An appellate court has ordered a new suppression hearing in a stolen property case because the judge refused to grant an adjournment for the prosecution after two deputies failed to show up and the judge proceeded without them and ruled ...

Tagged with: Supreme Court Appellate Division Fourth Department warrantless search

The Fourth Department has dismissed the conviction of a man accused of having about 300 cartons of untaxed cigarettes in May 2014. After Jefferson County Court Judge Kim H. Martusewicz denied a motion to suppress evidence and statements in the ...

Tagged with: search Supreme Court Appellate Division Fourth Department

A Syracuse man will get a new trial because of a problem with a police identification. Kevin Reeves, 41, was convicted in January 2013 of third-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance and third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance ...

Tagged with: drug charges identification Supreme Court Appellate Division Fourth Department

Erie County must provide 911 recordings to the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed by the widow of a man who died in his car during a winter storm after a 911 dispatcher told him help was on the way. The ...

Tagged with: Erie County Supreme Court Appellate Division Fourth Department

The Fourth Department has ordered an Erie County Court judge to accept a defendant’s request to withdraw a guilty plea on six counts of second-degree burglary. In December 2014 defendant Bryan Colon pleaded guilty to the charges and Judge Sheila ...

Tagged with: burglary plea agreement Supreme Court Appellate Division Fourth Department

A former college professor convicted of raping a teenage girl won a chance to argue that his sons’ last name should not be changed by their mother. The Appellate Division of state Supreme Court, Fourth Department, on Friday released a ...

Tagged with: name change rape Supreme Court Appellate Division Fourth Department

A state appellate court decried the actions of a Monroe County Court judge who arranged for a co-defendant’s testimony in exchange for limited sentence. In a June 9 decision, the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court, Fourth Department, unanimously affirmed ...

Tagged with: Monroe County Court Supreme Court Appellate Division Fourth Department

A man convicted of driving despite having his license revoked or suspended 44 times had his conviction overturned and could get a new trial because the judge failed to share two jury notes with the defense. Michael K. Holloman was ...

Tagged with: Supreme Court Appellate Division Fourth Department

Even before an appellate court admonished the office of Monroe County District Attorney Sandra Doorley and one former ADA in particular, Doorley says she had taken actions to remind her staff of the ethics and responsibilities of their jobs. Since ...

Tagged with: Monroe County District Attorney's Office prosecutorial misconduct Sandra Doorley Supreme Court Appellate Division Fourth Department

A state appeals court has thrown out a drug conviction because of an improper search. Defendant Antoine Richards pleaded guilty on Sept. 8, 2015, to third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance and was sentenced to two years in prison ...

Tagged with: drug charges Supreme Court Appellate Division Fourth Department

A Canandaigua woman convicted of arson and other charges will get a new trial because of prosecutorial misconduct in the case. Shallamar L. Hayward-Crawford was convicted in August 2014 of one count of third-degree arson, two counts of fourth-degree arson, ...

Tagged with: Arson prosecutorial misconduct Supreme Court Appellate Division Fourth Department

The Fourth Department has sent a case back to the lower court for a ruling on whether or not an identification procedure that led to a criminal conviction falls under the confirmatory identification exception in New York’s Criminal Procedure Law. ...

Tagged with: identification Supreme Court Appellate Division Fourth Department