Hurrell-harring v. State Of N.Y.
| Decision Date | 06 May 2010 |
| Citation | 930 N.E.2d 217,15 N.Y.3d 8 |
| Parties | Kimberly HURRELL-HARRING et al., on Behalf of Themselves and All Others Similarly Situated, Appellants,v.STATE of New York et al., Respondents. |
| Court | New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
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New York Civil Liberties Union Foundation, New York City (Corey Stoughton, Arthur Eisenberg, Christopher Dunn and Andrew Kalloch of counsel), and Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP (Gary Stein, Daniel Greenberg, Azmina Jasani and Kristie M. Blase of counsel), for appellants.
Andrew M. Cuomo, Attorney General, Albany (Barbara D. Underwood, Andrea Oser, Denise A. Hartman and Victor Paladino of counsel), for respondents.
Kathleen B. Hogan, District Attorney, Albany (Morries I. Kleinbart of counsel), for District Attorneys Association of the State of New York, amicus curiae.
Moskowitz, Book & Walsh, LLP, New York City (Susan J. Walsh of counsel), Norman L. Reimer, Washington, DC, Ivan Dominguez, Michael Getnick, Albany, Green & Willstatter, White Plains (Richard Willstatter of counsel), Ann Lesk, New York City, Bruce Green, Ellen C. Yaroshefsky, Adele Bernhard, White Plains, Jenny Rivera, Flushing, and Steve Zeidman for National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and others, amici curiae.
Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, New York City (Lawrence O. Kamin, Maor A. Portnoy and Joseph M. Azam of counsel), for the Fund for Modern Courts, amicus curiae.
Richards Kibbe & Orbe LLP, New York City (Lee S. Richards III, Arthur S. Greenspan and Eric S. Rosen of counsel), and Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law (David S. Udell and Alicia L. Bannon of counsel), for Michael A. Battle and others, amici curiae.
Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, New York City (Daniel F. Kolb, Daniel J. O'Neill, Jennifer Marcovitz and Lara Samet of counsel), and Legal Aid Society (Steven Banks and Janet Sabel of counsel), for Legal Aid Society, amicus curiae.
Jonathan E. Gradess, Albany, and Alfred O'Connor for New York State Defenders Association, amicus curiae.
David Loftis, New York City, Barry C. Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld for Innocence Project, Inc., amicus curiae.
The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees a criminal defendant “the right to ... have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence,” and since Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799 (1963) it has been established that that entitlement may not be effectively denied by the State by reason of a defendant's inability to pay for a lawyer. Gideon is not now controversial either as an expression of what the Constitution requires or as an exercise in elemental fair play. Serious questions have, however, arisen in this and other jurisdictions as to whether Gideon's mandate is being met in practice ( see e.g. Lavallee v. Justices in Hampden Superior Ct., 442 Mass. 228, 812 N.E.2d 895 [2004] ).
In New York, the Legislature has left the performance of the State's obligation under Gideon to the counties, where it is discharged, for the most part, with county resources and according to local rules and practices ( see County Law arts. 18-A, 18-B). Plaintiffs in this action, defendants in various criminal prosecutions ongoing at the time of the action's commencement in Washington, Onondaga, Ontario, Schuyler and Suffolk counties, contend that this arrangement, involving what is in essence a costly, largely unfunded and politically unpopular mandate upon local government, has functioned to deprive them and other similarly situated indigent defendants in the aforementioned counties of constitutionally and statutorily guaranteed representational rights. They seek a declaration that their rights and those of the class they seek to represent are being violated and an injunction to avert further abridgment of their right to counsel; they do not seek relief within the criminal cases out of which their claims arise.
This appeal results from dispositions of defendants' motion pursuant to CPLR 3211 to dismiss the action as nonjusticiable. Supreme Court denied the motion, but in the decision and order now before us (66 A.D.3d 84, 883 N.Y.S.2d 349 [2009] ) the sought relief was granted by the Appellate Division. That court held that there was no cognizable claim for ineffective assistance of counsel other than one seeking postconviction relief, and, relatedly, that violation of a criminal defendant's right to counsel could not be vindicated in a collateral civil proceeding, particularly where the object of the collateral action was to compel an additional allocation of public resources, which the court found to be a properly legislative prerogative. Two Justices dissented. They were of the view that violations of the right to counsel were actionable in contexts other than claims for postconviction relief, including a civil action such as that brought by plaintiffs. While recognizing that choices between competing social priorities are ordinarily for the Legislature, this did not, in the dissenters' judgment, excuse the Judiciary from its obligation to provide a remedy for violations of constitutional rights ( id. at 95, 883 N.Y.S.2d 349), especially when the alleged violations were “so interwoven with, and necessarily implicate[d], the proper functioning of the court system itself” ( id. at 96, 883 N.Y.S.2d 349).
Plaintiffs have appealed as of right from the Appellate Division's order pursuant to CPLR 5601(a) and (b)(1). We now reinstate the action, albeit with some substantial qualifications upon its scope.
Defendants' claim that the action is not justiciable rests principally on two theories: first, that there is no cognizable claim for ineffective assistance of counsel apart from one seeking relief from a conviction, and second, that recognition of a claim for systemic relief of the sort plaintiffs seek will involve the courts in the performance of properly legislative functions, most notably determining how public resources are to be allocated.
The first of these theories is rooted in case law conditioning relief for constitutionally ineffective assistance upon findings that attorney performance, when viewed in its total, case specific aspect, has both fallen below the standard of objective reasonableness ( see Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687-688, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 [1984] ), and resulted in prejudice, either with respect to the outcome of the proceeding ( id. at 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052) or, under this Court's somewhat less outcome oriented standard of “meaningful assistance,” to the defendant's right to a fair trial ( People v. Benevento, 91 N.Y.2d 708, 713-714, 674 N.Y.S.2d 629, 697 N.E.2d 584 [1998] ). Defendants reason that the prescribed, deferential ( see Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689, 104 S.Ct. 2052; Benevento, 91 N.Y.2d at 712, 674 N.Y.S.2d 629, 697 N.E.2d 584) and highly context sensitive inquiry into the adequacy and particular effect of counsel's performance cannot occur until a prosecution has concluded in a conviction, and that, once there is a conviction, the appropriate avenues of relief are direct appeals and the various other established means of challenging a conviction, such as CPL article 440 motions and petitions for writs of habeas corpus or coram nobis. They urge, in essence, that the present plaintiffs can, based upon their ongoing prosecutions, possess no ripe claim of ineffective assistance and that any ineffective assistance claims that might eventually be brought by them would, given the nature of the claim, have to be individually asserted and determined; they argue that a finding of constitutionally deficient performance-one necessarily rooted in the particular circumstances of an individual case-cannot serve as a predicate for systemic relief. Indeed, they remind us that the Supreme Court in Strickland has noted pointedly that “the purpose of the...
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Hurrell-Harring v. State
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