defense counsel of any substantive notes provided by the jury. This allows defense counsel an opportunity to formulate a response to the jury’s inquiries before the jury’s return to the courtroom. In this case, it was undisputed that the defense counsel was not informed of the contents of the latter two jury notes. As the Court provides in its opinion, the proof that the trial court relayed the substance of the notes to the defense counsel must be specifically in the record. Here, it was not. Therefore, the Court found that the “sole remedy” in failing to comply with CPL § 310.30 was to reverse and grant the defendants’ a new trial.
Chief Judge DiFiore dissented, remarking that the holding of the majority’s leading precedent focused on a more general concept. She argued that O’Rama‘s holding required the trial court’s compliance with providing notice to defense counsel of the jury notes; it did not mandate the inclusion of such notice in the record. The Chief Judge wrote that the defense counsel was indeed informed of the overall substance of the jury notes in an off-the-record meeting. As such, she argued that ordering a new trial was an excessive remedy and completely off-base with O’Rama‘s requirements. Instead, Chief Judge DiFiore proposed the remedy of a reconstruction hearing, which is provided to amend ambiguities in the record. Importantly, the Chief Judge also noted that the jury was well aware that the trial court had not responded to the latter two notes it had received. However, the jury’s verdict ultimately rescinded the requests in those notes, further supporting the argument that ordering a new trial was unwarranted (AP/LC).
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Speedy Proceedings Leading to Involuntary Plea Deals?
Posted on October 8, 2018 by Mostafa Khairy | Comments Off on Speedy Proceedings Leading to Involuntary Plea Deals?
It is well established that trial courts have the responsibility of ensuring that a defendant who pleads guilty is doing so knowingly, voluntarily, and making an intelligent choice among alternative courses of action. However, this does not require courts, at the time of the defendant’s guilty plea, to ask defendants an established set of questions to ensure that the guilty plea is entered into knowingly and voluntarily. In People v. Cappiello (App. Term 2d Dept. 2018) the Appellate Term, Second Department, upheld the defendant’s guilty plea as having been entered into knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently and that the defendant understood the consequences of her plea.
During the defendant’s arraignment, the prosecutor made the court aware that there was a plea agreement in place in which the defendant would plead guilty to one count of Petit Larceny (Penal Law § 155.25) and would serve a 20 day sentence. In response, defense counsel stated that he had spoken with the defendant, and after advising her of her rights and the offer from the D.A., she had advised him to enter a plea of guilty with the understanding that she would only serve 20 days in jail. Defense counsel then waived a formal allocution.
This case drew a dissent from Judge Weston in which he voted to reverse the judgment of conviction, vacate the defendant’s guilty plea, and dismiss the accusatory instrument in the interest of justice. Quoting the arraignment transcript, Judge Weston took issue with the lack of dialogue between the court and the defendant when she was entering her guilty plea. Unlike other cases where a judge may ask the defendant a series of questions regarding the guilty plea, here, the defendant had no interaction with the court. As Judge Weston pointed out, the only proof that defendant waived her rights was her counsel’s general statement that he had “advis[ed] her of her rights,” which was not made in response to any court inquiry. This lack of on the record evidence calls into question whether or not the defendant truly knew the consequences of her guilty plea.
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In 1991, the Court of Appeals in People v. O’Rama articulated the proper procedure a court should go through when there is a note from the jury during the course of a trial: Upon receiving a jury note, a trial court should (1) mark the note as a court exhibit and read it into the record before the jury is called in (thereby ensuring adequate appellate review); (2) afford counsel an opportunity to suggest responses to the note; (3) inform counsel of the substance of the court’s proposed response (thereby giving counsel an opportunity to suggest appropriate modifications before the jury is returned to the courtroom); and (4) read the note aloud in open court before the jury so that any inaccuracies may be corrected by the individual jurors.
In People v. Morrison (Ct. App. 6/28/2018), the Court of Appeals, in an unsigned memorandum affirming the order of the Appellate Division, held that the trial court’s failure to provide counsel with meaningful notice of a substantive jury note was a mode of proceedings error that required reversal. This decision by the Court drew dissents from Chief Judge DiFiore as well as Judge Garcia.
In a bench trial, the court may not prohibit summations if the judgment will result in jail time. Doing so is a violation of the Sixth Amendment’s right to counsel. In People v. Harris (Ct. App. 6/26/2018) (7-0), the defendant was tried for a Class B misdemeanor with the court as trier of fact. However, the judge announced at the close of the evidence that it would exercise its “prerogative” not to hear summations. The court immediately rendered a verdict finding the defendant guilty of the charge and sentencing him to 90 days in jail.
First, the Court of Appeals held that the claim was reviewable on appeal even though no objection was taken to the court’s ruling. The manner in which the trial judge proceeded “deprived defense counsel of a practical ability to timely and meaningfully object to the court’s ruling of law.” Thus, the Appellate Term erred in holding that the claim was unpreserved.
On the merits, the Court held that the failure to permit summations deprived the defendant of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel, since his attorney was not able to be heard. New York’s former CPL § 320.20(3)(c), which gave trial courts the discretion not hear summations on nonjury indictments, was ruled unconstitutional in Herring v. New York, 422 U.S. 853 (1975).
Our analysis is limited to the facts in this case and we do not address the constitutionality of the statute as applied to other nonjury trials that may not involve a deprivation of liberty. Similarly, defendant never argued that the denial of an opportunity to deliver summations violated his statutory right to counsel (see CPL 170.10).

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