Stats & Case Summaries - Fourth Department Decisions Released on June 29, 2012

Criminal Case Summaries:

·        People v McCoy (KA 10-00800) – D pleaded guilty to several drug charges, and the promised sentence was conditioned on his ability to provide $5,000 in forfeiture funds to the City of Geneva Police Department.  If D did not come up with $5,000 cash, he would be subject to receiving a higher sentence.  4AD modifies the judgment by vacating the forfeiture of $5,000.  4AD preliminarily noted that the People did not comply with either the civil or criminal forfeiture procedures.  But, the more important factor, the Court explained, was the lack of any nexus between D’s crime and the $5,000 forfeiture.  There was no indication that the funds were proceeds of the crimes with which D was charged, or that they were derived from other uncharged criminal activity.  The People did not dispute this, but instead argued that D signed a waiver of appeal form, and that barred his current challenge.  4AD, however, found that the waiver was invalid, because the People, with the lower court’s imprimatur, threatened to double D’s sentence if he did not forfeit the funds.  Finally, 4AD found that the forfeiture must be vacated, because it created an acceptable appearance of impropriety—i.e., that the funds were extorted from D, or that D was able to buy a lesser sentence.

·        People v Thomas (KA 10-01368) – In this appeal from a murder conviction, the lower court improperly admitted statements that D made to his wife, because they were subject to the marital privilege.  Police obtained the statements by surreptitiously monitoring a conversation between D and his wife.  And at trial, the statements were described by the police, not D’s wife.  The error, however, was harmless.  Among other things, 4AD also found that the lower court did not err by failing to redact portions of a recorded telephone conversation between D and his mother, in which D stated that he would be willing to serve 10 to 15 years in prison.  The lower court instructed the jury that they were not to consider or speculate concerning matters related to sentencing.