Opinion ID: 2210558
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: People v Morales

Text: In 1994, defendant Adele Morales was tried in Supreme Court, New York County, and convicted by a jury of attempted robbery in the first degree (Penal Law §§ 110.00, 160.15 [3]) and criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree (Penal Law § 265.01 [2]). She was thereafter sentenced, as a second felony offender, to concurrent terms of imprisonment of four to eight years and one year respectively, and she appealed claiming error in the trial court's charge to the jury. In the Appellate Division, defendant argued that the trial court's reasonable doubt charge to the jury diluted the People's constitutionally mandated burden of proof. In particular, defendant pointed to four places in the trial transcript where the Trial Judge told the jury that the People did not have to prove her guilt beyond all reasonable doubt. Claiming the four transcript references to be in error, the People moved, in response, to enlarge the appellate record to include a supporting affidavit from the trial court stenographer or, in the alternative, for an order remanding the case to the trial court to reconstruct and settle the record. By order of the Appellate Division, the People's latter request was granted and the case remanded to the trial court for further proceedings. Prior to the start of the reconstruction hearing, defendant moved to have the Trial Judge recused and the matter transferred to another court. Defendant argued that because the sole issue of the hearing pertained to the conduct of the Trial Judge, the Judge himself was a potential witness to be subjected to cross-examination, and that her right to confrontation and a fair hearing required his recusal. Relying on the First Department's ruling in People v Carney (73 AD2d 9, appeal after remand 86 AD2d 987, revd on other grounds 58 NY2d 51), the court declined recusal and the hearing ensued, with the sole testimony being provided by the trial court stenographer. At the hearing, the court stenographer testified that the four disputed transcript references to the word reasonable were made by her in error. At the close of the hearing, the Trial Judge concluded, based on his own recollections and notes and the testimony of the court stenographer, that the four disputed references were indeed errors. Thus, the Trial Judge settled the record by omitting the disputed references from the transcript, and, as modified, he certified the transcript for appeal. Upon defendant's return to the Appellate Division, a unanimous Court affirmed, concluding that [t]he trial court appropriately declined to recuse itself from the resettlement proceeding and properly resettled the transcript, and that the earlier challenged charge represented transcription errors (244 AD2d 300). A Judge of this Court granted defendant leave to appeal.