Opinion ID: 2210558
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: People v Alomar

Text: In 1990, defendant Carlos Alomar was tried in Supreme Court, Bronx County, and convicted by a jury of murder in the second degree (Penal Law § 125.25 [1]). He was thereafter sentenced to an indeterminate term of imprisonment of 25 years to life, and, claiming a violation of his constitutional rights under Batson v Kentucky (476 US 79), he prepared an appeal. However, when it became evident that the voir dire minutes of the trial had been lost, defendant moved in the Appellate Division for a summary reversal of his conviction or, in the alternative, for a hearing to reconstruct the minutes of the voir dire proceeding. By order of the Appellate Division, defendant's latter request was granted and the case remanded to the trial court for further proceedings. During the reconstruction hearing, testimony regarding the voir dire proceeding was supplied both by the Assistant District Attorney who had tried the case and by defendant's former trial counsel. In addition, many of the venirepersons appeared and again provided to the court their pertinent background information. As the hearing proceeded, however, the Judge, who had also presided over the original trial, made clear that he intended to rely on his own recollection of the prior proceeding in his reconstruction of the record. Defendant objected and called for the Judge's recusal, arguing that it was improper for a Judge to serve as both fact witness and trier of fact. The Judge declined to recuse himself and, at the close of the reconstruction hearing, placed his detailed recollections of (reconstructed) facts on the record. The record was then certified to the Appellate Division for appeal. Over one dissent, the Appellate Division affirmed, with the majority concluding that [t]he original trial judge properly presided over the reconstruction hearing and thus the defendant's recusal motion was properly denied (245 AD2d 219, 220). The dissent, on the other hand, concluded that the Judge should not have presided over the reconstruction hearing because he was a witness to the proceedings upon which the adjudication of defendant's Batson claim was premised and because his participation deprive[d] the defendant of his due process right to have his claim decided by a neutral and detached magistrate and of his right to confront witnesses ( id., at 220-221). The Chief Judge of this Court granted leave to appeal.