People v. Jacoby

Without any formal information or complaint having been filed against him, and indeed without any charge of any kind specifying acts sufficient to constitute a crime, defendant, a youth of nineteen, unrepresented by counsel, was convicted in the City Court of Corning upon his plea of guilty to the crime of violating section 43 of the Penal Law.

Filed with the City Court was a statement — sworn to before a notary — which defendant had made shortly before to the police and in which he asserted that he had done certain acts on two different days. The return of the city judge who had presided over…