AD1 order dated December 27, 2011, reversing denial of defendant’s 440.10 motion and remanding for a new trial. Decision below: 90 A.D.3d 563, 936 N.Y.S.2d 12. Catterson, J. (AD dissenter), granted leave to People April 12, 2012.

ISSUE PRESENTED: Whether trial defense counsel was ineffective when he failed to seek to obtain relevant psychiatric and medical records to support his claim that defendant’s confessions were involuntarily obtained due to his "mental history." (Assigned counsel: Richard M. Greenberg, Office of the Appellate Defender, 11 Park Place, Suite 1601, NYC 10007.)

ISSUE PRESENTED: Whether trial defense counsel was ineffective when he failed to seek to obtain relevant psychiatric and medical records to support his claim that defendant’s confessions were involuntarily obtained due to his "mental history." (Assigned counsel: Richard M. Greenberg, Office of the Appellate Defender, 11 Park Place, Suite 1601, NYC 10007.)

Issue before the Court: Whether counsel’s failure to review his client’s psychiatric records deprived his client of “meaningful representation”?

Held: Where “trial counsel sought to build a defense based on defendant's mental weakness undermining the voluntariness of his admissions of guilt,” his failure to obtain and review relevant records “seriously compromised defendant’s right to a fair trial”

CAL observes: While NYCA decisions have long stated that NY’s constitutional right to effective counsel offers defendants greater protection than that offered by the Sixth Amendment, the Court's decisions have offered scant evidence showing the application of that rule. Oliveras appears to be a case demonstrating the differing rules. While the Federal Strickland test requires a specific showing of prejudice (a reasonable probability that counsel’s failures affected the proceeding’s outcome), the court reversed in Oliveras without an analysis of prejudice. Some tasks are so important (here, the duty to investigate), that prejudice is presumed if they are not undertaken. This was the Court's second application of the Baldi meaningful-representation-prejudice standard in as many months. See, People v. Oathout, 21 N.Y.3d 127 (May 2, 2012)(where the Court also found counsel ineffective and reversed without a showing that the result may have been different). The dissent takes the majority to task, pointing out that, had counsel performed a more complete investigation, it would not have yielded any evidence that could have helped the defense.