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Team 31 v 62
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW
YORK, Appellant, v. DEIDRE
RUBENSTRUNK, Respondent.
Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First
Department, New York
March 10, 2012, Argued
March 10, 2012, Decided
COUNSEL: Sarah Holl and Valerie Manghir
for Appellant.
Seth Steele and Kalia Hoope for Respondent.
JUDGES: Englemann, Walker, Dole, Galusha,
Muthig
OPINION
We the Appellate Court of the State of New
York find in favor of the Appellant, the People
of the State of New York. The appellant showed
that the decision should be overturned because
the prongs in the Salemi case were not met. The
appellant succeeded in this by proving that there
was no new evidence presented and Deidre’s
defense did not express due diligence in the
original trial.
The appellant showed that Deidre provided no
newly discovered evidence through the sixprong
Salemi test. The first prong states “New
evidence will probably change the result at
trial”. The appellant demonstrated that both the
testimonies of Logan Murphy and Aaron and
Kelsey would not be new evidence. Logan was
extensively cross examined for memory loss
prior to the trial and because there was no sworn
affidavit for Jane’s testimony, respectively. The
second prong states that the “evidence must have
been discovered since the trial.” This prong was
also not met because the information about both
Jane and Logan was discovered prior to the trial.
Also, the appellant proved that the respond did
not meet the third prong of the test. The third
prong is that “evidence could not have been
discovered before trial, even with due
diligence”. The appellant showed that Deidre’s
defense failed to exercise due diligence in the
case of both Logan and Jane. In the case of
Salemi, the new information about the witness
going to a mental hospital did not pass this third
factor because they knew of the mental illness
before the trial. Similar to our case, the defense
should have known about Logan’s dementia and
they also cross examined him about the memory
loss. Moreover, they should also have known
about Jane’s guilt prior to try because she
admitted to killing Brian to Kelsey prior to trial.
The appellant was also successful in proving that
Deidre failed to fulfill the fifth prong that states
that “evidence is not cumulative to the former
issue.” Moving to the final issue, the evidence
was cumulative to that in the original trial
because it was already considered. As
mentioned above, the fact that Logan had
dementia already came to light in the original
trial when he was extensively cross examined
and Jane was cross-examined about her possible
motive to kill Brian. In sum, regarding the
Salemi factors, the appellant successfully
demonstrated through the facts of the case that
Deidre failed to meet the factors.
Next, the appellants successfully argued that the
“interest of justice” argument found in People v.
Balan was not a proper basis for granting a new
trial unless the Salemi test was satisfied. People
v. Balan states as follows: “Assuming that the
court has the inherent discretion to grant a
motion which is not in compliance with the
statute the interest of justice does not require
that such relief be granted here, given the wholly
untrustworthy nature of defendant’s papers….”
Here, there was no trustworthy evidence, so the
interest of justice argument does not apply to the
case at hand. While the respondent attempted to
argue that all six factors of the Salemi test did
not have to be met in order for a new trial to be
granted, the case of People v. Powell states
“[t]he power to grant an order for a new trial,
based upon newly discovered evidence, is purely
statutory and such a power may be exercised by
the court only when the requirements of the
statute have been satisfied, the determination of
which rests in the sound discretion of the court”.
Because the respondents failed to meet all six of
these prongs, it is clear that no new trial can be
granted.
We overrule the decision of the lower court and
hold that no new trial be granted.
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