New York Criminal Lawyer Blog

Published on: August 24, 2012

Defendant Argues He Should be Classified as a Level 3 Sex Offender

by Stephen Bilkis

The People of the State of New York are the plaintiffs in this case. The County Court of the City of New York in Madison County is the location where this case is being heard.

The defendant was convicted based on a guilty plea, to rape in the second degree, which is a class D felony. A New York Criminal Lawyer said he was sentenced on the 5th of September, 2002 to an indeterminate period of 1 to 3 years. He is scheduled to be released to parole on the 25th of April, 2004. The court is being called upon to assess the risk of the defendant.

Defendant’s History

Published on: August 24, 2012

Defendant Charged with Illegal Salary Payments

by Stephen Bilkis

During the 89th Congress, a Special Subcommittee on Contracts of the Committee on House Administration conducted an investigation into the expenditures of the Committee on Education and Labor, of which petitioner was chairman. A New York Criminal Lawyer said the Special Subcommittee issued a report concluding that the defendant and certain staff employees had deceived the House authorities as to travel expenses. The report also indicated there was strong evidence that certain illegal salary payments (white collar crime) had been made to defendant’s wife at his direction. No formal action or criminal charges was taken during the 89th Congress. However, prior to the organization of the 90th Congress, the Democratic members-elect met in caucus and voted to remove the defendant as chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor.

When the 90th Congress met to organize in January 1967, the defendant was asked to step aside while the oath was administered to the other members-elect. Following the administration of the oath to the remaining members, the House discussed the procedure to be followed in determining whether the defendant was eligible to take his seat. After some debate, by a vote of 363 to 65 the House adopted House Resolution No. 1, which provided that the Speaker appoint a Select Committee to determine Powell’s eligibility. Although the resolution prohibited Powell from taking his seat until the House acted on the Select Committee’s report, it did provide that he should receive all the pay and allowances due a member during the period.

The Select Committee, composed of nine lawyer-members, issued an invitation to defendant to testify before the Committee. The invitation letter stated that the scope of the testimony and investigation would include defendant’s qualifications as to age, citizenship, and residency; his involvement in a civil suit, and matters of alleged official misconduct.

Published on: August 23, 2012

Sex Crimes Defendant Also has Immigration Issue

by Stephen Bilkis

The people of the state of New York are the plaintiffs in this case being heard in the Supreme Court of Suffolk County.The defendant has moved to have his conviction for the Class E felony of Rape in the third degree vacated. The basis for his argument for this motion is that he lacked effective assistance of counsel.

Case Background

The defendant illegally entered the United States with his father in the year 1991 when he was just sixteen years old. The defendant never attempted to become a citizen of the United States while he was living here and before he was prosecuted on the charges of rape in the third degree. He was not eligible for any type of program or amnesty after his illegal entry into the country.

Published on: August 23, 2012

Defendant Claims Multiple Charges Should Only have been One

by Stephen Bilkis

This case involves the People of the State of New York et al. relater against the respondent, the Warden of the Auburn State Prison. The case is being heard in front of the Supreme Court.

The case before the court is a habeas corpus proceeding that is being brought by an inmate of the Auburn Prison. The defendant was convicted of first degree rape, first degree robbery, and second degree assault in the Bronx County Court. The punishments for these crimes were 10 to 20 years for the rape charge, 15 to 30 years for the robbery charge, and 2 and ½ years to 5 years for the assault charge.

Case Background

Published on: August 23, 2012

Court Discusses Mental Hygiene Law Proceedure

by Stephen Bilkis

This case is being heard in the Supreme Court of the state of New York in New York County. The People of the State of New York are the petitioners in this matter.

Case Facts

A New York Criminal Lawyer said the respondent in this case, pled guilty in 1968 to Rape and Robbery in the first degree. This plea satisfied numerous charges of rape, sodomy, robbery, assault, and other charges that arose from several attacks on women that he had allegedly committed around the City College campus in Manhattan. He was sentenced to five to fifteen years for this guilty plea. However, after several appeals his plea of guilty was invalidated by a grant from the Supreme Court of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. It was found by the court that the defendant was not mentally competent at the time of the plea that had led to his conviction a decade earlier. This decision was affirmed and Suggs was released from prison in 1978.

Published on: August 23, 2012

Court Looks at Racial Discrimination in Employment Practices

by Stephen Bilkis

This is the latest appeal growing out of the nearly two-decade old, racial discrimination in employment lawsuit involving the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) and the State Personnel Department (SPD). Those two state agencies were sued in 1985 by what became two plaintiff classes of black employees and prospective employees. A New York Criminal Lawyer said a partial settlement was reached and a consent decree was entered in 1994, but instead of ending the case the decree became a platform for additional litigation.

