Articles Posted in Recent Significant New York Decisions

Criminal Possession of a Controlled Substance in the Third Degree: Possession with the Intent to Sell. PL 220.16(1). A common felony in New York is Criminal Possession of a Controlled Substance in the Third Degree, or Possession with the Intent to Sell (New York Penal Law Section 220.16[1]). Interestingly, possessing a controlled substance with the…

On March 31, 2010, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued a landmark decision in which it held that a New York state sentencing law that gave trial judges the discretion to sentence repeat felony offenders to life sentences was unconstitutional. See Besser v. Walsh, 2010 U.S. App. Lexis 6704 (2nd Cir. Mar. 31, 2010).…

Attorney employs technical defense to win Acquittal in Criminal Possession of a Weapon Case. Matthew Galluzzo, of The Law Office of Matthew Galluzzo and the newyorkcriminaldefenseblawg.com recently won an jury acquittal in Manhattan for the firm’s client who had been charged with possessing a switchblade knife. The facts of the case were relatively straightforward. One…

Yesterday the Appellate Division, First Department decided In re: Tatiana N., N.Y.L.J. (1st Dep’t April 8, 2010). The facts of the case were somewhat interesting: “This juvenile delinquency proceeding arose from events that occurred at a movie theater on East 161st Street in the Bronx, in which a family was subjected to a moviegoer’s worst…

On Tuesday, February 16, the Appellate Division, First Department, reversed the 2008 conviction of Freddy Rodriguez. Rodriguez had been convicted in Bronx County Supreme Court of manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter, and two counts each of assault in the second degree, vehicular assault in the second degree, and DWI. The full text of the decision is available…

In People v. Ortiz, 2010 NY Slip Op 00387, the First Department overturned a man’s burglary conviction on account of numerous prejudicial trial errors. First, the court noted that prosecuting attorney improperly impeached the defendant by implying that his initial plea of not guilty to certain past convictions followed by a subsequent guilty plea implied…

The Court of Appeals last week decided the case of People v. Roland Ramos. In a memorandum opinion, the Court ruled that the prosecutor failed to lay the proper foundation under Civil Practice Law and Procedure 4518 to support the admission of several sets of business records. As the Court stated in a seminal case…

Criminal Procedure Law section 190.75[3] prevents a prosecutor from resubmitting a charge dismissed by grand jury absent leave of court. In People v. Davis, N.Y.L.J., Jan. 6, 2010, at p.34, the prosecution presented evidence to a grand jury (“GJ1”) concerning an incident in which the defendant and a co-defendant allegedly slashed the complainant’s face with…

In a split decision authored by Judge Smith, a divided New York Court of Appeals decided a new case in the Molineux line on October 22, 2009. This was People v. Nasin Arafet, N.Y.L.J., Friday, Oct. 23, 2009, p.45 (New York Court of Appeals 2009). In Arafet, the defendant was charged with stealing the payload…

A Queens County Criminal Court issued a written opinion last week in a case in which several alleged Latin Kings members raised a First Amendment challenge to New York’s Unlawful Assembly Statute. People v. Sanchez, Cuevas, Hernandez, Quiles, 2009QN014633, N.Y. L.J. Oct. 6, 2009, (Queens Co. Crim. Ct., Koenderman, J., Sept. 29, 2009). That statute…