Politics on the Hudson

The state’s highest court today gave another victory to a criminal defendant and strictly limited a couple’s ability to sue an adoption agency for hiding an adoptee’s family history of schizophrenia and other mental illness.

In the first case,  People v. Arthur Bryant, the Court of Appeals vacated Bryant’s guilty plea and ordered him a new trial because lower courts unfairly quashed his attempt to suppress a witness’s statement against him. Bryant, accused of stabbing a man to death in 2003, was told that a witness identified him from a photograph.

His lawyer had asked for a hearing to determine, essentially, the credibility of the witness. A county court denied the motion and he eventually agreed to a plea bargain. This was the second time this week the Court of Appeals has ordered a new trial for a criminal defendant. In the previous case, it said a court improperly dismissed a juror.

In the adoption case, Ross v. Louise Wise Services, Arthur Ross and his wife said the agency lied about the family history of a boy they adopted in 1961. According to court documents, the Rosses claimed Louise Wise knew the history of “Anthony,’’ but misrepresented it and concealed it from them until 1999 “despite the agency’s knowledge of Anthony’s increasing mental and emotional problems, his descent into schizophrenia and the break-up of the Rosses’ marriage and careers.’’

The court ruled the Rosses could sue only for compensatory damages, essentially the out of pocket costs for raising Anthony until age 21. They cannot sue for punitive damages. Further, the court dismissed claims of negligence and breach of fiduciary duty, ruling that the statutes of limitations had expired.