Paul McDonnell, a Manhattan Criminal Court judge, handles arraignments from his Brooklyn home. The recent arraignment of a police officer on assault charges was done over a video-chat system, with a monitor in the courtroom. But he didn’t have a long record, and the judge said the police officer’s reason for stopping him might be called into question. Almost all other felonies, however, will be presented to a grand jury, a jury empanelled specifically to hear a brief presentation of evidence and vote on whether or not to indict. But obstacles remain, like how to bring in large numbers of prospective jurors for screening. Before the crisis, there were as many as 15 jury trials going on each day in Manhattan Criminal Court alone. Some jurists, he went on, think it’s not appropriate for a judge to consider whether jails are safe, but then he added, “We all weigh it.” The pandemic has also shut down many mental health programs he was once able to use as an alternative to jail. NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge has ordered a new trial for a self-made health care millionaire who was convicted six years agoof fatally drugging her 8-year-old autistic son in a luxury New York City hotel room in 2010. “We’ve got to figure that out,” she said. “I didn’t see any way out of this situation,” she said during the trial. Family Court judges can hear matters involving child support, foster care, delinquency, family violence, adoption. Even under the best conditions, it can take years for cases to move from arrest to trial, and only about 5 percent ever get that far; most end with a plea bargain. Felony arraignments have fallen by 50 percent this spring compared to last, largely because far fewer people were arrested in the first weeks of the pandemic. At the hearings, judges hear witnesses, consider evidence and decide if prosecutors’ charges are warranted. Courthouses in New York are still open to the public, officials say, and people have a right to enter courtrooms and view proceedings on a video monitor. So, returning to where I started, Chief Judge DiFiore can be confident, as her predecessor Chief Judge Breitel was several tenures ago, that by assembling a coalition of diverse single-minded supporters, she might at long last also persuade the powers that be that the time for trial courts consolidation and transformation has come. Judge Brietel mischievously winked that this process would also keep final voting positions looser and softer rather than solidifying cement-like, as in a “hardening of the categories.” Mixed metaphors aside, the innovative nimbleness of the changes in the operating appeal-management process is still the essential system at the Court of Appeals, installed five Chief Judges ago.[1]. Judge Breitel’s motivation for this conversion was to encourage all judges to come to conference more invested in all the appeals, with more supple openness to the wider range of wisdom of one another, collegially and collectively. They are elected for a ten year term. . The state courts are Supreme Court, Family Court and Surrogate's Court. Many of the transformative management techniques were put in place on the Court’s own initiative and authority. Shields are being put in front of witness stands and at lecterns where lawyers argue. Yet, the judge said, sending the defendant to jail with high bail might expose him to the virus. At a teleconference in April, a jury official explained that bringing in so many potential jurors might take three days “with things being normal.”, But, with social-distancing guidelines, she added, “I don’t know what the new normal would be.”, N.Y.’s Legal Limbo: Pandemic Creates Backlog of 39,200 Criminal Cases. In a new decision, the New York Supreme Court calls the expansion “a rational and reasonable movement towards consumer protection.” The court traces its origins to the year 1691 and is one of the oldest continuously-serving courts of general jurisdiction in the United States. Joseph W. Bellacosa is a Retired Judge of the New York State Court of Appeals and a Retired Dean and Professor, St John’s University School of Law. Lara Belkin, a defense lawyer with Legal Aid, handles her clients’ cases from her apartment in Long Island City, Queens. “I waited over two years for my day in court,” Mr. Taylor, 34, said during a telephone interview from jail. The official home page of the New York State Unified Court System. Since then, not a single trial has been held in the city, and several mistrials were declared during trials that could not be finished. The health crisis has tested the technical capacity of the courts and their ability to preserve due process in an emergency. A Manhattan federal court proceeding on video: the defendant at top, with face obscured; Lloyd Epstein, the defense lawyer, at left; Brett Kalikow, assistant U.S. attorney, center; and Judge Loretta A. Preska. “I want the defendant to understand who I am.”. 9), p. 18. People who are arrested no longer set foot inside a physical courtroom to hear the charges against them in an arraignment. “Oops,” she said, clicking out quickly. Gotham Gazette is published by Citizens Union Foundation and is made possible by support from the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Altman Foundation,the Fund for the City of New York and donors to Citizens Union Foundation. 