115 results for 'court:"New York Court Of Appeals"'.
J. Halligan finds that defendant was improperly convicted of possession of a weapon based on evidence discovered in a vehicle inventory search after defendant was arrested during a traffic stop because he was prejudiced by the introduction of defendant's prior run-ins with police over weapons possession. Defendant failed to preserve his challenge to the conviction entered under a New York law criminalizing unlicensed possession of a firearm outside his home or business because he failed to raise the issue in the trial or appellate courts. Reversed.
Court: New York Court Of Appeals, Judge: Halligan, Filed On: November 21, 2023, Case #: 62, Categories: Firearms, Search, Jury Instructions
J. Halligan finds that the appellate division properly limited questions concerning jurors' personal views on self-defense while allowing broader questions on gun licensing and gun control in defendant's trial for possession of a weapon. Meanwhile, defendant failed to preserve his challenge to being convicted under the New York law criminalizing unlicensed possession of a firearm outside of the home or business since he failed to raise the issue in the trial or appellate courts. Affirmed.
Court: New York Court Of Appeals, Judge: Halligan, Filed On: November 21, 2023, Case #: 66, Categories: Criminal Procedure, Firearms, Jury
Per curiam, the court of appeals finds that the appellate division properly held that defendant was ineligible for adjudication as a youthful offender after pleading guilty to weapon possession for brandishing a loaded gun during an argument over a parking space. Although he was 17 years old at the time, mitigating circumstances did not offset the threatening manner in which defendant used the gun. Meanwhile, defendant failed to preserve the challenge to being convicted under the New York law criminalizing unlicensed possession of a firearm outside of a home or business because he did not raise the issue in the trial or appellate courts. Affirmed.
Court: New York Court Of Appeals, Judge: Per curiam, Filed On: November 21, 2023, Case #: 64, Categories: Criminal Procedure, Firearms, Juvenile Law
J. Halligan finds that the appellate division improperly held that defendant had not been in custody when police questioned him on a residential street about guns in the trunk of his car because handcuffing defendant restricted free movement akin to a formal arrest, which necessitated Miranda warnings. Meanwhile, defendant failed to preserve his challenge to being convicted under the New York law criminalizing unlicensed possession of a firearm outside the home or business since he failed to raise the issue in the trial or appellate courts. Reversed.
Court: New York Court Of Appeals, Judge: Halligan, Filed On: November 21, 2023, Case #: 65, Categories: Criminal Procedure, Firearms, Miranda
J. Troutman finds that the appellate division properly upheld defendant's conviction for weapon possession after a loaded firearm was found in his vehicle when marijuana was observed therein at a traffic safety checkpoint. Defendant challenged being singled out, but officers were merely stopping every third car at the roadblock and the marijuana was plainly visible. Meanwhile, defendant failed to preserve his challenge to being convicted under the New York law criminalizing unlicensed possession of a firearm outside of a home or business since he failed to raise the issue in the trial or appellate courts. Affirmed.
Court: New York Court Of Appeals, Judge: Troutman, Filed On: November 21, 2023, Case #: 63, Categories: Criminal Procedure, Firearms, Search
Want access to unlimited case records and advanced research tools? Create your free CasePortal account now. No credit card required to register.
Try CasePortal for Free
J. Rivera finds that the appellate division improperly required defendant to register as a sex offender after he was convicted of robbery and unlawfully imprisoning a child for stealing money from his aunt at gunpoint while his 10-year-old cousin was present. Defendant posed no sexual threat, and designating him a sex offender violated due process without furthering the legislative intent of the sex offender law. Reversed.
Court: New York Court Of Appeals, Judge: Rivera, Filed On: November 21, 2023, Case #: 83, Categories: Robbery, Sex Offender, Due Process
Per curiam, the court of appeals finds that defendant was properly convicted of burglary based on DNA evidence found on a screwdriver recovered from the scene. Defendant contends counsel failed to raise confrontation claims to testimony presented by a witness who had not been involved in preparing DNA analysis, but he failed to demonstrate the decision did not constitute legitimate trial strategy. Affirmed.
Court: New York Court Of Appeals, Judge: Per curiam, Filed On: November 21, 2023, Case #: 76, Categories: Confrontation, Dna, Ineffective Assistance
J. Wilson finds that defendant was improperly convicted of possessing a weapon without a valid license because counsel requested a jury instruction on temporary possession even though defendant admitted he kept the gun a year after his license expired. Instead, counsel should have raised the defense of voluntary surrender since defendant intended to turn the weapon in for cash under a police buy-back program. Reversed.
