New York Civil Rights And Criminal Law Blog

A person in New York can file a lawsuit against you to defame, harass, intimidate or injure you emotionally or psychologically for no absolute reason. If that's what is happening to you right now, keep reading to learn more about how you can protect yourself. What is malicious prosecution? Malicious prosecution is when someone brings a baseless lawsuit to scare or injure you in one way or another. Of course, these suits often fail, but they will definitely cause you damage. For instance, you'll lose money in attorney fees and waste your time proving your innocence even though they know that...

Not every crime involves violence or force, and many people find themselves suffering financial losses due to fraud, misrepresentation and other acts of financial misconduct. Some may suggest that the United States currently faces a white-collar crime wave. While victims might not suffer physical harm, they could deal with the terrible consequences of monetary losses. A rash of white-collar crimes White-collar criminal activities are nothing new, but 2022 logged many high-profile instances of such behavior. Public awareness may increase when public figures, such as politicians, become...

New York is a state with a large and complex legal system. That system is far from perfect, and one of the biggest issues is the fact that historically, defendants often did not get access to all the evidence against them. The Blindfold Law The so-called blindfold law was a set of rules that, for most of the history of the state, prevented defendants from being able to know what evidence the state was using against them when they were charged with a crime. This created a very unfair legal environment, because many defendants were forced to plead guilty to crimes they had never committed out...

Even with the best defense, it is possible to lose your criminal case and face jail time. The justice system requires fairness and impartiality, but there are times when the system becomes compromised by misconduct, improper jury instructions or misapplication of the law. New York allows for an individual who loses a case to file an appeal. This process asks a higher court to review the decision in place with the hopes of having it changed in the defendant’s favor. Participants in an appeal The individual seeking the appeal becomes the appellant, and the party on the other side becomes the...

The legal process in the U.S. is set according to constitutional guarantees for American citizens. However, each state has the autonomy to write legislation that impacts how due process plays out when a defendant goes to court. The civil and criminal processes can be much different in that a civil case is decided on a preponderance of the evidence while a criminal case is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The problem that many criminal defendants face is the latitude within the concept of what reasonable doubt actually is, as many times convictions are reached on borderline or weak evidence....