Criminal Law Library Blog
In an earlier posting on this blog we reported that on February 23, 2010 a divided Panel of the Appellate Division, First Department, New York Supreme Court ruled in People v. Correa (2010 NY Slip Op. 01533) that the 2004 merger of the criminal courts in the Bronx into a single court with jurisdiction to handle both felonies and misdemeanors is unconstitutional. That Appellate Division ruling has now been overturned by the New York Court of Appeals in a single 6-0 opinion on June 3, 2010 that decided three cases–People v. Correa, People v. Fernandez, and People v. Mack, upholding administrative experiments that have New York State Supreme Court judges presiding over misdemeanor cases as well as felonies within a merged Bronx Supreme Court Criminal Division and an Integrated Domestic Violence (IDV) Court in Brooklyn.
The high court’s ruling regarding IDV Courts also applies to 44 other IDV Courts throught the State of New York. that centralizes the handling of all aspects of domestic disputes, including criminal charges, in one court. The judges noted that neither the New York Constitution nor its statutes call into question the legality of either court addressed in this opinion.
See also the following articles which discuss this New York Court of Appeals opinion and its implications:
PEOPLE v. CORREA
Leagle.com Article VI of the New York Constitution – the Judiciary Article – created a “unified court system for the state” (NY Const, art VI, § 1) and vested the …
High Court Upholds Merged Bronx Criminal Part, IDV Courts
New York Law Journal The creation of the unified court system “was prompted in part by the uneven … it usurped the role of the New York Criminal Court under Article VI, §15, …
State’s highest court upholds merger of two Bronx courts
New York Daily News “The New York Constitution vests Supreme Court with the power to hear any case that any other court in the (Unified Court System) could hear,” Judge …
Ruling Averts Chaos in Bronx Courts – City Room Blog – NYTimes.com By By SAM DOLNICK
New York’s highest court ruled Thursday that a 2004 merger of the Bronx’s Criminal Court and Supreme Court was constitutional, overruling a lower court decision that the state’s former chief judge had overstepped her bounds. The decision averted the chaos … “We hold that the administrators of the unified court system were empowered under our State Constitution and the judiciary law to adopt these rules,” the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, ruled Thursday. …