People v. Robinson
| Decision Date | 30 November 1965 |
| Citation | 265 N.Y.S.2d 722,48 Misc.2d 799 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Plaintiff, v. Lonnie ROBINSON, Defendant. |
| Court | New York Supreme Court |
Anthony F. Marra, New York City, for defendant; James M. Mackin, Kew Gardens, of counsel.
Frank D. O'Connor, Dist. Atty., Queens County, Morton Greenspan, Asst. Dist. Atty., of counsel, opposed.
Motion by the defendant, appearing by Legal Aid Society, 'for an Order furnishing the indigent defendant, free of charge, with a copy of the testimony produced at the preliminary hearing.' The defendant has been indicted, together with another, on charges of Assault in the Second Degree (2 counts).
He states that by reason of his indigent condition he cannot pay for the costs of the transcript of the testimony given at his hearing in the Criminal Court of the City of New York and, therefore, asks that it be furnished to him gratis.
Section 206 of the New York Code of Criminal Procedure provides:
'If the defendant be held to answer the charge, the magistrate or his clerk having the custody of the depositions taken on the information or examination, and of the statement of the defendant, must, on payment of his fees at the rate of of five cents for every hundred words, and within two days after demand, furnish to the defendant, or his counsel, a copy of the depositions and statement, or permit either of them to take a copy.'
The defendant contends that his right to the transcript here sought should not depend upon whether he is rich or poor, and since an affluent defendant could, upon payment of the appropriate fees, receive a copy of the testimony given at the preliminary hearing, he, as an indigent defendant, is entitled to the same treatment.
For this position, the defendant relies principally upon the cases of Griffin v. People of State of Illinois, 351 U.S. 12, 76 S.Ct. 585, 100 L.Ed. 891; Lane v. Brown, 372 U.S. 477, 83 S.Ct. 768, 9 L.Ed.2d 892; Draper v. State of Washington, 372 U.S. 487, 83 S.Ct. 774, 9 L.Ed.2d 899, and the New York cases of People v. Rosario, 9 N.Y.2d 286, 213 N.Y.S.2d 448, 173 N.E.2d 881, and People v. Malinsky, 15 N.Y.2d 86, 262 N.Y.S.2d 65, 209 N.E.2d 694.
The defendant does not come within the procedural framework of any of the principles enunciated in the cited cases. The three United States Supreme Court cases merely stand for the proposition that '[d]estitute defendants must be afforded as adequate appellate review as defendants who have money enough to buy transcripts' (Griffin v. People of State of Illinois, 351 U.S. 12, 19, 76 S.Ct. 585, 591) and that 'a State denies a constitutional right guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment if it allows all convicted defendants to have appellate review except those who cannot afford to pay for the records of their trials.' (Eskridge v. Washington State Board of Prison Terms, etc., 357 U.S. 214, 216, 78 S.Ct. 1061, 1062, 2 L.Ed.2d 1269.
Those cases are, therefore, not in point, for the right to receive minutes of a preliminary hearing stands upon a different footing from the right to prosecute an appeal. An appeal cannot ordinarily be processed without the inclusion in the record of the testimony in the court below. Thus, to withhold from an indigent defendant a transcript of the trial testimony would totally frustrate his right to appeal--a right given to defendants who could afford to pay for such a transcript--and would, therefore, be a denial to him of due process. However, such a defendant's rights are not destroyed, and in most cases not even impaired, by the refusal to furnish him at Stae expense with a transcript of testimony elicited at a preliminary hearing. True it is that it might be useful to him in the cross-examination of witnesses, but so too might other procedural devices be useful to him, which an affluent defendant could use, but he could not obtain or exercise because of his indigency. An affluent defendant might be able to...
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United States v. LaVallee
...now grant relief if there is a basis in the record for doing so. Compare People v. Montgomery, supra, with People v. Robinson, 48 Misc.2d 799, 265 N.Y.S.2d 722 (Sup.Ct.1965); see also N.Y. County Law, McK.Consol. Laws, c. 11, § 722-c, eff. Dec. 1, It also seems clear that the state courts w......
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People v. Powell
...right to the assistance of an independent psychiatrist, or other expert, at the public's expense." In People v. Robinson, 48 Misc.2d 799, 801, 265 N.Y.S.2d 722, 724, the Court said: "The equalization guarantee is not to provide an indigent with everything that a wealthier person could affor......
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