County Court’s Jurisdiction Over Crimes Committed in Other Counties, Among Many Other Issues, Explained
In a full-fledged opinion by Justice Egan, the Third Department affirmed the conviction of the director of facilities for the Schenectady City School District for arson, criminal possession of a weapon, criminal mischief and other offenses. Among the issues (all resolved against the defendant) addressed in substantive discussions: (1) whether Schenectady County Court had jurisdiction over the counts of the indictment which were alleged to have occurred in other counties; (2) whether the jurisdictional facts were sufficiently alleged and proven; (3) severance of counts; (4) suppression of evidence found in a briefcase in an area for which a search warrant had been issued; (5) whether questions amounted to impermissible interrogation; (6) the admission of Molineux evidence; (7) whether testimony relating to non-testifying chemist’s findings in a report was a Crawford violation (a violation of the right of confrontation); (8) and the admissibility of demonstrative evidence. With respect to the jurisdiction issue, the court wrote:
…[I]n order for prosecutorial jurisdiction to lie in Schenectady County for the extraterritorial crimes, defendant’s conduct must have “had, or was likely to have, a particular effect upon [the] [C]ounty . . . or part thereof, and [have been] performed with intent that it would, or with knowledge that it was likely to, have such particular effect therein” ….To that end criminal conduct has a “particular effect” upon a county when the consequences thereof “have a materially harmful impact upon the governmental processes or community welfare” of that county (CPL 20.10 [4]) such that the defendant’s out-of-county conduct “expose[s] a large number of county residents to a specific harm”… .In this regard, the injury alleged must be “concrete and identifiable” and of the type that can be demonstrated by proof… . The People bear the burden of proving that venue is proper by a preponderance of the evidence, and whether the subject county has geographic jurisdiction over each of the charged offenses presents a factual issue for the jury to resolve … . People v Raucci, 103996, 3rd Dept 6-27-13