rom the Defense Table F

The ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic affected all of us in our individual lives and in our representation of clients in criminal cases. For many, the focus in the early days of the pandemic turned to furiously filing writs to obtain the release from custody of some of our most high-risk clients. Many trials were indefinitely postponed and new strategies had to be learned and developed to defend our client’s rights in this new landscape. Despite the adjournments, postponements, and general uncertainty, our membership continued to fight. Here is a small sampling of some of what has been achieved by our members in court. Read it and take heart that while our work is never done, it is sometimes won:

Trial Court Dismissal of Sex Crimes on Statute of Limitation Grounds

May 21, 2021

NYSACDL mem- ber Rob Caliendo secured the dismissal of a six count indictment in Nassau county charging his client with course of sexual conduct against a child in the second degree and other charges. Nearly twenty years after the alleged conduct occurred, and nearly a decade after it allegedly ended, his client was arrested and charged with sexually abusing his step-grandchildren. The case was brought in September of last year and although his client was able to remain out on bail he was facing a prison sentence if convicted which, at 80+ years old, would have been a death sentence. Caliendo moved to dismiss the entire case on ex post facto grounds, arguing that New York’s 2019 Child Victims Act – which extended the Statutes of Limitations for certain sex offenses – was unconstitutional as applied to his client based on Supreme Court precedent that such laws cannot revive already expired claims. He also moved to dismiss on alternative ex post facto grounds where one of the counts criminalized conduct that wasn’t illegal when it was alleged to have occurred. The DA orally conceded the motion and the Court dismissed the case in its entirety.

First Department Grants Gun Suppression

NYSACDL Member Peter H. Tilem, Esq., of Tilem & Associates, P.C., White Plains obtained a reversal and dismissal of a gun charge for his client on March 30, 2021.

Police in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City stopped a vehicle with Massachusetts license plates for running a red light. Because the driver seemed nervous, the police asked him to step out of the vehicle. A police sergeant asked the driver about weapons in the vehicle, which had three passengers. Police claimed that the driver made an ambiguous response about the man in the front seat. They removed the front seat passenger from the

Continued on next page