POSSESSION OF A FORGED INSTRUMENT CONVICTION REVERSED, NO FOUNDATION FOR TWO CATEGORIES OF HEARSAY EVIDENCE (FOURTH DEPT).
The Fourth Department, reversing defendant’s conviction for possession of a forged instrument (counterfeit check), determined two categories of hearsay evidence were improperly admitted without foundation:
… [T]he court “erred in admitting in evidence a printout of electronic data that was displayed on a computer screen [after] defendant presented a check, the allegedly forged instrument, to a bank teller. The People failed to establish that the printout falls within the business records exception to the hearsay rule . . . [because they] presented no evidence that the data displayed on the computer screen, resulting in the printout, was entered in the regular course of business” … . …
… [T]he court improperly admitted an investigator’s testimony about the results of a search he ran in a credit bureau’s commercial database for email addresses and a telephone number contained in a cover letter that enclosed the counterfeit check defendant tried to cash. The People failed to establish the requisite foundation for this testimony inasmuch as the investigator did not testify that he “is familiar with the practices of [the] company that produced the records at issue” and that he “generally relies upon such records” … . People v Jones, 2018 NY Slip Op 00710, Fourth Dept 2-2-18
CRIMINAL LAW (EVIDENCE, HEARSAY, POSSESSION OF A FORGED INSTRUMENT CONVICTION REVERSED, NO FOUNDATION FOR TWO CATEGORIES OF HEARSAY EVIDENCE (FOURTH DEPT))/EVIDENCE (CRIMINAL LAW, HEARSAY, POSSESSION OF A FORGED INSTRUMENT CONVICTION REVERSED, NO FOUNDATION FOR TWO CATEGORIES OF HEARSAY EVIDENCE (FOURTH DEPT))/HEARSAY (CRIMINAL LAW, POSSESSION OF A FORGED INSTRUMENT CONVICTION REVERSED, NO FOUNDATION FOR TWO CATEGORIES OF HEARSAY EVIDENCE (FOURTH DEPT))/BUSINESS RECORDS (HEARSAY, POSSESSION OF A FORGED INSTRUMENT CONVICTION REVERSED, NO FOUNDATION FOR TWO CATEGORIES OF HEARSAY EVIDENCE (FOURTH DEPT))