The Criminal Court of the City of New York is a court of the State Unified Court System in New York City that handles misdemeanors (generally, crimes punishable by fine or imprisonment of up to one year) and lesser offenses, and also conducts arraignments (initial court appearances following arrest) and preliminary hearings in felony cases (generally, more serious offenses punishable by imprisonment of more than one year).
It is a single citywide court.New York City Criminal Court Act § 20 The Deputy Chief Administrative Judge for the New York City Courts is responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operations of the NYC trial-level courts, and works with the Administrative Judge of the Criminal Court in order to allocate and assign judicial and nonjudicial personnel resources. One hundred seven judges may be appointed by the Mayor to ten-year terms, but most of those appointed have been transferred to other courts by the Office of Court Administration.
Criminal procedure Most people who are arrested and prosecuted in New York City will appear before a Criminal Court judge for arraignment. The New York Criminal Procedure Law (CPL) is the primary criminal procedure law.
Felonies are heard by the Supreme Court. Some violations and other issues are adjudicated by other city and state administrative courts, e.g., Krimstock hearings are conducted by the city Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, parking violations are adjudicated by the city DOF Parking Violations Bureau, and non-parking traffic violations are adjudicated by the state DMV Traffic Violations Bureau.
Arrest to arraignment New York police officers may arrest someone they have reason to believe has committed a felony, misdemeanor, or violation, or pursuant to an arrest warrant. Those arrested are booked at "central booking" and interviewed by a representative of the Criminal Justice Agency for the purposes of recommending bail or remand at arraignment. In New York state, the time from arrest to arraignment must be within 24 hours. Police may also release a person with an appearance ticket directing a defendant to appear for arraignment in the future: with a desk appearance ticket (DAT) after arrest, or a universal summons without arrest. et seq.
At arraignment, the accused is informed of the charges against them and submits a plea (and may accept a plea bargain). The accused have a right to a lawyer. Arraignments are held every day from 9:00am to 1:00am. At arraignment the prosecutor may also provides defense counsel with certain "notices", such as notices about police lineups and statements made by the defendant to police.
After notices are served, the prosecutor may ask, for certain offenses, the court to keep the accused in jail (remanded) or released on bail. Otherwise, the accused is released on their own recognizance (ROR'd) with the least restrictive conditions necessary to reasonably assure the person will come back to court. If the accused is released, the accused must appear in court every time their case is calendared (scheduled for a court hearing), and if they fail to appear the judge may forfeit their bail and issue a bench warrant for their arrest, although judges may excuse defendants from having to show up at every court appearance.
The decision to set bail and the amount of bail to set are discretionary, and the central issue regarding bail is insuring the defendant's future appearances in court; factors to be taken into consideration are defined in . In practice, bail amounts are typically linked to charge severity rather than risk of failure to appear in court, judges overwhelmingly rely only on cash bail and commercial bail bonds instead of other forms of bail, and courts rarely inquire into the defendant's financial resources to understand what amount of bail might be securable by them.
Felony indictment For those accused of a felony, their case is sent to a court part where felony cases await the action of the grand jury. If the grand jury finds that there is enough evidence that the accused has committed a crime, it may file an indictment. If the accused waives their right to a grand jury, the prosecutor will file a Superior Court Information (SCI). If the grand jury votes an indictment, the case will be transferred from Criminal Court to the Supreme Court for another arraignment. This arraignment is similar to the arraignment in Criminal Court, and if the accused does not submit a guilty plea, the case will be adjourned to a calendar part.
Felony defendants must be released on day if they haven't been indicted, which is to say that unless a grand jury has indicted the defendant and a hearing has commenced within 120 hours/5 days (with an additional 24 hours allowed for weekends and holidays, i.e., 144 hours/6 days), or proof that the indictment was voted within 120 hours, and unless the delay was due to a request of the defendant, and absent a compelling reason for the prosecution's delay, the defendant must be released on their own recognizance (ROR'd).
Pre-trial
A bail review in Supreme Court may be requested by misdemeanor defendants who cannot make bail at the day appearance (the five- to six-day deadline for conversion of a complaint to an information), normally to be scheduled three business days after the appearance. The government must be ready for trial within 6 months for a felony, 90 days for a class A misdemeanor, 60 days for a class B misdemeanor, and within 30 days for a violation, subject to excluded periods (ready rule). A defendant must be released on bail or ROR'd if they are in jail after a specified time of pretrial detention (bail review): within 90 days for a felony, within 30 days for an at-least-3-months misdemeanor, within 15 days for a maximum-3-months misdemeanor, and within 5 days for a violation, subject to excluded periods.