87, No. Prosecutors’ offices, which had worked for weeks with skeleton staffs, sprang back into action, and court officials doubled the number of video arraignments in Manhattan. Unable to convene grand juries, the city’s five district attorneys are turning instead to preliminary hearings, which have not been conducted in New York in decades. He convinced the six colleagues to alter the appeals-processing methodology to improve quality of their work, induce plenary participation, and gain efficiency. A Supreme Court Justice must live in New York State, and is elected for a term of 14 years. We hear more than three million cases a year involving almost every type of endeavor. In 1995, the New York Supreme Court established a trial level Commercial Division, beginning in New York County (Manhattan) and Monroe County (the 7th Judicial District). All New York courts are part of the New York State Unified Court System, but because of its large population and volume of cases, New York City also has local courts. But are there times when the best outcome would be for history to repeat itself? We use cookies to make sure the website can function, to measure traffic, to provide social media features, and to personalize content and ads. “The trial court’s closure of the courtroom was deliberate, over the multiple, strenuous objections of Jordan’s counsel, and was a closure that the trial court in fact acknowledged after the fact may well have been erroneous,” Cave wrote, arguing that Jordan’s right to a public trial applied to the proceeding. Every judge wants to be one of the Supremes, sit on the bench of the Supreme Court of the State of New York. He persuaded the Presiding Justices of the four Appellate Divisions to relinquish, de facto, some of their authority, which was transferred to a centralized management authority under a Chief Administrative Judge (the first person to hold the post being the late Honorable Richard J. Bartlett). “It’s not easy,” Judge McDonnell said. Among other measures, the new system put in place the nomination and gubernatorial selection process for Court of Appeals Judges that has functioned well for over 40 years. One is on Madison Avenue in Manhattan and covers New York County and the Bronx. “Prior to Covid, I had lots of tools.” He set bail terms that would have required the defendant to come up with at least $2,500. If the defendant pleads guilty, the judge can impose the sentence right then and there. “You can’t put a mask on the witnesses in a criminal trial because the defendant has the right to see them,” Chief Judge Colleen McMahon said. Andrew M. Cuomo suspended the state’s speedy trial laws. You may change your consent by rejecting optional cookies in the settings or by blocking cookies in your browser. It’s a colossal Sisyphean-like undertaking, as history has shown. There are two Appellate Divisions of the Supreme Court in New York City. site by iKnow, Letters and Testimony in Support of Court Simplification. Each of the five boroughs, in other words, has both city and state courts. For the next eight hours, the judge conducted night court for people arrested in Manhattan on charges ranging from gun possession to assault — all from his Brooklyn apartment. “That’s not good.”. WebFamily provides information on active Family Court cases in all 62 counties of New York State and Integrated Domestic Violence (IDV) Court cases in those counties with IDV Courts. Defendants have had to wait, many of them in jail. In fact, none other than Chief Judge Breitel is proof that major reforms can be accomplished. Developed in conjunction with Joomla extensions. In spring 2019, there were about 570 criminal trials in New York’s state courts, and the city’s courthouses were among the busiest. This unique turnaround time from argument to decision remains a proud speedy justice hallmark of the Court of Appeals’ hard-work culture even today, greatly appreciated by the Bar, clients and public at large. She entered one virtual room to find another lawyer already using it with a defendant. When former Governor Mario Cuomo appointed the current Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals, Judith S. Kaye, she had been an attorney in private practice. By clicking on "Accept" or using the website, you agree to our use of cookies. Another man asked a judge in Brooklyn federal court last month during a hearing over the telephone if he could have special protection because he was cooperating with the government against his fellow gang members. Appellate Division judges hear appeals from Supreme Court (Civil or Criminal), Surrogate's Court, and Family Court. Cuomo has suspended that deadline, which last month had left about 400 people in custody — in jails that have become hotbeds of infection — without the cases against them being tested. Number Of New York State Trial Courts 8181 New York is alone in maintaining such a … All five boroughs (which are also counties) have all of these courts. Mr. Wetmore plans to continue the al fresco hearings for as long as possible. A justice system based on face-to-face meetings has been limping along with virtual hearings, but officials are struggling with how to restart trials and grand jury proceedings. Weeden Wetmore, the district attorney in upstate Chemung County, convened a remote preliminary hearing last month — on the portico of his office. Judge Breitel also installed by internal management direction the conversion of the Court of Appeals to a year-round 52-week operation, rather than the venerable long summer hiatus of built-up delays in the handling the civil motions for leave to appeal and criminal leave applications.

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