New York Criminal Lawyers Blog

As a Westchester criminal defense attorney we have defended numerous cases in which a low life makes a bogus criminal complaint against an innocent person. in defending these cases, we often hear that everyone knows the complaining witness is a liar or a junkie or has some other character flaws that calls into question their credibility. Our New Y York criminal defense lawyers know important character evidence can be to a jury. Unfortunately all to often, the New York criminal courts try to keep out character evidence of the complaining witness. This type of evidence is especially important where there are already motives to lie, such as in sex crime, domestic violence or assault cases.

In a recent New York Court of Appeals held that the County Court improperly deprived defendant of his right to present testimony that complainant had a bad reputation in the community for truth and veracity. The Court recognized that party has a right to call a witness to testify that a key opposing witness, who gave substantive evidence and was not called for purposes of impeachment, has a bad reputation in the community for truth and veracity. The Court went on to recognize that a "trial court must allow such testimony, once a proper foundation has been laid, so long as it is relevant to contradict the testimony of a key witness and is limited to general reputation for truth and veracity and that the rule is to ensure that the jury is afforded a full picture of the witnesses presented, allowing it to give the proper weight to the testimony of such witnesses. Once the party seeking admission of reputation evidence has laid the proper foundation, it is for the jury to evaluate the credibility of the character witnesses who testify, and to decide how much weight to give the views reported in their testimony.

Our New York and White Plains criminal defense attorneys hope this new ruling will assist us in fighting bogus and questionable criminal accusations.

As a New York trial lawyer, I can tell you that juries award higher damage awards where there is a morally repugnant defendant or a defendant that acts in a morally culpable way.

Typically in simple negligence cases, Judges will exclude moral evidence or evidence of bad conduct on other occasions as unduly prejudicial. However, where a single act is part of a larger course of conduct our New York lawyers typically include a claim for punitive damages. Punitive damages are particularly suited for car accidents and truck accidents involving drunk drivers, wrongful death, sexual assaults, malicious prosecution, business cases involving fraud and police misconduct cases.

Punitive damages are different than compensatory damages because while compensatory damages for negligence or contract cases are intended to just make the injured party whole, the punitive damages are intended to punish a morally culpable defendant and to deter conduct of the defendant and others like them.

So bad conduct may not be relevant in a negligence case, but it is relevant in punitive damages cases. The United States Supreme Court has recognized that bad act evidence is relevant to reprehensibility. The Supreme Court has recognized that a Plaintiff may show harm to others in order to demonstrate the reprehensibility of the defendant's conduct, because evidence of actual harm to non-parties can help to show that the conduct that harmed the plaintiff also posed a substantial risk of harm to the general public, and so was particularly reprehensible. In determining reprehensibility, a jury may properly take into account the fact that conduct that risks harm to many is likely more reprehensible than conduct that risks harm to only a few.

However, the Supreme Court has also held that a jury may not punish the defendants by awarding damages to punish defendants for harm done to others who are not Plaintiffs in the instant lawsuit. Our New York attorneys will continue to seek high punitive damages in their representation of the citizens of New York City and Westchester who have been aggrieved by reprehensible defendants.

As a New York City criminal defense lawyer, one of the most common phone calls our attorneys get is a call from a family member of someone who was arrested by the New York City Police Department.

The arrest procedure in New York is arduous. Typically, once a person is arrested, it is very difficult for family members to get information about what is happening. Typically, that is because the person moves through various parts of the system.

The New York City arraignment process typically takes between 12 and 20 hours depending on many factors. The arrestee is first processed at the local precinct which takes several hours. Their information is faxed to Albany and then once the raps are run, the person is transferred to central booking. During this time, the District Attorney prepares the paperwork while the arrested person sits in Central Booking, until the case become Court ready.

Our New York City criminal defense lawyers are able to monitor the status of a new arrest directly with the arraignment parts of the New York City criminal courts by telephone. When the case is Court ready, we go to the arraignment and get our clients out as soon as possible. The New York City criminal Courts in the Bronx, Queens and Manhattan all have arraignments until 1:00 a.m., and when our New York City criminal defense lawyers are retained we will go to the arraignment, no matter how late it is.