People v. Sayers
| Decision Date | 18 July 1966 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Bruce B. SAYERS et al., Appellants. |
| Court | New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division |
Ungerman & Harris, Albany, for appellants (Joseph Harris, Albany, of counsel).
M. Andrew Dwyer, Jr., for respondent (Donald J. Shanley, Troy, of counsel).
Before GIBSON, P.J., and TAYLOR, AULISI, STALEY and HERLIHY, JJ.
Appeals from adjudications of the County Court of Renesselaer County that defendants are youthful offenders.
The defendants, each approximately 18 years of age, were indicted for burglary in the third degree and grand larceny in the first degree and pursuant to recommendation by the District Attorney and upon their own consent were tried as youthful offenders; and at the conclusion of the trial each was adjudicated such and was sentenced accordingly.
The burglary and larceny involved a county home and occurred between the hours of 6:15 P.M., at which time the owner left it, then observing the defendants nearby, and 8:30 P.M., when she returned, to find that the house had been entered and that a quantity of jewelry and currency, the latter including silver dollars, had been stolen. Two sets of footprints extended from the rear of the house to the highway. On that same evening, or very soon thereafter, defendants bought ice cream at a drug store and each paid for his purchase with a silver dollar. The jewelry was subsequently found at the home of one of the defendants. There was proof of a written confession by one defendant and of an oral confession by the other. Each was disputed as involuntary and as obtained by physical force and coercion; and each was received in evidence after hearings thereon conducted during the progress of the nonjury trial, in substantial compliance with the decision in People v. Huntley, 15 N.Y.2d 72, 255 N.Y.S.2d 838, 204 N.E.2d 179 which was handed down while the trial was in progress. There was warrant for a finding that each confession was voluntary and for a finding, upon the entire record, that each defendant was guilty.
The conviction must be reversed, however, for legal error. Initially, the defendant Trevail was sworn only as a witness on the preliminary examination into the voluntariness of his confession and grave error, deprivative of his Constitutional right against self-incrimination, occurred when the District Attorney was permitted to undertake an extended cross-examination, over proper and repeated objections, upon the issue of his guilt or innocence. (People v. Lacy, 25 A.D.2d 788, 270 N.Y.S.2d 1014.) The cross-examination, covering six pages of the transcript, related to defendant's activities on the evening of the burglary; tracing his movements in great detail; eliciting the name or identity of one or more possible witness; involving him in the ice cream purchase at the drug store and forcing an explanation as to the source of the silver dollars there expended. Indeed, the People's brief on this appeal refers to defendants' attempts to 'explain away the damaging fact of their possession of silver dollars at the East Greenbush Pharmacy that night', and that proof was first elicited upon the improper cross-examination of defendant Trevail early in the case and before the reception of the testimony of a number of other witnesses, including the pharmacy clerk, whose evident uncertainty might conceivably have been greater had not defendant preceded her on the stand. The respondent's assertion that any error or impropriety was of no moment, inasmuch as Trevail later testified in his own behalf, seems to us specious.
In view of this conclusion, we do not reach the other questions raised by appellants.
Judgments reversed, on the law and the facts and in the interests of justice, and a new trial ordered.
HERLIHY, J., dissents and votes to affirm in the following memorandum.
The majority decision for reversal and a new trial is premised on the sole ground that on the preliminary examination...
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People v. Sayers
...As a part of the appellate process in the present case, this Court held that the statements now at issue were voluntary. (26 A.D.2d 736, 737, 272 N.Y.S.2d 95, 96) The prior appeal to our court was not further appealed and should be In People v. Huntley, 15 N.Y.2d 72, 77, 78, 255 N.Y.S.2d 83......
- People v. Sayers
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People v. Sykes
...or admission is voluntary beond a reasonable doubt (People v. Williams, 25 A.D.2d 612, 267 N.Y.S.2d 350; cf. People v. Sayers, 26 A.D.2d 736, 737, 272 N.Y.S.2d 95, 97). While a completely separate hearing on voluntariness may perhaps not be required in nonjury cases (cf. Code Crim.Pro., § 8......