Michael Fineman, Esq.

03/05/2022

Steven Zajonc, a 29-year-old Florida man whose last known address is a Midtown homeless shelter, appeared in Manhattan Criminal Court Friday on charged he elbowed, punched and pushed seven Asian women over two hours on Sunday.

06/24/2021

Speedy Trial Rights during the Pandemic in New York.

There has been a lot of confusion as to the Right to a Speedy Trial in New York during the Covid 19 Pandemic. For the purposed of this post, I am only addressing New York's Statutory right to a speedy trial under Criminal Procedure Law Sec. 30.30. I don't think there has been much litigation on the issue of Federal Constitutional Speedy Trial Rights during the pandemic.

Under New York Criminal Procedure Law 30.30, the Government has specific time limits under which they need to be "ready" to proceed to trial. Depending on the severity of the offense charged, those time limits can be longer or shorter, and there may be many statutory exceptions as to whether a particular time period counts against the government. During the Covid 19 Pandemic, Governor Cuomo signed numerous Executive Orders that suspended or tolled the time under the Speedy Trial Statute.

As of March 20, 2020, the Governor signed Executive Order 202.8 that - among other things, suspended statutory speedy trial until April 19, 2020. This order was extended many times until October 4, 2020 when the Governor signed Executive Order 202.67.

Executive Order 202.67 appears to have reinstated speedy trial on all misdemeanor matters everywhere in the State, and all indicted felony matters outside of the City of New York as of October 4, 2020. In the City of New York, the Speedy Trial time frames were reinstated for indicted felony matters as of October 19, 2020. In New York City only, the Speedy Trial time for unindicted felonies continued to be suspended until they were either indicted, or until January 2, 2021.

On December 30, 2020 the Governor signed Executive Order 202.87 which appears to have suspended statutory Speedy Trial on all unindicted felonies only.

Finally, on May 6, 2021 the Governor signed Executive Order 202.106 which terminated all remaining suspensions of statutory Speedy Trial in New York State as of May 23, 2021.

If you have a pending criminal case in New York City and you want an experienced attorney to review your case to determine if your New York State right to a speedy trial has been violated, please call us to set up an appointment.

08/27/2020

Being arrested is evidence of nothing. Innocent people can be accused of crimes, and this man served 37 years for a crime he did not commit.

DNA evidence cleared a Florida man held in prison for 37 years for the r**e and murder of a 19-year-old, Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren announced on Wednesday.

08/15/2020

Defense attorney Michael Fineman described the charges against his client as “ridiculous,” and said they were an attempt to punish unpopular speech.

Prosecutors described Shaikh Faisal, 56, as one of the world’s most influential radical Islamist preachers.

03/23/2020

Pursuant to the executive orders of the Governor and the orders of the the leaders of Unified Court System, here is a list of the only matters that will be heard during this emergency.

03/17/2020

There is a lot of confusion about the status of the Courts in light of COVID-19, and I am going to try to give some information to help people understand what is happening in the Criminal Courts of the State of New York.

Last Friday, March 13, 2020 we learned that there would be no new juries empaneled for the foreseeable future. That meant that there will be no new jury trials in criminal matters until the crises has abated or the Courts come up with a plan to have trials in these uncertain times. Additionally, we learned that no new Grand Juries would be impaneled. This means there were would not be any new indictments being handed down in the foreseeable future.

This leaves two major question unanswered.

1) If a person gets arrested for an offense where bail is permitted to be set and they are incarcerated waiting indictment, how long will they be held without an indictment. Typically, under New York State Law, section 180.80 of the Criminal Procedure Law sets an outside time limit on the time a person can be held, however, in light of the current situation, it appears that the Governor has, or will suspend the time limitations under 180.80.

2) Under Criminal Procedure Law 30.30, there are limitation for the time a case may remain pending without being tried to conclusion, and there are limitations on how long a person can be held in custody until their case is brought to trial. While I haven't seen a declaration yet, in previous crisis like 9/11 and Hurricane Sandy, the Governor has suspended speedy trial under CPL section 30.30.

As for things we actually know:

The Courts are OPEN, but only for what is deemed "essential" matters, and they are very limited.

For example, if a person is arrested, there will be an arraignment where the accused will be informed of their charges and the determination to release them on recognizance or to set bail will be made.

All pending cases in the immediate future will be administratively adjourned without an actual court appearance. For cases where the accused is out on bail or recognizance, the Court will be putting matters over for about 90 days, and will notify the parties of the new court date. For cases where the accused is incarcerated, the matter will be adjourned for about 30 days.

These are unprecedented times and things are changing by the day. The Court's website is the best place to get up to day information located at: http://www.nycourts.gov

We at the Law Office of Michael Fineman hope that you and your family come out the other side of this crisis safe and sound. If you have an emergency please call us at 212-233-4500 and leave a message. We will be checking our messages frequently.

The official home page of the New York State Unified Court System. We hear more than three million cases a year involving almost every type of endeavor. We hear family matters, personal injury claims, commercial disputes, trust and estates issues, criminal cases, and landlord-tenant cases.

02/18/2020

There is a crisis in New York due to a lack of attorneys willing to represent the poorest New Yorkers with Family Court and Criminal Court cases because there hasn’t been an increase in compensation in over 15 years.

Please support this bill so that even NY’s poorest litigants in family court and criminal court get quality legal representation.

Provides the amount of compensation an attorney shall receive from representing a client which was assigned to the attorney through the bar association.

11/06/2019

There are bad cops... and there are Bad Cops... some good ones too

11/01/2019

Call us so we can work to avoid this kind of affection