On April 1, 2010 the Court Appeals decided the case of People v. Mothersell and dismissed an indictment based on evidence seized during the execution of a warrant that claimed the authority to search all persons present.

The Court stated there was a "possibility of a valid any-person-present warrant, it does not appear that this Court has ever actually sustained such an instrument. While such a case may well come before us, it is not this one." (Slip Op. pg 4.)

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Defendant, Dentist, moved in limine to prevent plaintiff-patient, from cross-examining his expert witness about the expert's ownership interest in the dentist's insurance carrier. The trial judge granted the motion finding that the expert's monetary interest was minimal and the potential for bias attenuated.  The Appellate Division affirmed the trial court and the Court of Appeal, finding no abuse of discretion in the trial court's ruling, affirmed the Appellate Division.

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Twelve years after having a conviction for kidnapping affirmed on direct appeal, defendant petitioned the Appellate Division a second time for a writ of coram nobis based on ineffective assistance of prior appellate counsel. The Appellate Division deemed the second petition a motion to reargue the previous coram nobis application it denied nine years earlier. 

The issue was whether the Appellate Division had properly characterized defendant's petition as a motion to reargue. A motion to reargue must be based on facts or law overlooked or misapprehended by the court in determining a motion and is not a vehicle to introduce new issues.

The Court of Appeals found that defendant's second petition did not refer to any points overlooked in the previous and raised a new and more substantial theory of ineffective assistance of counsel. The Court of Appeals reversed the Appellate Division and remitted the case for consideration on the merits.

Initially, the People argued that no appeal lies from an Appellate Division order denying reargument...

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A consolidated appeal, Abney and Allen, taken by defendants who sought to introduce, at trial,  expert testimony regarding the reliability of eye witness identification.  The issue before the New York Court of Appeals was whether the trial judges had abused their discretion in disallowing the testimony.  

The Court of Appeals reviewed a trio of controlling cases; Lee, Young and LeGrand. In Lee the Court held that rather than such testimony being admissible per se, the trial court had discretion to admit or exclude expert evidence on the reliability of eyewitness identification. In Young the Court held that such discretion was bounded by whether the expert could tell the jury something significant they would not ordinarily be expected to know already. Most recently, in LeGrand, the Court held that "where [a] case turns on the accuracy of eyewitness identification and there is little or no corroborating evidence connecting the defendant to the crime, it is an abuse of discretion for a trial court to exclude expert testimony on the reliability of eyewitness identifications if that testimony is:

(1) relevant to the witness's identification of defendant,
(2) based on principles that are generally accepted within the relevant scientific community,
(3) proffered by a qualified expert and
(4) on a topic beyond the ken of the average juror"

The Court applied these principles to conclude that the Abney trial judge had abused his discretion while the Allen judge had not.  
 

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Trial court increased bail for defendant, once free, who was then was cuffed behind his back and- for lack of a holding cell- instructed to stay put on a bench in a public hallway.  Defendant made his way to the basement of the court house and, after holding the door for a county clerk employee, left the courthouse.  Defendant was apprehended 20 minutes later in an apartment nearby.

Convicted, at trial, of escape and sentenced to 2 to 4 years, defendant appealed.

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Driver mistakenly drove up the wrong on ramp. While making a U-turn the car was  hit by a motorcycle.  The motorcycle driver was killed. Driver was sober, not speeding, and the decision to extricate himself from a dangerous situation while unwise was not morally blameworthy so as to support criminally negligent homicide  under People v. Cabrera.

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