New York Criminal Decisions of Interest -July 2008
In People v. Hill [2008 Slip Op 892] the Appellate Division Fourth Department held the lower court erred by not suppressing the pre-trial identification of the defendant. The witness identified the defendant from a photo array that contained a photograph of the defendant taken after an illegal arrest.
In People v. Coldiron [2008 Slip Op. 772] the Appellate Division Fourth Department concluded that the jury’s possession of a printed copy of the CJI charge on assessorial liability obtained off the internet by one of the jurors without permission of the court or the parties warranted a reversal of the conviction.
In People v. Fredrick [ 2008 Slip Op. 894], the Appellate Division Fourth Department reversed the defendant’s conviction based upon prosecutorial misconduct which-amongst other things- included: improperly vouching for the credibility of the People’s witnesses; improperly eliciting testimony from a police officer who vouched for the credibility of a confidential informant by testifying that the confidential informant had provided reliable information to the police in the past; repeatedly eliciting irrelevant and highly prejudicial testimony from several police officers concerning the percentage of convictions obtained by those officers in prior unrelated cases; improperly eliciting testimony that the defendant had been incarcerated since his arrest; and eliciting testimony from a confidential informant that defendant had not made certain exculpatory statements to him while they were in jail following defendant’s arrest.
In People v. Tetrault, [2008 Slip Op. 06219], the Appellate Division Second Department held that the lower court did not err in a driving while intoxicated case by admitting the results of horizontal gaze nystagmus field sobriety test without conducting a Frye Hearing.
In People Robertson [2008 Slip Op. 101152] the Appellate Division modified the defendant’s conviction from robbery to the lesser included offense of petit larceny based upon the People’s failure to prove the element of immediate flight. The defendant while under constant surveillance had walked in and out of the mall after concealing the pants under his clothing before store security approached him and demanded the return of the property.
