Court Opinion

ID: 9876129
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-26 22:51:14.235969+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:47:08.798444
License: Public Domain

Acosta, P.J., and Manzanet-Daniels, J.,
dissent in a memorandum by Manzanet-Daniels, J., as follows: The trial court infringed on defendant’s ability to present a defense when it allowed the prosecutor to question defendant’s psychiatric expert about the graphic particulars of defendant’s prior rape conviction (which was subsequently vacated on appeal), yet prevented him from explaining why he had doubts that defendant had committed that crime. Moreover, defendant was deprived of the effective assistance of counsel by defense counsel’s references to the conviction during voir dire and the submission of inadequately redacted exhibits that served as a reminder of the lurid details of the prior crime, despite the trial court’s pretrial ruling precluding that evidence. I would accordingly reverse defendant’s conviction for robbery in the first degree, and remand for a new trial.
Defendant suffers from schizophrenia. He has auditory and visual hallucinations as well as paranoid delusions. Over the 30 years since his diagnosis, defendant has been in various psychiatric hospitals and other institutionalized settings and on and off medication.
In 2011, defendant was charged with robbery in the first degree for forcibly stealing property with a dangerous instrument. Prior to trial, defense counsel moved to exclude evidence of defendant’s 2005 conviction for rape in the first degree. The conviction was reversed by this Court upon a finding that the trial court had erred in precluding the defense from investigating the complainant’s prior claims of molestation by her doctors, which, if proven to be false, could have been used to undermine her veracity and account of what had transpired (72 AD3d 552 [1st Dept 2010], lv denied 15 NY3d 756 [2010]). *408After the reversal, defendant entered an Alford plea in exchange for a sentence resulting in his near immediate release.
The prosecution argued that it ought to be allowed to question the defense’s psychiatric expert about the prior conviction because Dr. Goldsmith based his opinion, in part, on the aberrational nature of defendant’s threat of violence during the robbery. Defense counsel noted that the conviction had been reversed, and that defendant had subsequently entered an Alford plea.
The trial court agreed that the evidence of the prior rape would be unduly prejudicial. Nonetheless, the trial court ruled that the prosecution could ask Dr. Goldsmith whether the fact that defendant had committed a prior violent act would affect his opinion concerning defendant’s criminal responsibility. While prohibiting any evidence that the crime involved rape or sexual assault, the court permitted the prosecution to elicit the underlying facts of the crime, namely, that defendant had allegedly put a pillow over a woman’s face and strangled her.
When defense counsel tried to object, the trial court silenced him, stating, “Excuse me. They were proven beyond a reasonable doubt and the verdict is overturned only because of something Justice Goodman did. He chose to plead guilty in an Alford plea.” Defense counsel registered an objection.
The court found that questioning about the rape would be unduly prejudicial, but stated that the defense expert could be cross-examined concerning the basis of his opinion that defendant was nonviolent. The court suggested that the prosecutor “come up with some language about a violent act without mentioning rape,” while acknowledging, “I don’t know how you could do that.”
At trial, the defense called Dr. Goldsmith as a witness. Dr. Goldsmith testified that defendant was a paranoid schizophrenic who suffered from both auditory and visual hallucinations. Defendant was diagnosed at the age of 25 and had been hospitalized multiple times beginning in the 1980s. Dr. Goldsmith opined that defendant had been fairly stable while receiving treatment, but noted that when he relocated back to New York City, he was unable to re-enroll at St. Luke’s/ Roosevelt, and wasn’t receiving therapy. He began drinking again, worsening his delusional state. It was in this paranoid and hallucinatory state of mind that defendant committed the robbery.
During cross, the prosecutor asked Dr. Goldsmith, “[B]y now you’re aware the defendant had committed a serious violent *409crime in the past, correct?” Defense counsel’s objection to the question was overruled. Dr. Goldsmith answered that he was aware defendant had been “convicted of a serious violent act,” but noted that the conviction had been overturned on appeal and that defendant had subsequently entered an Alford plea. The prosecution posed the question again, and defense counsel again objected, following which a sidebar was held.
