When the Appellate Division, Second Department, reversed a criminal conviction, that’s news.  Some would say it’s because the trial judges in the Second are so good that reversals are few and far between.  Others would attribute it to other reasons.

But following on the heals of the First Department’s Conway reversal, possibly one of the most disturbing decisions in recent memory, the Second brings us People v. Feola.  No blood and guts in this one.  Frankly, a fairly straight forward false statement case, with P.O. Feola being prosecuted for sending the Kings County District Attorney’s office a false affidavit.  In an unsigned decision (but with the bench led by Presiding Justice Stephen Crane of Subway Vigilante,  Bernie Goetz, fame), the Court held the evidence insufficient.

How could this be?  According to the Court, the prosecution failed to prove that the signature on the affidavit was that of Officer Feola.  Huh?  Suddenly, they don’t know how to prove a signature?  If it were some skel whose signature was at issue, they would have about a thousand exemplars to prove it.  But here, we have a police officer, who has likely signed at least a hundred (if not a thousand) complaints.  They should have been able to prove his signature blindfolded.

The problem in this case arose when the ADA faxed the affidavit to the officer at the precinct.  He received a faxed affidavit back.  It bore what appeared to be Officer Feola’s signature.  But that, alone the Court concluded, was insufficient.  What other proof was offered the decision doesn’t say, though the Court does note that “The People inexplicably failed to proffer any direct evidence that the affidavit bore the actual signature of the defendant. “

Well, consider if you will the implications.  Does this mean that complaints (or Informations, as we New Yorkers call them before they are duly converted by a supporting deposition) must hereinafter be dismissed at arraignment for facial insufficiency when they do not contain an original signature?  Is it only when the accusatory instrument is faxed, or does copying count?  If the faxed signature is untrustworthy in Feola’s case, why is it sufficient to put some other poor schmuck in jail?

But the real question is here is why did Charles (“Joe”) Hynes’ office throw the case?  Was it sheer incompetence or the desire to curry favor with the boys in blue?  There’s just no way that the trial assistant was so utterly clueless that he didn’t know how to prove a signature.  Ah, it’s good to be a cop when you’re a criminal defendant in New York.  Milton Williams words, in his dissent in Conway, keep a’ringing.