Plea bargain negotiations take place in the AP Parts prior to the case being in a trial-ready posture, and depending upon caseloads, the judges in the AP Parts may conduct pre-trial and felony motion hearings. The most common pre-trial evidence suppression hearings are Mapp (warrantless searches and probable cause), Dunaway (confessions), Huntley (Miranda rights), Wade (identification evidence like lineups), and Johnson (Terry stops) hearings. Trial Parts also conduct pre-trial motion hearings, including Sandoval (witness impeachment) and Molineux (admissibility of prior uncharged crimes) hearings. Once pretrial hearings are completed, the case is considered ready for trial and will usually be transferred to a courtroom that specializes in handling trials.
Trial In New York State, only those individuals charged with a serious crime, defined as one where the defendant faces more than six months in jail, are entitled to a jury trial; those defendants facing six months' incarceration or less are entitled to a bench trial before a judge. Defendants in summons court may waive their right to a trial before a judge and have the trial held by a judicial hearing officer.
Appeal Appeals are to the Appellate Terms of the New York Supreme Court, established separately in the First Department (Manhattan and the Bronx) and Second Department (Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island) of the Appellate Division.
Structure There are several specialized parts of the Criminal Court which handle specific subject areas.
There are seven Criminal Courts in New York City: Bronx County; Kings County (Brooklyn); New York County (Manhattan); Queens County; Richmond County (Staten Island); Midtown Community Court; and the Red Hook Community Justice Center (for Red Hook residents only). Together, these divisions of the New York City Criminal Court serve all five counties of the city, each of which is coterminous with a borough of the city.
Summons court
The Summons All Purpose Part (SAP) hears cases brought to court by universal summonses issued by law enforcement personnel.People v. Vial, (1986) Summons court handles low-level offenses. Defendants may waive their right to a trial before a judge and have the trial held by a judicial hearing officer.
The District Attorney does not staff the SAP Part. The NYPD's Legal Bureau has a memorandum of understanding with the Manhattan District Attorney allowing the NYPD to selectively prosecute summons court cases. The summons court is sometimes called the "People's Court" because Criminal Court judges routinely authorize summonses and informations based upon the sworn allegations of private citizens who seek redress for criminal acts against them, and the entire proceeding is generally one of private or court-conducted trial.
Problem-solving courts
The state court system has a number of problem-solving courts. The Midtown Community Court is a community court which arraigns defendants who are arrested in the Times Square, Hell's Kitchen, and Chelsea neighborhoods and charged with any non-felony offense. The Red Hook Community Justice Center is a multi-jurisdictional community court in Red Hook, Brooklyn, for example hearing family, civil and criminal "quality of life" cases, as well as youth court, and uses mediation, restitution, community service orders and drug treatment.
Criminal Court operates domestic violence or "DV" courts within every county. Domestic violence courts are forums that focus on crimes related to domestic violence and abuse and improving the administration of justice surrounding these types of crimes. The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens operates DV Complexes, which include an All-Purpose Part and Trial Parts dedicated to adjudicating these types of crimes, while in Richmond all DV cases are heard in the regular AP Part.
Kings County (Brooklyn) The Kings County Criminal Court is located at 120 Schermerhorn Street in downtown Brooklyn, hemmed in by Smith Street and State Street. The Court has operated in this location since the construction of the original courthouse in 1930, which was refurbished in 2012 to improve its layout and technology. The courthouse is accessible by means of several public transit lines, including the N, R, G, A, F, C, 2, 3, 4, and 5 subway lines and the B41, B45, B63, B65, and B67 bus lines. Its jurisdiction is coterminous with the Borough of Brooklyn.
Currently, its supervising judge is Keshia Espinal. Espinal served as a public prosecutor in Queens, where she specialized in domestic violence cases, from 2001 until her appointment by the mayor to the Criminal Court in 2017. In 2021, she was reappointed to the Criminal Court. During her time on the bench, she has also presided over the New York County Criminal Court, which adjudicates in Manhattan. Espinal reports to the Administrative Judge of the New York City Criminal Court, Tamiko A. Amaker.
After attaining an undergraduate degree from Vassar College and a law degree from Fordham Law School, Amaker began her career in the office of the District Attorney for the Bronx, where, similarly to Espinal, she worked to investigate child abuse and sex crimes. In 2010, she was appointed to the New York City Criminal Court, and in 2017, she was approved for reappointment to stay on the bench. Since 2010, she has served in a multitude of juridical roles. Among these, her tenure as Administrative Judge of the New York City Criminal Court began in 2013; since then, she has served consistently in that position. She simultaneously serves as Deputy Chief Administrative Judge for Management Support, a support and liaison role between the Chief Administrative Judge and the rest of the Office of Court Administration. Amaker was appointed to this role in 2022.