The Third Department remitted for a due-diligence inquiry after prosecutors omitted a defendant’s checkpoint statements from automatic discovery before certifying compliance.
The Third Department affirmed vacatur of a manslaughter conviction where local counsel kept secret a law clerk’s warning that the judge had prejudged the psychiatric defense.
The Third Department held that prosecutors exercised due diligence under CPL article 245 despite discovering body-camera footage during trial, and affirmed the convictions.
The Third Department held that a without-prejudice dismissal at the first stage of a Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act resentencing request is not appealable.
The Third Department held that DOCCS must honor a sentencing judge’s shock-incarceration order when the same judge imposes a concurrent sentence for a non-disqualifying offense.
The Third Department affirmed denial of DVSJA resentencing where the defendant’s claimed childhood abuse occurred in 2002–2003 but the murder was committed in 2007 — finding insufficient temporal nexus and that his own testimony undermined the causation element.
The Third Department reversed one of Rainey’s two terroristic-threat convictions — holding that a private Snapchat message he did not intend to circulate lacked the required intent to intimidate a civilian population — while affirming convictions for Whisper bomb-threat posts and emails threatening a TV news station.
The Third Department reverses and holds that a police officer who suffered psychological trauma from a station-house shooting is a “crime victim” under New York’s Son of Sam Law without needing to show physical injury, broadly construing Executive Law § 632-a.
Third Department affirms civil confinement under Mental Hygiene Law Article 10, joining the First and Fourth Departments in holding that due process does not require the ‘sexual motivation’ element of a pre-SOMTA offense to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt — clear and convincing evidence is constitutionally sufficient.