People v. Singleton

Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York

People v. Singleton

3 A.D.3d 408, 771 N.Y.S.2d 106

CourtAppellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York

DecidedJanuary 20, 2004

StatusPublished

This text of 3 A.D.3d 408 (People v. Singleton) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook

People v. Singleton, 3 A.D.3d 408, 771 N.Y.S.2d 106 (N.Y. Ct. App. 2004).

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Opinion

[409]*409Order, Supreme Court, New York County (John Stackhouse, J.), entered on or about April 10, 2000, which denied defendant’s motion to vacate a judgment of the same court (Frederic Berman, J.) rendered January 4, 1991, unanimously affirmed.

The court properly denied, without a hearing, defendant’s motion to vacate his judgment of conviction made on the ground that he was deprived of his right to effective assistance of counsel and conflict-free representation (see People v Satterfield, 66 NY2d 796 [1985]). Although defendant’s trial counsel had previously represented a codefendant at his plea of guilty to charges arising from the same criminal incident, defendant failed to demonstrate a significant possibility that a conflict of interest existed that operated to his detriment and bore a substantial relation to the conduct of the defense (see People v Recupero, 73 NY2d 877, 879 [1988]; see also Cuyler v Sullivan, 446 US 335, 348-350 [1980]). The record, including defendant’s own submissions on the motion, establishes that trial counsel made a sound strategic decision to refrain from calling the codefendant as a witness, and that this decision had nothing to do with any potential conflict of interest. The codefendant’s testimony would have been unnecessary, unhelpful, extensively impeached and potentially very damaging to defendant’s misidentification defense. Concur—Buckley, P.J., Mazzarelli, Saxe, Sullivan and Rosenberger, JJ.

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[409]*409Order, Supreme Court, New York County (John Stackhouse, J.), entered on or about April 10, 2000, which denied defendant’s motion to vacate a judgment of the same court (Frederic Berman, J.) rendered January 4, 1991, unanimously affirmed.

The court properly denied, without a hearing, defendant’s motion to vacate his judgment of conviction made on the ground that he was deprived of his right to effective assistance of counsel and conflict-free representation (see People v Satterfield, 66 NY2d 796 [1985]). Although defendant’s trial counsel had previously represented a codefendant at his plea of guilty to charges arising from the same criminal incident, defendant failed to demonstrate a significant possibility that a conflict of interest existed that operated to his detriment and bore a substantial relation to the conduct of the defense (see People v Recupero, 73 NY2d 877, 879 [1988]; see also Cuyler v Sullivan, 446 US 335, 348-350 [1980]). The record, including defendant’s own submissions on the motion, establishes that trial counsel made a sound strategic decision to refrain from calling the codefendant as a witness, and that this decision had nothing to do with any potential conflict of interest. The codefendant’s testimony would have been unnecessary, unhelpful, extensively impeached and potentially very damaging to defendant’s misidentification defense. Concur—Buckley, P.J., Mazzarelli, Saxe, Sullivan and Rosenberger, JJ.

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Bluebook (online)

3 A.D.3d 408, 771 N.Y.S.2d 106, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-singleton-nyappdiv-2004.

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