People v. Goldstein, 285 N.Y. 376 (1941)

The New York Court of Appeals affirmed the murder convictions of Martin Goldstein and Harry Strauss. It called the testimony of Abraham Reles, "concededly an accomplice," an important factor in the People's case and reviewed the charge on corroboration of accomplice testimony.

Date

1941-04-24

Kind

court-opinion

Source

CourtListener (Free Law Project), text of the opinion

Retrieved

2026-10-12

Docket

285 N.Y. 376, 34 N.E.2d 362 (N.Y. 1941)

Rights

Opinion of a state court. Judicial opinions are not subject to copyright under the government edicts doctrine (Banks v. Manchester, 128 U.S. 244 (1888); Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 590 U.S. 255 (2020)). This page uses the opinion text only, not any publisher headnote. The text was read on CourtListener.

New York Court of Appeals, argued March 14, 1941 and decided April 24, 1941, on appeal from the Kings County Court. The lead opinion is by Judge Lewis; there is a concurrence by Judge Conway and a dissent by Judge Loughran. The District Attorney on the brief was William O’Dwyer.

The court wrote: “An important factor in the People’s case was the testimony of Abraham Reles, concededly an accomplice, who, as a witness for the prosecution, described a sequence of events in which the defendants participated and which led to the homicide.” According to that testimony as the court summarizes it, Reles and the two defendants had searched for several weeks for the victim, and on the evening of September 4, 1939 met near their “hang-out” in Brooklyn. The opinion describes a “contract” for the killing given by Albert Anastasio.

The appeal turned on the jury instructions about the statutory rule that a conviction cannot rest on an accomplice’s testimony without corroboration. The majority held the charge adequate and ended: “Judgments of conviction affirmed.” The opinion does not give the trial date. This page states the court’s account of Reles’s testimony; it is not a separate finding about him.