(DOWNLOAD) "People State New York v. Gerard Yore" by Supreme Court of New York * eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free

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• Title: People State New York v. Gerard Yore
• Author : Supreme Court of New York
• Release Date : January 29, 1971
• Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
• Pages : * pages
• Size : 62 KB

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[36 A.D.2d 818 Page 818] Defendant, a practicing New York City lawyer in his sixties, stands convicted of bribing a police office by paying him $75
to enlist his aid in obtaining the dismissal of a Criminal Court case against one Sandra Lawson, represented by defendant.
We have carefully examined defendant's various claims of prejudicial error and while we find error, as hereinafter indicated,
we conclude that the verdict was not thereby influenced and, therefore, defendant's substantial rights were not thereby affected
(Code Crim. Pro., § 542). During summation the District Attorney twice stated that the policeman's crucial testimony as to
the offer of the bribe and his meeting with the defendant was uncontradicted. The only person who could have contradicted
this testimony was the defendant. Hence the implications of the prosecutor's comment tended to violate defendant's rights
under the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution (Code Crim. Pro., § 393; People v. Leavitt, 301 N. Y. 113, 118;
People v. Gould, 25 A.D.2d 160; Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609). However, the court having made a timely intervention
in clarification of the defendant's constitutional privilege, we find this error harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. (See
Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18.) The court's charge to the effect that the availability of the defense of entrapment was
to discourage the "use of overzealous methods of law enforcement officials to trap the unwary innocent" was likewise error.
The defense is available to all defendants and is not limited to the "unwary innocent". Since the defendant was a lawyer,
he could not very well claim to be an "unwary innocent" victim of entrapment, and the charge therefore served to dilute the
force of the entrapment defense. The patrolman's testimony to the effect that the complainant in the Criminal Court case had
stated that this defendant had threatened that complainant was clearly inadmissible as hearsay, and improper. Moreover, defendant
should not have been convicted of two counts of bribery involving one common scheme. The language of section 200.00 of the
Penal Law supports the two counts with which appellant was charged and of which he was convicted -- one relating to the offer
of the bribe and the other to the consummation thereof. However, confronted with similar language under section 72 of the
former Penal Law, the Court of Appeals stated in People v. Gibson (191 N. Y. 227, 230 [1908 ]): "We do not think that this
section would be so construed as to mean that a person might be punished for receiving a bribe and also separately and independently
for asking and also for agreeing to receive the same bribe, but that these separate acts, when forming a connected series
relative to the same subject-matter, would be regarded as constituting a single crime." Since appellant received concurrent
six-month sentences on the two counts no actual prejudice to the defendant resulted and we may correct [36 A.D.2d 818 Page
819]

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