When proceedings resumed, the trial court instructed the jury that the question stood but that Dr. Goldsmith’s answer was stricken and that the jury was to disregard it.
The prosecution posed the question again to the defense expert. Before Dr. Goldsmith could answer, the court intructed the witness, “[T]hat’s a ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ ” Upon defense counsel’s objection, the court clarified that Dr. Goldsmith could respond “yes,” “no,” or “I don’t know.” Dr. Goldsmith replied, “I don’t know,” whereupon the prosecution demanded, “And if you were aware that the defendant put a pillow over a woman’s face and choked her that would be a violent act, right?” Defense counsel’s objection was overruled, and Dr. Goldsmith answered, “[T]hat would be a violent act.” The prosecution asked whether Dr. Goldsmith was aware that there was an allegation that defendant had committed a violent crime in the past, to which the expert replied, “Correct.” The prosecution then asked, “And it’s fair to say that when the defendant tells you he has absolutely no violence in his past that’s not a completely accurate statement, correct?” Dr. Goldsmith replied, “[I]ncorrect,” but was not allowed to explain his reasons for doubting that defendant had committed those acts.
I would reverse the conviction and remand for a new trial. The court infringed on counsel’s ability to present a defense by allowing the prosecution to question defendant’s expert about certain aspects of defendant’s prior rape conviction, yet preventing Dr. Goldsmith from explaining why he had doubts defendant had committed the crime.
Dr. Goldsmith testified that defendant’s prior conviction did not alter his opinion concerning defendant’s state of mind at the time of the crime. The prosecution aggressively cross-examined Dr. Goldsmith concerning this point, asking, “And it’s fair to say then that when the defendant tells you he has absolutely no violence in his past that’s not a completely accurate statement, correct?” Any attempt to explain that defendant had entered an Alford plea and had not in fact admitted the elements of the prior crime was rebuffed by the trial court. Indeed, the trial court struck Dr. Goldsmith’s explanation concerning why the prior conviction had not altered his opinion *410and instructed the jury to disregard his response. Later, in summation, the prosecution argued that the jury should not believe Dr. Goldsmith because he refused to acknowledge defendant’s prior rape conviction. The prosecutor asserted that “ [everything he premised his opinion on . . . crumbles when scrutinized even slightly,” noting that none of his expertise could explain “how he completely sticks to that conclusion in the face of the facts being markedly different from what he believes them to be when he initially made that conclusion.”
Defendant’s expert was precluded from explaining why he doubted that defendant had committed the prior rape. The rape conviction was not overturned simply “because of something Judge Goodman did,” as the trial court asserted. The complainant in the rape case, a patient at a mental health treatment center, had made claims of sexual abuse against several of her doctors. The trial court precluded the defense from investigating the details of those prior claims, despite the fact that they were relevant to her credibility. After the conviction was overturned, defendant was offered a plea that would result in his immediate release from prison. Ultimately, he entered an Alford plea in exchange for a sentence of time served.
By failing to allow Dr. Goldsmith to explain the circumstances surrounding the prior conviction, the trial court gave the jury a “distorted impression” of the facts (People v Carroll, 95 NY2d 375, 386 [2000]), namely, that Dr. Goldsmith had simply ignored the conviction in arriving at his opinions. It prevented defendant from rebutting the prosecutions’s claim that Dr. Goldsmith lacked credibility or that defendant had lied to his expert, depriving defendant of his due process right to present a defense (see People v Hudy, 73 NY2d 40, 56-58 [1988] [defendant denied due process where the trial court prevented him from presenting evidence challenging the credibility of the complainant], abrogated on other grounds by Carmell v Texas, 529 US 513 [2000]).
