|
NEW YORK---Manhattan prosecutors have indicated that they will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate the murder conviction of the man whose killing of a woman was the impetus for Kendra's Law, a state law which allows the court-ordered treatment of mentally ill patients.
The murder conviction of Andrew Goldstein, 36, convicted in May 2000 of second degree murder for pushing Kendra Webdale, 32, to her death in front of an oncoming subway train, was overturned in December by the Court of Appeals in a 6-1 decision.
The Court reversed the conviction and ordered a new trial, ruling that Goldstein's constitutional right to be confronted with the witnesses against him was violated when a psychiatrist who testified for the prosecution recounted statements made to her by people who were not available for cross examination.
http://www.courts.state.ny.us/ctapps/decisions/dec05/155opn05.pdf
The new trial would be Goldstein's third as the first one ended with a hung jury.
At a court appearance in the case last week, Manhattan prosecutor Morrie Kleinbart said he will file a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court by March asking them to hear the case.
Goldstein is serving 25 years to life. The court decision did not release him from jail.
On Jan. 3, 1999, Goldstein, of Fredonia, then 30, an occasionally violent schizophrenic, shoved the woman, who he didn't know, into the path of an oncoming subway train in Manhattan.
Goldstein's case resulted in the enactment of Kendra's Law which allows compulsory court-ordered treatment of the mentally ill. The law was signed by Gov. George Pataki in 1999 and allows government to supervise mental patients who live in communities to insure that they don't hurt themselves or others and that they take their prescribed anti-psychotic medications.
Although Goldstein had been prescribed medication for schizophrenia, he did not take it.
Writing for the majority, Judge Robert Smith said that "the constitutional rules that guarantee defendants a fair trial must be enforced and few such rules are more important that the one that guarantees defendants the right to confront witnesses against them".
The reversal was mandated as the result of the landmark opinion rendered by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 2004 decision in Crawford v. Washington which bars testimonial hearsay in criminal cases unless the defendant can question the witness as such violates the Confrontation Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Prosecutors agreed that Goldstein suffered from a mental illness but said that was using his disability as an excuse whenever he behaved anti-socially.
Judge Susan Phillips Read was the sole dissenting vote, saying that while the testimony of Dr. Angela Hegarty, the psychiatrist, should have been limited, the conviction should still stand because the statements the psychiatrist made were "harmless" and did not affect the outcome of the case.
Court Overturns Conviction In Kendra's Law Case 1-24-06
© 2005 North
Country Gazette
|
