People v. Lane

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Myers, J.), rendered on March 25, 1987, convicting defendant of first degree robbery and sentencing him to an indeterminate prison term of 2 to 6 years, unanimously reversed, on the law, and the matter remanded for a new trial.

On July 31, 1985, in the late afternoon, a young woman named Frances Silva was robbed at gunpoint on an outside stairway near 155th Street and Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan. The central issue at trial was whether the perpetrator of that robbery was defendant Kenneth Lane. Ms. Silva’s description of the robber, given to police…