Judicial Reports: LexPress: Jumping Off Point

By Jesse Sunenblick
jsunenblick@judicialstudies.com
Posted: 03-05-08 

Criminal charges are reinstated against skydiver Jeb Corliss, for his attempted jump from the Empire State Building. In other news, The Village Voice chats up city attorneys about the questionable strategy of prosecutors in the Sean Bell case.

JUMPERS 
The Appellate Division has reinstated criminal charges against Jeb Corliss, the professional skydiver who tried to jump from the 86th-floor observation deck of the Empire State Building in April 2006. The New York Law Journal has the story. In January, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Michael Ambrecht dismissed reckless endangerment charges against Corliss, after finding that while his “conduct was dangerous and ill conceived, [it] did not rise to the level of depraved indifference.” But while the appeals court agreed that a faulty jury charge about the mental state required for reckless endangerment warranted dismissing the first-degree reckless endangerment charge, it reinstated a lesser charge of second-degree reckless endangerment, a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail. In his ill-fated attempt, Corliss donned a prosthetic fat suit and mask to avoid being recognized as he entered the observation deck. Before he could jump, security guards intervened and handcuffed him to the fence.

ACTING IN CONCERT 
The Village Voice wonders whether the prosecutors’ approach in the Sean Bell case is a dead end tactic that might lead to the exoneration of the three cops on trial for manslaughter. Apparently, prosecutors are trying to convince Queens Supreme Court Justice Arthur Cooperman, who is presiding in a bench trial, that the cops were “acting in concert” when they gunned down Bell outside a Queens strip club after his bachelor party, which means “that they planned it, and they all had the same mind-set . . . and that’s ludicrous” according to veteran defense attorney Marvyn Kornberg. “How do you act in concert with somebody who you’re saying is acting recklessly?” added Gary Farrell, a former Brooklyn prosecutor who is now a defense lawyer.

A SLIPPERY SLOPE? 
The New York Sun reports that the Second Circuit today will hear the airline industry’s appeal of Northern District Senior Judge Lawrence Kahn’s decision upholding a state law requiring airlines to provide passengers with cups of water, air-conditioning, and working restrooms during long delays on the tarmac. The Air Transport Association of American contends the law is a slippery slope towards other states passing more extreme versions. “This is simply to ensure that airline passengers are treated better than prisoners of war,” Assemblyman Michael Gianaris, one of the law's sponsors.

CITY CENSORSHIP
Finally, The Staten Island Advance reports via an A.P. thread on a ruling by Southern District Judge Charles Brieant that found the city of Yonkers illegally removed newspaper boxes belonging to a free weekly that was sharply critical of the mayor. Brieant ruled that the city violated of the First Amendment by interfering with the distribution of the Westchester Guardian.

Posted by Jesse on March 5, 2008 05:29 AM to Judicial Reports