Under CPL 450.10 you have an appeal as of right to an intermediate appellate court from a judgment, and under CPL 460.10 the notice of appeal must be filed within thirty days after sentence with the clerk of the court where the sentence was imposed. For a Queens case, that clerk sits at 125-01 Queens Boulevard in Kew Gardens. Spodek Law Group P.C. handles appeals and post-conviction motions from Queens Criminal Court and the Supreme Court, Criminal Term, and we owe loyalty to only you, whether we tried the case or are reading the transcript for the first time.
Thirty days to file the notice of appeal.
CPL 460.10 gives you thirty days after sentence to file a notice of appeal with the clerk of the court where sentence was imposed, which for Queens means the clerk at the Kew Gardens complex, whether the judgment came from Queens Criminal Court or from the Supreme Court, Criminal Term. That short filing preserves the right CPL 450.10 gives you to have an intermediate appellate court review the judgment. We treat the deadline as immovable, and if you are reading this within a month of sentencing, the notice is the first thing we will discuss when you call 212 300 5196.
Which appellate court hears a Queens case.
Queens is the 11th Judicial District, and the Appellate Term of the Supreme Court for the 2nd, 11th and 13th Judicial Districts holds court at 141 Livingston Street, 15th Floor, in Brooklyn, and also meets twice each year at Queens Supreme Court, 88-11 Sutphin Boulevard in Jamaica. The Appellate Division, Second Department, is the other intermediate court in the picture, and the Queens DA reports that its Appeals Bureau's work mostly involves defending trial convictions there. We confirm the correct forum for your judgment at the outset, because the court determines the rules, the calendar and the audience for every argument we make.
Our opponent, the Queens DA Appeals Bureau.
On the other side of your brief will be the Queens DA's Appeals and Special Litigation team, whose Appeals Bureau spends most of its effort defending convictions in the Second Department and also responds to sealing motions under CPL 160.59. The same division houses the LEOW Unit, which discloses prior misconduct of law-enforcement witnesses drawn from NYPD Internal Affairs and CCRB records, and an Immigration Specialist who helps prosecutors frame dispositions that avoid unwanted immigration consequences. Knowing how that office is organized lets us anticipate its arguments and spot where the trial record left something unaddressed.
