User:Paris1127/Herring v. New York

Herring v. New York, 422 U.S. 853 (1975), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a New York rule of criminal procedure allowing judges to deny a defendant's counsel a summation was unconstitutional.

Background
On the evening of September 15, 1971, at a housing project in the New York City borough of Staten Island, Clifford Herring approached Allen Braxton to ask for money. When Braxton refused, Herring allegedly produced a knife and swung it at him. Braxton reported Herring to the NYPD, who sent an officer to arrest Herring later that evening, finding a small knife on him.

At trial in the Richmond County Supreme Court (in New York, the Supreme Court is the trial court), Herring waived a jury, opting for a bench trial. The prosecution argued its case over a Thursday and Friday, and called two witnesses: Braxton and the officer who arrested Herring. When the People's case was rested, the defense moved, and the judge granted, a motion to dismiss the charge of possession of a dangerous instrument, as the knife was too small to be considered one under state law. The defense argued its case on Monday afternoon, calling Herring's employer, who testified that he remembered seeing Herring at work at 5:30 PM on the date in question. Herring then took the stand and testified that he had been repairing a refrigerator at work at the time of the alleged attack on Braxton. Braxton, according to Herring, had previously threatened him when he refused to give him money for drugs and alcohol. The defense counsel rested, and moved that the robbery charge be dismissed. The judge denied the motion.

Herring's lawyer then requested to make a closing argument. The judge denied this request: under the New York State Criminal Procedure Law § 320.20(3)(c), a judge in a non-jury trial had the power to deny counsel the right to make a summation. The judge found the defendant guilty of attempted robbery in the third degree and sentenced him to up to four years in prison. An intermediate appellate court upheld the lower court's verdict. Leave to appeal to the New York Court of Appeals (the highest court in New York) was denied. Herring then appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which granted certiorari.

Ruling
In a 6-3 ruling, the court ruled that the judge violated Herring's Sixth Amendment right to assistance of counsel. Writing for the majority, Justice Stewart wrote:"The very premise of our adversary system of criminal justice is that partisan advocacy on both sides of a case will best promote the ultimate objective that the guilty be convicted and the innocent go free. In a criminal trial, which is, in the end, basically a factfinding process, no aspect of such advocacy could be more important than the opportunity finally to marshal the evidence for each side before submission of the case to judgment."