Court Street lawyer given warning by Brooklyn federal judge
In a decision last week, a Brooklyn federal judge called a lawyer to task for threatening to push a case to appeal over a disagreement with an evidence ruling. Judge Nicholas Garaufis found Howard Greenberg’s threats concerning and questioned the attorney’s understanding of zealous advocacy.
Following a ruling that Greenberg believed harmed his client’s defense, the attorney submitted a letter to Garaufis’ chambers, threatening to stop participating in the trial in order to get an appeal for ineffective assistance of counsel.
Greenberg’s client, Trevelle Merritt, was charged — along with two co-conspirators — on counts of racketeering and for the robbery and shooting death of Dasta James. When arrested, Merritt told police detectives that alleged co-conspirator Jamal Laurent was the shooter and that Merritt’s only role was to buy drugs from James; Laurent had the intention to rob the victim.
Laurent’s defense counsel requested that Merritt’s statements placing blame on his client be excluded as evidence or at the very least, Laurent’s actual name be removed and replaced with non-descript nouns (e.g., “the guy”). Greenberg disagreed with this suggestion, noting that the modification reduced the impact of Merritt’s statement, specifically naming Laurent as the shooter — a key factor in establishing Merritt’s defense.