Criminal
Court in Westchester County and Putnam County New York
We have compiled in an easy to use format
information about the variety of criminal courts that make up
Westchester County and Putnam County New York Criminal Court systems.
Criminal cases in Westchester and Putnam
Counties are handled according to the seriousness of the charges.
See below for brief descriptions of the meanings of the different forms
of criminal accusations and a general idea of how the system divides the
cases among the various courts.
Click on the links that follow to go
immediately to the Westchester County
New York Criminal Court Information Section or the
Putnam County New York Criminal Court
Information Section.
The Progress of Criminal
Cases in Westchester County and Putnam County, New York
Criminal Cases in
Westchester County and
Putnam County (as well as the rest of New York) are divided into
misdemeanors and felonies.
Other offenses in New York that are not considered criminal are called
violations. Violations, like disorderly conduct, or certain forms
of harassment, will generally be heard in the smaller local town and
village courts in Westchester County and Putnam County.
Misdemeanors
Misdemeanor cases in Westchester County
and Putnam County are generally handled in one of the variety of local
Courts located throughout Westchester and Putnam County.
Misdemeanors are less serious than
felonies, although they are considered criminal convictions and can
carry up to one year in jail as a maximum punishment (in addition to
various fines and surcharges).
Examples of misdemeanors include driving
while intoxicated as a first offense (DWI), most shoplifting
accusations, assault in which the injury alleged is not severe, certain
minor drug possession accusations, and violations of certain orders of
protection.
Felonies
Felony cases in Westchester County and
Putnam County are handled in the central County Court located in each
county, although arraignments (first appearance after arrest) and some
preliminary matters for felony cases may be handled at the local city
court level.
Felonies are more serious charges,
carrying punishments all the way up to the death penalty for certain
homicide crimes.
Examples of felonies include robbery,
certain dwi accusations, most gun and drug possession accusations,
serious assault accusations, theft of large amounts of money or
property, and others.
Felony convictions also have a variety of
non-prison consequences as well, and in some cases these non-prison
consequences can be even more devastating to the life of the person
convicted than the jail time. For example, non-citizens (including
legal residents) who are convicted of felonies are at extreme risk of
being deported back to countries they may have never really lived and
where they have no connection. Felony convictions also result in
the loss of certain civil rights, like the right to vote, and can make
it illegal for the person convicted to ever possess a firearm.
Progress of Felony
The local Town,
Village, or City courts will conduct the arraignment of the defendant on
the initial felony complaint charges, preside over the initial court
appearances, and will handle felony hearings before a case is
potentially sent to a Westchester County Grand Jury for indictment.
Felony Plea Bargaining
While a felony
complaint is pending in a local Town, Village, or City Court, and before
a case has been indicted by a Grand Jury, the prosecution and defense
can and sometimes do agree to resolve a felony matter by way of a plea
bargain.
Occasionally those
accused of felony charges seek to avoid the risks associated with going
to trial (and possibly losing) by striking an agreement with the
Government to accept a felony plea bargain. A person accused can,
under the right circumstances, obtain a commitment of a plea to a lesser
charge and no prison in exchange for a plea of guilty.
There are a number of
factors that must be considered when engaging in pre-indictment felony
plea bargaining. They include: the level of the felony offense,
whether the charge is a violent felony charge, the accused's prior
criminal history or lack thereof, and the strength of the prosecution
case and the potential witnesses, mandatory prison sentences in the
event of conviction, the willingness of the witnesses to cooperate, and
of course whether the accused is interested in negotiations at all.
Certainly a person who is innocent may choose to forgo all plea
negotiations out of hand regardless of all else. In fact, the
criminal justice system tell us that those who claim innocence are
generally not permitted to take guilty pleas and must instead place
their faith and indeed their lives in the concept that the criminal
justice system will always generate the correct result.
Felony Hearings in
Westchester and Putnam Counties
Felony hearings are
preliminary hearings in felony cases required by law when the government
wants to hold a person in jail on felony charges without an indictment.
At a felony hearing, the government must prove that there is reasonable
cause to believe that a crime was committed. This is not anything
close to the burden of proof required at trial (beyond a reasonable
doubt) but does force the government to present some of their witnesses
and expose them to cross-examination by a defense lawyer.
Grand Jury
The Grand Jury is a
group of people who gather to hear evidence on felony charges. The
job of the Grand Jury is not to consider whether the Government has
proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt. Instead the Grand Jury
is there to decide whether the Government has presented enough of a case
to justify taking the accused to trial. That is why an indictment
is not a finding of guilt. One way of thinking of an indictment is
as a written permission slip for the Government to take a person to
trial on a particular criminal charge.
Although people accused
do have the right to testify before the Grand Jury, it is generally
considered among criminal defense lawyers to be a risky move. The
Grand Jury is run by the District Attorney's Office. The witnesses
presented by the Government are presented in secret and they are not
cross-examined by defense counsel. In fact, defense counsel is not
entitled to know precisely who testified or what they said.
Defense counsel is not permitted to speak to the Grand Jury in any way.
Only the person accused is allowed to speak and is required to make a
long narrative statement. After he makes his statement, the
District Attorney is allowed to cross-examine him at will. In
short, it is not considered a defendant friendly place (not that
anyplace is considered a defendant friendly place).
As a result of the
obstacles to being in a position to meet the accusations and
cross-examine the accusers, the Grand Jury is not a place where people
accused of crimes have a great deal of success. It is the rare
case indeed in which a person accused of a crime receives a "No True
Bill" or dismissal from the Grand Jury.
If the Grand Jury does
dismiss a case, that is pretty much the end of it and the case is
usually over. Therefore, many people initially see it as great
chance to try to win the case. The difficulty is that the odds are
so stacked against the accused in the Grand Jury that the benefit of
potentially winning the case is actually more often than not outweighed
by the damage that could be caused by making statements under oath that
could be used against the accused later in the far more likely event
that the Grand Jury votes to indict. Realize that a vote to indict
is not a vote to convict. A Grand Juror could honestly believe
that the accused could be absolutely innocent and still vote to indict.
The standard to indict a person is essentially merely, "Is it possible
that the person committed the crime?"
After Indictment
Once the case is
indicted by a Grand Jury, the case is then transferred to County Court.
In Westchester, County Court is located
in White Plains. In Putnam County,
County Court is located in Carmel.
The County Courts will
then handle all aspects of the prosecution of the indictment from
arraignment on the indictment, through motion practice, possible
suppression hearings, plea conferences, and ultimately until the case is
completed after a trial verdict, disposed of by plea negotiations, or
dismissed for legal reasons.
