This column reports on several significant, representative decisions handed down recently in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Judge Joanna Seybert vacated a state conviction on grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel and the admission of irrelevant, prejudicial evidence. Judge Nina Gershon granted a motion by defendant, a college president, for entry of judgment against herself in the amount of nine dollars without a concession of liability regarding plaintiffs’ First Amendment claims. Judge Jack B. Weinstein declined to certify a class of persons who had bought defendants’ prepaid calling cards. And Judge Arthur D. Spatt made various rulings in denying a motion to dismiss.
Habeas Relief
In Nelson v. Brown, 06 CV116 (EDNY, Nov. 25, 2009), Judge Seybert granted a §2254 petition to vacate a 1999 state court robbery conviction on two separate grounds: (1) ineffective assistance of counsel in failing to seek a remedy for the prosecution’s loss of contemporaneous notes by an eyewitness to the crime; and (2) the patently erroneous and unduly prejudicial admission at trial of a 1993 arrest photograph relating to a different offense.
