Drug, weapons convictions reversed by state appeals court

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A state appeals court has reversed drug and weapon convictions because the judge denied the defendant’s multiple requests for a new court-assigned attorney.

Defendant Nyquan English, 27, was convicted in state Supreme Court in Brooklyn before Justice Miriam Cyrulnik in June 2017 of first-degree assault, two counts of second-degree robbery, two counts of first-degree robbery, two counts of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, seventh-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, and unlawful possession of marihuana.

English was sentenced to up to 22 years in state prison

His appellate attorney argued that Justice Bruce M. Balter should have granted defense motions to suppress, identification testimony, physical evidence and statements that English made to law enforcement officials.

In a decision released Wednesday, the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court, Second Department, reversed Balter’s ruling and sent the case back to Supreme Court.

Before English’s suppression hearing, Balter was told that English refused to go to the courtroom, that he would not talk to his court-appointed lawyer, and that he wanted to have a new lawyer appointed to represent him, according to the decision.

Balter did not have English brought to the courtroom to speak to him, but he assigned a second attorney to represent English.

On English’s next court date, his assigned counsel told Balter that his relationship with English was contentious “due to the defendant’s lack of access to discovery and assigned counsel’s inability to obtain specific evidence that the defendant requested,” according to the Second Department’s decision.

The newly assigned attorney told the judge that English wanted new assigned counsel. He told the Balter that most of the defendant’s complaints were “problems with legal strategy.”

The assigned counsel told the judge it would be a “conflict” to go forward with the suppression hearing because the defendant refused to speak with him. With the defendant in the courtroom, the judge denied the request for a new assigned counsel without speaking to English, according to the decision.

After the suppression hearing, English’s assigned counsel renewed the request for new assigned counsel. Just before jury selection, while the defendant was in the courtroom, the request was denied without speaking to English, even though the assigned counsel reiterated that English would not talk with him.

“On this record, we conclude that the defendant’s right to counsel was not adequately protected. The defendant’s request for new counsel, made through assigned counsel, contained serious factual allegations concerning the defendant’s complaints about his assigned counsel and the breakdown of communications between assigned counsel and the defendant,” the panel wrote.

“Under the circumstances presented here, the Supreme Court failed to meet its ongoing duty to make inquiries to determine whether there was good cause for the requested substitution by denying the request without speaking directly with the defendant,” the court wrote.

“The matter should be restored to pre-suppression-hearing status,” the court ruled.

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