Court: New York Court Of Appeals, Judge: Wilson, Filed On: November 21, 2023, Case #: 27, Categories: Ineffective Assistance, Weapons, Jury Instructions
J. Wilson finds that the appellate division should have suppressed title to a Jaguar allegedly given to defendant for helping murder a rival drug dealer after police entered his apartment to arrest him without a warrant because police lacked consent to either enter the building or the apartment itself. Reversed.
Court: New York Court Of Appeals, Judge: Wilson, Filed On: November 21, 2023, Case #: 84, Categories: Evidence, Murder, Search
J. Halligan finds that the appellate division properly held that an inventory search of an illegally parked vehicle slated to be towed had not been performed as pretext to uncover two handguns and money. Defendant contends police failed to consider alternatives to towing as outlined in department procedures, but no such valid option was available. Meanwhile, defendant failed to challenge being convicted under the New York law criminalizing unlicensed possession of a firearm outside of the home or business since he failed to raise the issue in the trial or appellate courts. Affirmed.
Court: New York Court Of Appeals, Judge: Halligan, Filed On: November 21, 2023, Case #: 67, Categories: Criminal Procedure, Firearms, Search
J. Halligan answers a reformulated certified question by finding that failing to provide written notice of assignment deprives a purported assignee of contractual standing to bring a claim against an insurer. Restrictions had not been placed on making the assignment, but the policy contained a provision requiring receipt of notice to effectuate any transfer of ownership rights.
Court: New York Court Of Appeals, Judge: Halligan, Filed On: November 20, 2023, Case #: 77, Categories: Civil Procedure, Insurance
J. Singas finds that the appellate division properly held that confrontation violations had not occurred in convicting defendant, a nanny, of the stabbing deaths of two children in her care because the admission of "testimonial" autopsy reports and the failure to allow defendant to cross-examine the medical examiner who wrote the reports constituted harmless error in light of the overwhelming evidence of guilt, including the confession entered in mounting an insanity defense. Affirmed.
Court: New York Court Of Appeals, Judge: Singas, Filed On: November 20, 2023, Case #: 74, Categories: Confrontation, Evidence, Murder
J. Garcia finds that the appellate division properly held that a local law prohibiting police from using certain restraints while making arrests is not constitutionally vague and falls within municipal authority. The law, which was enacted in response to the deaths of George Floyd and Eric Garner, supplemented rather than supplanted state use-of-force laws. Affirmed.
Court: New York Court Of Appeals, Judge: Garcia, Filed On: November 20, 2023, Case #: 82, Categories: Municipal Law, Labor / Unions
J. Cannataro finds that the tax appeals tribunal properly determined that a company's former president and majority shareholder had been responsible for collecting and paying employee withholding taxes. Although relieved of duties by a silent investor, the president had sworn to actual authority and power to pay the taxes at the time, and ample evidence supported the holding that he willfully failed to pay such. Affirmed.
Court: New York Court Of Appeals, Judge: Cannataro, Filed On: November 20, 2023, Case #: 86, Categories: Tax
J. Egan finds that the appellate division properly held that a local law shifting responsibility for investigating and disciplining police misconduct to a citizens' group ran afoul of state mandates on collective bargaining because the police union did not endorse the shift, and the change did not represent pre-existing law or charter provisions that had been excluded from the state mandate. Affirmed.
Court: New York Court Of Appeals, Judge: Egan, Filed On: November 20, 2023, Case #: 81, Categories: Municipal Law, Labor / Unions
J. Garcia finds that the appellate division improperly held that defendant's right to confront witnesses had not been violated in his robbery trial because the record does not indicate that the expert personally prepared or observed preparation of a DNA sample discovered on a cellphone left at the crime scene. Reversed.
Court: New York Court Of Appeals, Judge: Garcia, Filed On: November 20, 2023, Case #: 75, Categories: Confrontation, Dna, Robbery
J. Rivera finds that the appellate division improperly dismissed long-running claims property owners brought against a neighboring manufacturer which sought to expand a nonconforming use because the action had not been rendered time-barred by the addition of an inadvertently omitted necessary party, as the addition related to the initial, timely filing and the party was not surprised by the addition. Reversed.
Court: New York Court Of Appeals, Judge: Rivera, Filed On: October 24, 2023, Case #: 48, Categories: Civil Procedure, Zoning
J. Singas finds that the appellate division properly held that police followed inventory search protocol in discovering a firearm in defendant's vehicle following a traffic stop. Defendant challenges the constitutionality of the protocol, but such was followed as outlined in the department's written patrol guide. Affirmed.
Court: New York Court Of Appeals, Judge: Singas, Filed On: October 24, 2023, Case #: 68, Categories: Firearms, Search
J. Wilson finds that the appellate division improperly annulled regulations establishing a familial DNA databank in identifying criminal perpetrators. The familial databank, an outgrowth of the databank that collects DNA from designated convicted offenders and which looks for kinship matches under tightly controlled circumstances, was an addition under state-granted rulemaking authority to the standing commission that established the original databank. Reversed.
