ACQUITTALS – New York Appellate Digest

COLLATERAL ESTOPPEL DOCTRINE DID NOT PRECLUDE TESTIMONY ABOUT DEFENDANT’S USE OF A RAZOR BLADE, DESPITE DEFENDANT’S ACQUITTAL ON THE RELATED “DANGEROUS INSTRUMENT” CHARGES IN THE FIRST TRIAL; ADVOCATE-WITNESS RULE REQUIRED THAT DEFENSE COUNSEL’S MOTION TO WITHDRAW OR HER MOTION FOR A MISTRIAL BE GRANTED.

CurlyHost — Wed, 16 Dec 2015 05:00:00 +0000

The Court of Appeals, in a full-fledged opinion by Judge Pigott, determined the doctrine of collateral estoppel did not prohibit testimony in defendant's second trial that the defendant threatened to cut a victim's throat with a razor blade, despite the fact defendant was acquitted of charges involving the use of a dangerous instrument in the first trial. The court concluded that the witness-victims could not give truthful testimony about the defendant's actions without reference to the razor blade. Therefore, the collateral estoppel doctrine, under the facts of this case, was properly not applied. The court went on to find that defense counsel's request to withdraw or her motion for a mistrial should have been granted. Defense counsel's statements at arraignment were used to impeach the defendant's version of events. After defense counsel reviewed her notes, she informed the court that her statements at arraignment were incorrect and that defendant's testimony at trial matched what he had told her before arraignment. Under these circumstances, the witness-advocate rule required that defense counsel withdraw or that a mistrial be declared. Defendant's conviction was therefore reversed:

… [T]he rigid application of collateral estoppel sometimes gives way to society's interest in ensuring the correctness of criminal prosecutions … . Thus, … if it becomes apparent … that collateral estoppel “cannot practicably be followed if a necessary witness is to give truthful testimony, then [the doctrine] should not be applied” …. . * * *

[Re: the use of defense counsel's erroneous statement to impeach defendant:] The situation went from bad to worse when it became clear that the only way for defense counsel to rehabilitate her client's credibility was to impugn her own, moments before she would argue for her client's innocence in summation. Any way you look at it, defense counsel had no choice but to withdraw. In these unusual circumstances, we hold that the trial court should have granted counsel's request to withdraw or declared a mistrial. People v Ortiz, 2015 NY Slip Op 09233, CtApp 12-16-15

CRIMINAL LAW (COLLATERAL ESTOPPEL DOCTRINE NOT APPLIED)/COLLATERAL ESTOPPEL (UNDER THE FACTS, DOCTRINE INAPPLICABLE IN CRIMINAL CASE)/ATTORNEYS (ADVOCATE-WITNESS RULE REQUIRED THAT DEFENSE COUNSEL'S MOTION TO WITHRAW OR HER MOTION FOR A MISTRIAL BE GRANTED)/ADVOCATE-WITNESS RULE (DEFENSE COUNSEL'S MOTION TO WITHDRAW OR HER MOTION FOR A MISTRIAL SHOULD HAVE BEEN GRANTED)

Revocation of Pistol Permit (After Acquittal) Not Supported by Evidence

Bruce Freeman — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 13:33:22 +0000

The Fourth Department, in an Article 78 proceeding initiated in the appellate court, annulled the revocation of petitioner’s pistol permit. The permit was suspended temporarily when petitioner was charged with menacing but was revoked after an acquittal:

We agree with petitioner that the determination is arbitrary and capricious, and constitutes an abuse of discretion inasmuch as the record from the hearing is devoid of any evidence upon which respondent could have based his determination … . We further agree with petitioner that his due process rights were violated inasmuch as the record from the hearing does not demonstrate that he was afforded the opportunity to review the alleged documentation upon which respondent based his determination … . We therefore annul the determination. We note, however, that our determination does not preclude the commencement of a new revocation proceeding… . Matter of Curts v Randall, 890, 4th Dept 10-4-13

Acquittal on Assault Charges in First Trial Did Not Preclude Presentation of Evidence of the Assaults in Second Trial—Collateral Estoppel Doctrine Could Not Be Successfully Invoked Because the Meaning of the Acquittals Was Nearly Impossible to Discern

Bruce Freeman — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 16:31:15 +0000

In a second trial, the defendant moved to preclude the prosecution from introducing evidence of two assaults which were the subjects of acquittals in the first trial. The trial court allowed evidence of the two assaults. On appeal the defendant argued that evidence of the assaults of which she was acquitted was precluded by the doctrine of collateral estoppel. The Fourth Department disagreed and affirmed the trial court’s admission of the evidence, noting that the exact meaning of an acquittal in a criminal trial is often impossible to demonstrate:

“The doctrine of collateral estoppel, or issue preclusion, operates in a criminal prosecution to bar relitigation of issues necessarily resolved in defendant’s favor at an earlier trial” …. Thus, the doctrine applies in a situation such as this, where at a prior trial there was a mixed verdict in which the jury acquitted a defendant of certain charges, but was unable to reach a verdict on the remaining charges …. “Application of the collateral estoppel doctrine requires that the court determine what the first judgment decided and how that determination bears on the later judgment . . . The rule is easily stated but frequently difficult to implement because the meaning of a general verdict is not always clear and mixed verdicts may, at times, appear inherently ambiguous. Nevertheless, the court must assume the jury reached a rational result . . . , and a defendant claiming the benefit of estoppel carries the burden of identifying the particular issue on which he [or she] seeks to foreclose evidence and then establishing that the fact finder in the first trial, by its verdict, necessarily resolved that issue in his [or her] favor” …. “Defendant’s burden to show that the jury’s verdict in the prior trial necessarily decided a particular factual issue raised in the second prosecution is a heavy one indeed, and as a practical matter severely circumscribes the availability of collateral estoppel in criminal prosecutions . . . ‘[I]t will normally be impossible to ascertain the exact import of a verdict of acquittal in a criminal trial’ ” …. People v Brandie E…, KA 09-01366, 202, 4th Dept, 4-26-13