Legal Question in Criminal Law in New York

Re: court terms

It is a motion made in criminal cases where several procedural and/or substantive requests are made to the court during the pendency of the case. THe motion is made, the ADA responds and then the court rules.

Re: court terms

In criminal cases, the defense is usually only allowed to make one set of motions. They are all made in the same stack of papers and they comprise an omnibus motion.

Usually they call for production of undisclosed discovery, supression or preclusion of inculpatory statements, supression or preclusion of Unlawful identification procedures, supression of physical evidence, dismissal of the charges in the interest of justice (if appropriate) a hearing on what bad acts the prosecution can use to impeach the defendant if he takes the stand, and then any other ones the defense attorney can think of to add to the mix.

Very often an omnibus motion will cause discovery to be turned over and sometimes hearings are granted.

In NY attorney's tend to call these hearings by case name. Hence:

Huntley hearings seek to supress statements

Wade Hearings seek to supress unlawful in court ID's

Mapp Hearings seek to supress physical evidence taken from the defendant at the time of the arrest or thereafter or by an illegal search and siezure.

Dunaway hearings seek to find out if the police had probable cause to arrest a person.

Hope this helped.

Good luck.