Articles Posted in Violent Crimes

Recently, a defendant in New York charged with murder in the second degree and criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree appealed his guilty verdict and related sentence. The defendant argued before the Appellate Court that parts of his trial were unfair; namely, the testimony offered about the murder victim’s cause of death violated his constitutional right to cross-examine the witness. Looking at the record of the case, the Appellate Court disagreed and ultimately denied the defendant’s appeal.

Facts of the Case

According to the opinion, the defendant was criminally charged after investigators tracked him down in 2015. The investigators were looking for an individual connected to the shooting death of an unarmed man in Brooklyn in May 2015, and they eventually had enough evidence to charge the defendant in this case.

The defendant’s case went to trial in June 2018, and he was found guilty both of murder and criminal possession of a weapon. After his sentencing hearing, the defendant promptly appealed.

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Earlier this month, a New York defendant convicted of attempted murder, appealed his guilty verdict before the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York. According to the defendant, the lower court violated his rights by allowing the State to enter into evidence a comment that he had made to his attorney in the presence of law enforcement officials. This statement, said the defendant, was meant to be part of a private conversation, and the lower court should not have let it in as evidence. The higher court reviewed the record and ultimately rejected the defendant’s appeal.

Facts of the Case

According to the opinion, the defendant was charged with several violent crimes, including assault in the first degree and criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree. Once charged, the defendant was taken to a holding room at the local police department. A police investigator stood about five feet outside the open door in full view of the defendant, including while the defendant met with his attorney in the holding room. At one point during the defendant’s conversation with his lawyer, he made an incriminating statement in a loud voice, and the investigator overheard the defendant make this statement.

The defendant argued before the lower court that this statement should not be used in court, given the statement was made to his attorney, was made after his right to counsel had attached and was not meant to be heard by the investigator. The lower court denied the motion to suppress, and the defendant appealed.

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In a case before the New York Appellate Division in late November, the defendant asked the court to reconsider his 2016 guilty conviction. Originally, the defendant was charged with both murder in the second degree and criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree. A jury found him guilty at trial, and he promptly appealed, arguing the evidence was insufficient to support his guilty verdict.

Facts of the Case

According to the opinion, the defendant was charged after police found him aiming a gun in the direction of a large group of men. Apparently, the men in the group were all part of the same gang, and the defendant in this case was part of the rival gang. The defendant fired his gun three times, subsequently killing one of the men. After the incident, the defendant fled the scene, throwing his gun into the bushes nearby as he ran.

Police eventually found the defendant, and he was charged accordingly. At trial, the jury heard evidence that the defendant had told friends he needed to protect his family and go after members of the rival gang. He stated to these friends that violence was his only reasonable form of protection and that he was targeting these men in particular because of their rivalry.

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Recently, a defendant in New York appealed his guilty conviction for attempted murder and criminal possession of a weapon. On appeal, the defendant argued that during trial, the prosecution inappropriately introduced evidence of a 911 call from the victim’s mother. The call, argued the defendant, was hearsay, and it should not have been admitted. After considering this argument, the appellate court ultimately affirmed the original guilty verdict.

Facts of the Case

According to the opinion, the defendant was charged when police arrested him for shooting another person in Queens. During the altercation, the defendant shot the victim, and the victim walked out of the incident injured but still alive. The State charged the defendant with several crimes, including attempted murder in the second degree, criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree, assault in the second degree, and reckless endangerment in the first degree.

The case went to trial, and a jury found the defendant guilty as charged. Even after the verdict, the defendant maintained that he was unjustly found guilty, and he appealed the jury’s decision.

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In a recent New York criminal case, the appellate court affirmed the trial court decision, establishing that the finding and verdict at trial by the jury was not against the weight of the evidence. The defendant was initially arrested and charged with manslaughter in the second degree and endangering the welfare of a child. He was later convicted by a jury verdict of criminally negligent homicide as a lesser included offense of manslaughter in the second degree and endangering the welfare of a child.

Facts of the Case

According to the opinion, the evidence presented at trial included testimony from the mother of the child as well as statements made by the defendant to law enforcement officers. The statements established that the defendant’s then five-month-old daughter was declared dead approximately 30 minutes after her arrival at Elmhurst Hospital after failed resuscitation efforts by the emergency medical technician and emergency room physician. Although the child had no obvious external injuries, an autopsy revealed she had sustained injuries consistent with abusive head trauma and violent shaking. The defendant was arrested and charged with manslaughter in the second degree and endangering the welfare of a child.

Testimony provided at the trial established that the child woke up crying at 2 a.m. on July 30, 2016, and the defendant tried to console her. After the child’s mother went to bed, the defendant got the child to stop crying and placed her in the crib in the couple’s bedroom. At 6:30 a.m., the defendant found the child in the crib, cold and unresponsive. The prosecution presented testimony from two experts that the child had died because the third, fourth, and fifth cervical nerves arising off of her spinal cord near her neck were severed, which resulted in paralysis of her diaphragm, causing her to stop breathing and die minutes later. Those same experts testified that the injuries were caused by violent, forceful shaking, and could not be explained as normal jostling or bouncing of an infant.

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In a recent New York criminal case, the New York Appellate Division affirmed the trial court decision, finding that the court had properly denied the defendant’s omnibus motion to suppress statements. Further, the appellate court denied the defendant’s claims that the lower court acted with improvidence by allowing the State to recall an expert, that evidence introduced by the State improperly appealed to the jury’s sympathy, and that the sentence imposed was excessive. The defendant was convicted of murder in the second degree by jury verdict.

