This article contains the annual review of new legislation amending the Penal Law, Criminal Procedure Law and other related statutes. The discussion that follows will primarily highlight key provisions of the new laws and as such the reader should review the legislation for specific details. In some instances, where indicated, legislation enacted by both houses is awaiting the governor’s signature and, of course, the reader must check to determine whether a bill is ultimately signed or vetoed by the governor.
Part one of the review, which follows, discusses four substantive changes that were enacted as part of the budget bill: evidence of identification by photographs; videotaping of confessions; raising the age of criminal responsibility; and sealing of prior convictions. As discussed in the two prior columns (NYLJ June 2, 2017 and Aug. 7, 2017), a new law permits evidence, at trial, that a witness identified a defendant from a photograph provided, however, that a “blind” or “blinded” identification procedure was utilized by the police (L. 2017, Ch. 59, eff. July 1, 2017). The legislation overruled a 90-year-old evidentiary rule in New York that had precluded such evidence as part of the prosecutor’s evidence-in-chief.
