WHAT HAPPENS TO A MURDER CASE IF PROSECUTORS DON'T SHOW-UP FOR THE TRIAL?
-THEY GET ANOTHER CHANCE TO RETRY THE CASE, NY COURT RULES
-DECISION GUTS NEW YORK'S CONTROVERSIAL DISCOVERY REFORM LAWS
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What happens to a murder case when prosecutors don't show up for the trial? They get another chance, New York's second-highest court ruled on Thursday.
The unprecedented decision undermines New York's reformed criminal discovery laws, arms prosecutors with enormous power to delay criminal trials and appears to violate the U.S. Constitution's guarantee against charging criminal defendants twice for the same crime after they've been acquitted.
The trainwreck case comes from the small Hudson Valley city of Kingston, in Ulster County. The District Attorney's office there violated the law so many times prosecuting Raymond Snyder for murder 2021-22 that the presiding judge finally punished prosecutors by precluding them from presenting DNA evidence allegedly tying Snyder to the killing at Snyder's trial.
“The people must learn that if they seek to incarcerate and prosecute a defendant for murder," Ulster County Judge Bryan E. Rounds ruled, "they cannot play fast and loose with the new discovery mandate—or the defendant’s rights—lest they suffer the consequence.”
Instead of prosecuting Snyder with the remaining evidence, District Attorney David J. Clegg protested Judge Rounds's decision by boycotting his courtroom: he refused to show up for the trial. Judge Rounds selected and swore in a jury anyway.
When Clegg failed to present evidence because he decided not to attend the trial, Rounds dismissed the case.
Now prosecutors are getting a second chance to try Snyder for murder under a novel November 30 ruling from New York's intermediate appeals court, the Appellate Division.
"I have never come across a case where the prosecution failed to intentionally appear at a criminal trial for murder," Daniel H. Richland, an attorney representing Snyder, said during oral argument for the case October 11.
Not one of the five appeals judges assigned to decide the case disputed Richland's claim. Clegg, the prosecutor, didn't either.
Bryan Rounds being sworn in as a judge for Ulster County, New York, Jan. 2, 2020. Photo Credit: The Daily Freeman via YouTube.
Police found Romero K. Underwood, 47, mortally wounded inside his Kingston home July 11, 2020. He'd been stabbed and shot. Police analyzed blood droplets on a wall inside the residence for DNA. The DNA matched Snyder's, police said.
Police arrested Snyder, but prosecutors failed to indict him in the time required by New York law. Prosecutors also failed to turn over evidence in their possession to Snyder and his lawyer in the time required by New York law so that they could prepare a defense. They turned over hundreds of videos April 15, 2002—days before Snyder's scheduled trial. There were so many videos they crashed computers in the Ulster County public defenders’ office.
Prosecutors never turned over a required list of witnesses, at all.
Finally, two police officers lied, twice, during a court hearing held to determine whether their interrogation of Snyder was legal, according to Hudson Valley One. Among other things, the Supreme Court's famous 1966 Miranda v. Arizona decision requires police stop interrogations if suspects ask for a lawyer.
Kingston Police Department detective Brian Grotkin and officer Edward Shuman testified at the court hearing Snyder never asked for a lawyer and claimed he willingly submitted to five hours of police questioning. Second, they denied body camera footage of Snyder asking for a lawyer existed.
Hidden under the haystack of hundreds of videos prosecutors dumped on Snyder's lawyer days before Snyder's scheduled trial was a video from Grotkin's body camera capturing Snyder asking for a lawyer.
Other key pieces of evidence prosecutors failed to turn over to Snyder's lawyer until days before Snyder's trial were expert forensic reports allegedly identifying Snyder's DNA in blood found at the murder scene.
“In some instances, the people belatedly disclosed forensic reports … that they had had in their possession from up to six months before [Snyder] was even arrested and charged in this case,” Judge Rounds found.
Given the violations, Judge Rounds was legally required by New York's reformed discovery laws to impose a penalty.
New York's criminal procedure law covering discovery in criminal cases was reformed after George Floyd's 2020 murder by Minnesota police. The new law establishes "Remedies or sanctions for non-compliance." It requires judges "shall impose a remedy or sanction" for discovery violations "appropriate and proportionate to the prejudice suffered by the party entitled to disclosure."
The new law explicitly allows judges to "preclude or strike a witness's testimony or a portion of a witness's testimony."
Judge Rounds decided to give Snyder's defense lawyer a choice to choose the sanction for all the prosecution's violations from one of three options: adjourn the trial so he could review the belatedly disclosed evidence; give an "adverse inference charge" to the jury; or restrict the prosecution's expert testimony.
Snyder's lawyer chose the latter and Judge Rounds ruled the prosecution's expert testimony was inadmissible.
That's when Clegg told the Court he "cannot participate in the jury selection at this time given that [the] case is legally insufficient based on the preclusions," court records show.
Judge Rounds asked Clegg if he understood what would happen next. Clegg answered he did: "defendant would move to dismiss the indictment at trial."
Dave Clegg, Ulster County District Attorney. Photo Credit: Clegg for DA via Facebook.
The Appellate Division condemned what Judge Rounds did as "legal theater." While trial courts have broad powers to manage the cases it has to decide, the appeals court ruled, they can't "proceed with a charade of a trial and then, based on that charade, dismiss the indictment." There is no "statutory basis for this path crafted" by the trial court.
Because of this, the Appellate Division reasoned, the defendant's Constitutional "double jeopardy rights are not implicated because the relevant part of the underlying criminal proceeding is being nullified and a new trial could take place."
The Appellate Division's decision appears to violate criminal procedure rules established decades ago by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Constitution prohibits "double jeopardy" in criminal cases and jeopardy attaches when a jury is sworn in, under well-established Supreme Court precedent.
Richland, Snyder's lawyer, is almost certain to request the required permission to appeal to the New York Court of Appeals—but he did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
Clegg, the prosecutor, became the first Democrat elected Ulster County District Attorney after more than a century of Republicans in 2019. Several experienced prosecutors left the office in response to his election, the Albany Times Union reported. His Chief Assistant, Emmanuel “Manny” Nneji, was the third and final assistant district attorney to prosecute the case against Snyder.
Clegg did not run for re-election in November, but Nneji did—and won. He takes over from Clegg January 1.
Neither Clegg nor Nneji responded to inquires whether they intend to retry Snyder.
After Judge Rounds dismissed the case against Snyder in 2022, prosecutors charged Callin LeMon, 34, with Underwood's murder. A jury acquitted LeMon earlier this year in June. The admitted drug-dealer was sentenced to 10 years in prison anyway, for other crimes, The Daily Freeman reported.
Viewed large, the Appellate Division's ruling in Snyder's case demonstrates the limited power of minor changes to words in legal statutes to reform the state's criminal justice system. Simply stated, legislatures can tinker all they want, but small, incremental changes mean little if reactionary judges can mine ways to thwart reform.
Not only laws but judges too must be changed if intended reforms are to be carried through and given effect in real life.
Appeals to New York's highest court, the Court of Appeals, are by permission only. It rarely reviews decisions in criminal cases. Still, it is likely to grant review in this case.
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