Source: nydailyrecord.com 10/20/25
A state appeals court has rescinded a lower court ruling setting the risk level of a sex offender because the prosecution never requested the determination and the judge failed to explain the basis for his ruling.
In Yates County, state Supreme Court Justice Jason L. Cook, in November 2023, determined that defendant Stephanie A. Ridley was a level three risk under the state Sex Offender Registration Act.
The Appellate Division of state Supreme Court, Fourth Department, unanimously reversed Cook’s finding “in the interest of justice and on the law.”
Ridley’s appellate attorney, Michael Jos. Witmer, argued that Cook should not have assessed points against Ridley under risk factor 2 because the prosecution “failed to establish by clear and convincing evidence that she engaged in sexual intercourse with the victim.”
The Fourth Department rejected that contention.
“Although there is no evidence that defendant herself actually engaged in sexual intercourse with the victim, the court properly determined that the People met their burden by establishing that, under the circumstances of this case, defendant shared the intent of a person who engaged the victim in sexual intercourse,” the court wrote.
But the prosecution did concede that Cook violated Ridley’s right to due process by assessing points against Ridley on his own that were not requested by the prosecutor.
Although Ridley’s lawyer failed to object to the assessment of points when Cook rendered his oral decision, the Fourth Department reviewed the issue “in the interest of justice in …
Sounds like the judge overstepped his boundaries, but why should the prosecutor also have a say in accessing the risk level of this woman? Don’t they have a board in NY that determines those things?
Seems to me the judge wanted to assess this lady as level 3 regardless of whatever was put in front of him by the litigants, and in reality based on nothing more than the charges themselves.
It’s all a waste of time and paper. The court will probably just schedule another hearing and tell the DA (likely behind closed doors) to request everything to support his earlier ruling and come to the same conclusion.
California is worse in this regard. In California, the Department of “Justice” arbitrarily adds points to the Static-99R score, even though the scoring is wrong in some cases. The DOJ refuses to make corrections. And the only recourse to this is a Writ of Mandate, with his prohibitively expensive. So while people in New York are complaining about a judge making “scoring” mistakes on these ridiculously flawed “risk” assessments, California lets the CA DOJ do it (not a judge) without any questions asked. In my opinion, giving prosecutors the power to add scoring, incorrectly at that, and not a judge, is much worse.