[Download] "Charles Fenster v. Howard R. Leary" by Court of Appeals of New York # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Charles Fenster v. Howard R. Leary
- Author : Court of Appeals of New York
- Release Date : January 07, 1967
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 63 KB
Description
On three occasions in late 1964, each about a month apart, the plaintiff, Charles Fenster, was arrested by the New York City police and charged with violation of subdivision 1 of section 887 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (New York's vagrancy statute). Fenster was charged under the language of this section with being ""a person who, not having visible means to maintain himself, lives without employment"". Following each arrest he was acquitted of the violation charged, but conviction on such charges would have subjected him to possible imprisonment for up to six months. (Code Crim. Pro., § 892.) The record does not indicate why this plaintiff was singled out for such treatment by the police, especially in the face of previous acquittals, but Fenster, apparently concerned at the likelihood of further arrests on this same charge, sought, following his third arrest, an order in the nature of prohibition against the Criminal Court of the City of New York barring that court from hearing and determining the charge of vagrancy levelled against him following his third arrest. In this action he attacked the constitutionality of the statute, but prohibition was denied in our lower courts, and in this court the decisions below were affirmed on the sole ground that the remedy of prohibition was discretionary (Matter of Fenster v. Criminal Ct. of City of N. Y., 17 N.Y.2d 641).