Facts of the Case

According to the opinion, the defendant was convicted by a jury in the County Court of Westchester County on October 3, 2019, for murder in the second degree. The defendant’s appeal brought for review the denial, after a hearing, of the part of the defendant’s omnibus motion, which was to suppress his statements to law enforcement officials. The defendant was convicted in part based on statements he made to the police while in custody, as well as medical evidence. Those statements to law enforcement officers came after he was arrested and advised of his Miranda rights.

The Decision

On appeal, the defendant made several claims, including filing an omnibus motion to suppress his statements to law enforcement officials, claiming that it was an improvident exercise of the County Court’s discretion to permit the prosecution to recall their expert witness to address an issue raised during cross-examination of a police officer, claiming that a 20-second “love you video” from the mother to the deceased child victim improperly appealed to the jury’s sympathy, and a claim that the sentence imposed was excessive.

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In a recent murder case before a New York trial court, the defendant argued that evidence relating to a 1984 murder should not have been entered into the court record. The evidence, brought forward by a team of investigators from the State, used DNA from the murder victim to narrow down a list of potential suspects in the case, eventually bringing prosecutors to the defendant. In its opinion, the appellate court denied the defendant’s motion to suppress, concluding that the DNA evidence was indeed admissible.

Facts of the Case

According to the opinion, in November of 1984, the body of a teenager was found in Rochester. The victim appeared to have been raped in addition to killed, and police officers recovered sperm from her body when they investigated the scene. For 33 years, investigators were unable to find a DNA match for the semen.

In 2017, the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services created a new regulation regarding DNA testing. The new rule allowed investigators to use a suspect’s DNA not only to find the individual that committed the crime, but also to find any known family members of the suspect as well. This new process was known as “familial DNA search”, because when officers found a suspect’s family members, they were then able to more easily track down the suspect him or herself.

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Criminal defendants in the State of New York may often feel like they are playing Russian roulette with all of the variables affecting their case which may be out of their control. The assignment of a certain prosecutor, judge, or jury to a case can have an outsized influence on the result of a case. When defendants are convicted upon illegal or improper evidence and tactics by the state, the right to an appeal can be the final chance a defendant has to vindicate themselves from a conviction. The New York Appellate Division recently addressed an appeal that was filed by a defendant who had been convicted of several violent crimes and challenged the police and prosecution conduct pertaining to his arrest and conviction.

The defendant in the recently decided appeal was convicted in early 2020 of manslaughter and several lesser crimes after a jury trial. The defendant appealed his conviction, arguing that the trial court made several errors in his prosecution. The defendant’s primary challenge was to the use of a police lineup for purposes of identification. Before his prosecution, the defendant was included in a lineup with several others. Under New York law, investigators are allowed to use a police lineup for identification purposes, but the participants must be sufficiently similar in appearance to the defendant so as to not orient the witness toward the defendant. The Appellate Division determined that the other participants in the lineup used in this case met that requirement, and the defendant’s appeal of this issue was rejected by the court.

The defendant also challenged a certain line of questioning pursued by the prosecutor when the defendant himself was testifying in his defense. The prosecutor asked the defendant to state on the record whether another witness was lying to the jury. The  court determined that this question was not proper, however, the defendant’s trial attorney failed to object to the question at the time it was asked, and the court refused to consider the issue because it was not properly preserved for appellate review. In issues of grave error, an appellate court may address an unpreserved issue, but the bar is much higher to pass for such consideration. Because the defendant’s trial counsel failed to object to the questioning, the  court refused to reverse the defendant’s conviction.

The US Constitution protects many rights of Americans accused of crimes. One of the critical protections of the Constitution is the confrontation clause. The Confrontation Clause is included in the 6th Amendment and states in pertinent part: “the accused shall enjoy the right…to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” Enforcing the confrontation clause ensures that defendants are not convicted upon anonymous testimonies. Furthermore, the confrontation clause provides that a defendant or their attorney will have the opportunity to cross-examine any witnesses who offer testimony or evidence that the defendant is guilty of a crime.  Further, the confrontation clause prohibits the reliance on hearsay testimony to convict the accused.

Like most constitutional protections, the confrontation clause has its limits and exceptions, as evidenced by a recent New York Court of Appeals decision that affirmed a defendant’s murder conviction despite confrontation clause issues.

The defendant in the recently decided case was involved in a neighborhood fight with several acquaintances, when he allegedly went home, returned with a firearm, and shot into a crowd. Bullets fired by the defendant allegedly struck and killed a two-year-old child. Based on eyewitness testimony, authorities initially arrested another man for the crime. After further investigation and DNA analysis of clothing from the scene, police decided that the defendant was the actual shooter, and he was arrested and charged. The initial suspect quickly pleaded guilty to a gun charge and was released without any charges related to the murder.

In a recent opinion coming out of a New York court, the defendant unsuccessfully appealed his guilty conviction for manslaughter in the first degree. The defendant’s case emerged after he got into a physical altercation with another man. Following the altercation, police showed up at the scene and questioned the defendant extensively. Based on testimony from these officers as well as other people familiar with the incident, the defendant was found guilty. On appeal, he argued that the court had incorrectly instructed the jury on how to proceed in deciding his case. Disagreeing with the defendant, the court eventually affirmed the original verdict.

Facts of the Case

According to the opinion, the defendant was charged with manslaughter in the first degree after he choked another person for several minutes with an intent to cause serious physical injury. After the incident, the defendant spoke to police officers and explicitly admitted that he had choked and strangled the victim. He later spoke with a friend and a cousin, who both testified during the trial that the defendant had admitted the crimes to them soon after.

At trial, the defendant testified that he only briefly grabbed the victim’s neck. According to the defendant, his only goal was to stop the victim from fighting him, and he was acting more out of self-defense than out of aggression.

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