People v. Villatoro

In People v. Villatoro, 158 Misc.2d 557, 601 N.Y.S.2d 410 (1993) the Village Prosecutor agreed that the local law pertaining to open containers was unconstitutional. Until the law was reviewed for its constitutionality, the court and the prosecutor were unaware of a decision on point from Monticello, New York which found an identical law to be unconstitutional. At the time of the Villataro case, the Court contemplated undoing any prosecutions under the local law, nunc pro tunc, where defendants had pled guilty or were convicted after trial and paid fines under a law that was unconstitutional. Perhaps incorrectly, but in deference to the Court Clerk, the Court declined to enter an order nunc pro tunc which would have effectively rescinded all prior convictions and fines since the Monticello case. Instead, the court made its ruling prospective. At that time, the Court believed that going back over several years to track defendants and fines paid under an unconstitutional law would be a bureaucratic nightmare and therefore not feasible.