Court: New York Court Of Appeals, Judge: Wilson, Filed On: October 24, 2023, Case #: 70, Categories: Administrative Law, Constitution, Privacy
Per curiam, the court of appeals finds that the state's appeal should be dismissed as brought from the dismissal of defendant's trial, which concerned a single traffic violation, for lack of compliance with the speedy trial statute. The newly amended speedy trial statute does not apply to accusatory instruments involving only traffic infractions, but the prosecution, which agreed in the lower court that such does apply, cannot now attempt to reinstate the action almost two years following dismissal.
Court: New York Court Of Appeals, Judge: Per curiam, Filed On: October 24, 2023, Case #: 100 SSM 7, Categories: Criminal Procedure, Speedy Trial
Per curiam, the court of appeals finds that the appellate division should have upheld the finding that a country club's agreement with the investor-owner of a boat-slip project constituted a license that could be terminated at will because the agreement neither limited the country club's termination rights nor demonstrated intent to alter the general rule that licenses are revocable at will by the licensor. Reversed.
Court: New York Court Of Appeals, Judge: Per curiam, Filed On: October 24, 2023, Case #: 98 SSM 6, Categories: Licensing
Per curiam, the court of appeals finds that the appellate division improperly dismissed a mother's request for the return of her children from their father's out-of-state home. Whether the mother lacked standing to seek habeas relief without a custody order should not have impacted jurisdiction for appellate review, and on remittal an "expeditious determination" on the standing question should occur. Reversed in part.
Court: New York Court Of Appeals, Judge: Per curiam, Filed On: October 19, 2023, Case #: 60, Categories: Civil Procedure, Family Law
J. Singas answers a certified question from the second circuit by finding that the plain language of New York insurance law does not apply to discretionary payments made into interest-bearing policy accounts as part of a universal life insurance policy. Unlike term or whole life policies that mandate fixed, periodic premiums and refund paid portions upon death, universal policies allow payments in any amount at any time that applies to the policy value.
Court: New York Court Of Appeals, Judge: Singas, Filed On: October 19, 2023, Case #: 59, Categories: Civil Procedure, Insurance
J. Lynch finds that the appellate division improperly excluded forensic evidence from being introduced to counter allegations that defendant sexually abused a youngster he was babysitting. Defendant was deprived the right to present a defense because the evidence directly responded to the prosecution's contention that no one other than defendant caused the child's vaginal injuries. Reversed.
Court: New York Court Of Appeals, Judge: Lynch, Filed On: October 19, 2023, Case #: 69, Categories: Evidence, Child Victims
Per curiam, the court of appeals finds that Justice Robert Putorti should be removed from office based on evidence that Putorti engaged in improper fundraising and brandished a loaded firearm at a litigant who had been waiting for his case to be called.
Court: New York Court Of Appeals, Judge: Per curiam, Filed On: October 19, 2023, Case #: 61, Categories: Judiciary
Per curiam, the court of appeals finds that the lower court improperly dismissed claims contending defendant had not received a speedy trial on assault charges. Eight days of delay that had been charged to defendant should have been marked against the prosecution because defendant was not "without counsel" when he appeared with a legal aid substitute while the agency internally reassigned his case. Reversed.
Court: New York Court Of Appeals, Judge: Per curiam, Filed On: October 19, 2023, Case #: 99, Categories: Speedy Trial
J. Lohier finds the district court properly dismissed an appeal from bankruptcy court decision declining to transfer real property since the county did not timely object to the designation of an annuity as exempt. The county took title prior to sale and thus neither bidding rules nor procedures could have inured to the benefit of the debtor other than the county.
Court: New York Court Of Appeals, Judge: Lohier, Filed On: September 29, 2023, Case #: 21-2917, Categories: Bankruptcy, Property
Per curiam, the appeals court suspends attorney Thomas Gotimer, who failed to register as an attorney or pay biennial fees, then failed to cooperate with a disciplinary investigation related to his mishandling of two criminal matters. Gotimer has not appeared in this proceeding whatsoever.
Court: New York Court Of Appeals, Judge: Per curiam, Filed On: August 17, 2023, Case #: 04348, Categories: Attorney Discipline
[Consolidated.] Per curiam, the appeals court orders a new trial for two defendants who were sentenced to 12 years in prison for robbery and attempted gang assault. The trial court did not follow protocol when it addressed their Batson objections to peremptory challenges that arguably excluded non-white prospective jurors based on their race; the full challenges were not allowed to be presented to the court.
Court: New York Court Of Appeals, Judge: Per curiam, Filed On: August 17, 2023, Case #: 04349, Categories: Fair Trial, Jury, Robbery