New York Criminal Lawyers Blog

New York criminal defense lawyers often have to overcome New York's rape shield law to be able to present the evidence which helps our clients. New York's Criminal Procedure Law § 60.42, which is commonly known as the rape shield law, prohibits a defendant who is charged with crimes of a sexual nature, such as rape, forcible touching and sex abuse, from questioning a complaining witness about her own sexual history. The New York legislature enacted this law to encourage rape victims to come forward and be spared the humiliation from opening up their own sexual history. This law is both harmful to criminal defendants because in rape cases or sexual assault cases, especially those where the parties know each other, the complaining witness' sexual history is always something that should be considered by a jury on the issue of consent. The underlying rationale that a jury would consider someone "unchaste" is outdated and out of touch with the reality of general acceptance of sexuality, especially in New York City and Its surrounding suburbs.

Fortunately New York's rape shield law has several exceptions, which specifically require admission of the complaining witnesses sexual history. One common example is any evidence which proves or tends to prove specific instances of the victim's prior sexual conduct with the accused. The importance of this exception is self evident since a claim that sexual conduct was not consensual is always suspicious where there is a history of sexual activity between the actors.

Another exception is evidence which tends to prove that the complaining witness has engaged in prosecution. This is also common sensical because anyone who would have sex for money, would also falsely accuse someone of a sex crime. As such, this type of evidence has bearing on the motive of the complaining witness.

Another exception is where evidence rebuts evidence introduced by the people of the victim's failure to engage in sexual intercourse, oral sexual conduct, anal sexual conduct or sexual contact during a given period of time; or rebuts evidence introduced by the people which proves or tends to prove that the accused is the cause of pregnancy or disease of the victim, or the source of semen found in the victim. These exceptions come into play on many occasions, for example when a witness denies having oral or anal sex, then a New York criminal defense attorney can explore whether they have ever done it in the past, which relates to credibility. Also on many occasions our New York criminal defense lawyers have received rape kit results which show semen or bodily fluids which don't match our client. This establishes that the victim had consensual sex with someone else within a very short period of time, therefore, any injury which was allegedly caused could have been pre-existing and it also casts doubt on the claims of forcible sexual activity.

The final exception involves evidence which tends to be relevant and admissible in the interests of justice. Generally the Courts have interpreted this requirement to mean that the evidence supports the defendants' case. For example, where there is a contention that deviant sexual activity was forced, evidence including emails, or other partners can be introduced at trial to demonstrate that the complaining witness had a proclivity or practice of regularly engaging in the activity. Likewise, in a recent case, through facebook pages, our Westchester sex crime lawyers were able to establish that a particular victim who claimed that she was unconscious because of intoxication had a proclivity to drinking excessively and then engaging in sexual activity.

New York and Westchester County criminal lawyers must diligently explore and expand the exceptions to the rape shield law.

Our Westchester criminal defense lawyers had a shocking and unpredictable win in the Westchester County Court in White Plains, on a major drug felony trial involving possession of oxycodine with intent to sell. On the verge of trial, it was discovered by the prosecution, the State Police who had possession of teh drugs lost them.

Without the actual drugs, it was impossible for the prosecutors to prove chain of custody, which essential in any drug prosecution case. What exactly happened to the drugs remains a mystery. Our New York criminal defense lawyers were prepared to defend the case on probable cause grounds and we further had a technical defense since the Westchester forensic labratory only tested one pill.

Therefore we believed that while the prosecution could prove a simple possession of a controlled substance charge, we did not believe they would be able to prove the felony weight charges.

As a New York criminal defense lawyer, I have successfully defended numerous criminal cases involving allegations of sex crimes. The New York Criminal Procedure Law gives any person charged with a felony the right to a felony hearing. At a New York felony hearing, also called a felony examination, the State of New York must prove that there are reasonable grounds to believe that a felony has occurred.

Demanding the felony hearing is an important method to test the case against a New York sex crimes lawyer's client and to cross examine the witnesses at an early stage. Normally in felony practice the New York criminal defense lawyer does not have the ability to question witnesses against the defendant until trial. The felony hearing allows the New York criminal defense lawyer handling a rape chare or other sex crime to gain valuable insight into the case at an early stage and better prepare for trial. Also the witnesses at this stage have not been prepared by the prosecutor, so the experienced criminal defense lawyer can pin down the witness' story before it has been coaxed by a prosecutor.

Also, the New York felony hearing forces the prosecutor into a contested hearing and often exposes weakness in the case early on. In a recent major felony sex crime case in Westchester, our New York sex crime lawyers successfully challenged the case at a felony hearing so successfully that the sex crime charges were voluntarily withdrawn by the prosecutor.

In a felony sex crime case in New York, which is headed for trial, the felony hearing is an important tool that every New York criminal defense attorney should utilize.

New York criminal defense lawyers must keep up with the changing times. Now a days people put tremendous amounts of information on their social media sites, such as facebook, twitter, high five and other sites.

Often complaining witnesses in criminal cases where there is a relationship involved such as assault, domestic violence and sex crimes often discuss their accusations on their personal sites. On more than one occasion, our New York criminal defense lawyers have found information on social media sites that directly contradicted the claims which the complaining witness made in sworn Court documents.

In one particular case involving allegations of domestic violence, assault and criminal contempt, our New York criminal defense lawyers found a blog where the complaining actually bragged about making false accusations of domestic violence to have her husband arrested. Our New York criminal defense lawyers won a complete acquital, with the prosectuor moving to dismiss all charges once our creative criminal defense lawyers exposed the blogs.

New York criminal defense lawyers should investigate the social media sites of the complaining witnesses and they may yield evidence that cannot be found anywhere else. Often little things can go a long way towards getting New York juries to render a not guilty verdict.

The Supreme Court upheld the ability of the government to "commit" sex offenders to insane asylums. Often defendants in sex cases are pressured to take plea bargains, even if they are not guilty and even if the claims are questionable.

This new ruling makes criminal defendants charged with sex crimes think seriously about whether they want to accept a plea bargain. The new danger is that a plea bargain is no longer a bargain because the defendant will not get what they are promised.

Normally, sex offenses invoke strong emotions and the New York Courts tend to set high bail. As a consequence, defendants in New York charged with sex crimes remain incarcerated while the cases are pending. Then after a defendant has spent significant time in jail, they are offered a deal where they spent a short additional period of time in jail and if they turn down the deal of facing even more time in jail waiting for trial.

Under these circumstances, even innocent defendants accept plea bargains to get out of jail. Now, defendants must be careful because they may not get the short sentence they are promised. After being promised a short period of jail, sex crime defendants are being put in insane asylums. Now New York criminal defense lawyers must advise their clients who are charged with sex crimes of these real dangers prior to accepting a plea.