ACCUSATORY INSTRUMENT CHARGING DEFENDANT WITH PATRONIZING A PROSTITUTE WAS NOT JURISDICTIONALLY DEFECTIVE BECAUSE A CLINICAL PHRASE WAS USED TO DESCRIBE SEXUAL ACTIVITY (CT APP).
The Court of Appeals, reversing the appellate term, determined that the accusatory instrument charging defendant with patronizing a prostitute was not jurisdictionally defective:
Giving the allegations “a fair and not overly restrictive or technical reading” … , and “drawing reasonable inferences from all the facts set forth in the accusatory instrument” … , the accusatory instrument contains sufficient facts to demonstrate “reasonable cause” to believe (CPL 100.40[4][b]) that defendant was guilty of patronizing a prostitute in the third degree (see Penal Law § 130.00[10]). The factual allegations that defendant requested “manual stimulation” from a woman on a street corner, for a specific sum of money, at 2:25 a.m., supplied “defendant with sufficient notice of the charged crime to satisfy the demands of due process and double jeopardy”… . Defendant’s argument that “manual stimulation” could be indicative of nonsexual conduct ignores the inferences of sexual activity to be drawn from the factual context in which the statement was alleged to have been made—a late night solicitation of a physical personal service from an individual on a public street, in exchange for a sum of money. Any assertion that defendant was referring to a nonsexual activity “was a matter to be raised as an evidentiary defense not by insistence that this information was jurisdictionally defective” … . The fact that the instrument used a clinical phrase for the sexual activity alleged does not render the instrument jurisdictionally defective. People v Drelich, 2018 NY Slip Op 06785, CtApp 10-11-18
CRIMINAL LAW (ACCUSATORY INSTRUMENT CHARGING DEFENDANT WITH PATRONIZING A PROSTITUTE WAS NOT JURISDICTIONALLY DEFECTIVE BECAUSE A CLINICAL PHRASE WAS USED TO DESCRIBE SEXUAL ACTIVITY (CT APP))/PATRONIZING A PROSTITUTE (CRIMINAL LAW, ACCUSATORY INSTRUMENT CHARGING DEFENDANT WITH PATRONIZING A PROSTITUTE WAS NOT JURISDICTIONALLY DEFECTIVE BECAUSE A CLINICAL PHRASE WAS USED TO DESCRIBE SEXUAL ACTIVITY (CT APP))/ACCUSATORY INSTRUMENT (CRIMINAL LAW, ACCUSATORY INSTRUMENT CHARGING DEFENDANT WITH PATRONIZING A PROSTITUTE WAS NOT JURISDICTIONALLY DEFECTIVE BECAUSE A CLINICAL PHRASE WAS USED TO DESCRIBE SEXUAL ACTIVITY (CT APP))