The consent decree, aimed at ending racial discrimination in ALDOT’s employment practices, has twenty-one articles. This appeal is about Article Two, which governs the development and use of “minimum qualifications” (MQs), which are part of the selection procedure for hiring and promoting employees in ALDOT jobs. A job seeker wanting to sit for an employment examination must meet the MQs first. MQs are designed to screen for skills needed at entry into a new position, and can screen for, among other things, “knowledge, skills and abilities” (KSAs) relevant to a position. A New York Criminal Lawyer said the job examinations themselves measure KSAs.

The provision of Article Two that was modified by the district court is ¶ 1, which is called “the no-overlap provision.” This is what the paragraph says:

Published on: August 22, 2012

Defendant Claims Ineffective Counsel

by Stephen Bilkis

This is a case being heard in the Supreme Court of Bronx County. The case involves the People of the State of New York versus the defendant.

Defendant’s Case

On or about the 6th of August, 2011, the defendant filed a pro se motion to have his conviction of rape in the first degree, kidnapping in the first degree, and coercion in the first degree from 1977, vacated. A New York DWI Lawyer said the defendant argues that his rights regarding the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution were violated during his trial when the hospital record, including notations made by a resident at the hospital who did not testify, was admitted into evidence.

Published on: August 22, 2012

Court Decides if Expert Testimony Should be Allowed

by Stephen Bilkis

The case involves the People of the State of New York against the defendant. The defendant has been charged with three robberies. He allegedly robbed a Gymboree store located on Third Avenue on the 18th of April, 2001 and again on the 15th of June, 2001. He is also charged with robbing the American Airlines office located on Broadway later on the same day of June 15th, 2001.

Case Background

A New York Sex Crimes Lawyer said that on the 17th of June, an eyewitness of the robberies at Gymboree picked the defendant’s picture out of a photo line up. A witness of the American Airlines robbery was shown the same group of pictures, but did not make identification.

Published on: August 22, 2012

Defendant Contends Violations of Search and Seizure Law

by Stephen Bilkis

Seldom has this Court considered a more spectacular or bizarre case than this habeas corpus petition of an experienced Texas criminal lawyer, former mayor of the City of Pasadena, Texas, who was found guilty in Texas State Court of being the mastermind and accomplice in an especially brutal and horrible assault and robbery, but who contends that he was invalidly convicted in violation of federal constitutional rights.

A New York Criminal Lawyer said that, the is presently serving a sixty-year sentence imposed by the Criminal District Court of Harris County, Texas. A jury found him guilty in a separate trial as an accomplice to the crime of robbery by firearms, committed by three principals. The defendant has appealed from the denial of his petition for habeas corpus by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division.

On appeal Hoover has asserted two claims of error to the denial below of his habeas corpus petition based on federal constitutional grounds. First, he contends that the Court erred in refusing to sustain alleged violations of his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. The State Trial Court admitted into evidence two diamonds seized from the defendant’s home during a nighttime search conducted by the Houston Police Department. Defendant argues that the search was made without his voluntary consent, by police officers acting under color of a search warrant which was invalid. Secondly, the defendant asserts that his right to confrontation under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments was infringed when the State Trial Court admitted into evidence the oral confession of alleged principal and co-indictee. A Nassau County Criminal Lawyer said the confession, which also implicated the defendant as an accomplice, was admitted during the testimony of the police officer to whom the defendant confessed, pursuant to a well-established Texas exception to the hearsay rule which allows the confession of a principal to be admitted at the trial of an accomplice to prove the principal’s guilt, proof of such guilt being a necessary prerequisite to conviction of an accomplice to the offense.

Published on: August 22, 2012

Court Looks at Double Jeopardy Issue

by Stephen Bilkis

According to a New York Drug Crime Lawyer, on April, 1973, as a result of a joint major Federal-State narcotics investigation, an indictment was filed against defendants along with 10 other large-scale heroin merchants, for conspiracy to violate Federal drug laws. To support the conspiracy count, covering a period from May, 1971 until the filing of the indictment, 10 particular incidents, including meetings and drug deliveries, were specified as overt acts. A number of substantive drug crimes of heroin possession were also charged.

A New York Drug Possession Lawyer said that, the instant appeals arise out of a separate concurrent State prosecution in which the three defendants were charged with sale and heroin possession of dangerous drugs. The indictment states that on each of January 8, 12, and 22, 1973, Abbamonte, Coumoutsos, and Campopiano possessed and sold over 16 ounces of heroin. These sales had neither been specified as overt acts of the Federal conspiracy nor had they been the subject of the substantive counts in that indictment.

The Federal charges were disposed of first. Two defendants pleaded guilty, among other counts, to conspiracy. The other defendant, on the other hand, went to trial and was found guilty on all counts charged. The evidence at that trial although not mentioned in the indictment included testimony concerning the three January drug sales that are the subject of the State prosecution. All three defendants received substantial Federal sentences.