The majority attempts to minimize the impact of the trial court’s ruling restricting Dr. Goldsmith’s testimony, asserting that Dr. Goldsmith’s references to an Alford plea “went beyond the People’s question.” It cannot seriously be denied that by disallowing a reference to the plea, and limiting the expert to “yes,” “no,” or an “I don’t know” answer, the trial court effectively deprived the doctor of any effective means of rebutting the prosecutor’s assertion that defendant had a serious violent history, as well as thoroughly undermined the expert’s credibility.
The court’s restriction on Dr. Goldsmith’s testimony pre*411vented defendant from being able to rebut the prosecution’s attack on the credibility of the expert upon whom defendant’s entire defense rested and skewed the trial in the People’s favor.
I would also find that defendant was deprived of the effective assistance of counsel when his attorney during voir dire told the jury that defendant had been convicted of a sexual assault and submitted inadequately redacted exhibits containing references to the details of the rape and defendant’s conviction. The claim is properly raised on direct appeal, since defendant has met his burden of establishing the absence of a legitimate explanation or discernible strategy for counsel’s actions (see People v Jarvis, 25 NY3d 968 [2015]; People v Cleophus, 81 AD3d 844 [2d Dept 2011]).*
To demonstrate ineffective assistance of counsel under the federal standard, a defendant must show that but for counsel’s error, “there is a reasonable probability that . . . the result of the proceeding would have been different” (Strickland v Washington, 466 US 668, 694 [1984]). The prejudice component under the state standard of meaningful representation “focuses on the fairness of the process as a whole,” requiring reversal “whenever a defendant is deprived of a fair trial” (People v Caban, 5 NY3d 143, 156 [2005] [internal quotation marks omitted]).
Almost immediately after beginning voir dire, counsel told the panel of jurors that they would hear that defendant had a prior criminal case for a “sexual incident.” The jury learned the details of the prior conviction for sexual assault when defense counsel failed to properly redact the exhibits.
Defense counsel introduced highly prejudicial evidence without any strategic or legitimate explanation for doing so (see e.g. People v Stefanovich, 136 AD3d 1375, 1378 [4th Dept 2016] [reversing conviction where defense counsel referred to prior sexual offense during voir dire, perceiving no “discernible benefit” to defense counsel’s strategy, concluding he took “an inexplicably prejudicial course of action by allowing the jury to know the defendant (wa)s a registered sex offender” (internal quotation marks omitted)], lv denied 27 NY3d 1139 [2016]; People v Jarvis, 113 AD3d 1058, 1059-1060 [4th Dept 2014] [no strategic explanation for defense attorney’s failure to object to the introduction of prejudicial and previously excluded evidence that the defendant had threatened a prosecution witness], affd 25 NY3d 968 [2015]; People v Cleophus, 81 AD3d at *412846 [“no valid tactical reason” for defense counsel’s failure to object to the admission of the minutes of defendant’s prior guilty plea when such evidence was statutorily excludable]). The evidence of the prior rape conviction had already been excluded by the trial court so there was no danger of the prosecutor introducing or relying on the rape conviction. Indeed, had the prosecution done so, defendant would have had grounds for a mistrial. An argument that the door would have inevitably opened by virtue of other trial evidence is speculative at best.
The evidence of defendant’s prior rape conviction was highly prejudicial given the nature and severity of the crime. The jury learned not only that defendant had a rape conviction, but that he had been sentenced to 21 years on account of the violent crime. The inadequate redactions provided graphic reminders of defendant’s criminal past, including references to “serving a twenty-one year sentence for violent sexual crimes,” and “fore-ting] the [victim] to have sexual intercourse with him.” That this evidence was highly prejudicial is patent from the fact that the court determined initially to exclude it.
Defendant has shown that “counsel’s representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness” and that as a result thereof he was deprived of a fair trial (see People v Caban, 5 NY3d at 155-156; People v Garcia, 19 AD3d 17, 20 [2005]). I would accordingly reverse the conviction and remand for a new trial.

 It should be noted that co-counsel made a motion for a mistrial on these grounds, affording defense counsel the opportunity to explain his strategy.