Manhattan Criminal Courts Building at 100 Centre Street. Photo: Rick Kopstein/NYLJ

After 46 years of handling criminal appeals in the various departments of the Appellate Division, but mostly in the First and Second, I am taking a short moment to vent (finally). Anyone who believes that Manhattan is more sophisticated than say Queens needs to litigate a criminal appeal in the First and Second Departments pursuant to the appendix method or on the original record.

When perfecting a criminal appeal by either method in Manhattan, you need to first travel to the appeals bureau by taking the elevator to the 11th floor at the Criminal Court Building, 100 Centre St., and then walking up one flight behind the “Black door” directly across from the South elevator. A deputy clerk then needs to endorse the subpoena required pursuant to 22 NYCRR § 1250.9(a)(2)(i) or (4)(i). Next, you need to take that endorsed subpoena over to the basement at Civil Term,  60 Centre Street, and first stand on line to have the subpoena approved and endorsed. Next, you need to move over to the cashier line, pay the fee and retrieve the now second-time endorsed subpoena. You then have to take the receipt and the subpoena back to the Appeals Bureau at 100 Centre St. where you file it. (Don’t forget to have your own copy stamped as proof of service on the clerk and make sure you have a secure pass so you don’t have to go through security three times.)

On the other hand, if you are taking an appeal to the Second Department from Queens Supreme Court (same with most of the other counties therein), you email a letter in lieu thereof to the Appeals bureau clerk. Sorry, that is all you need to do—no subpoena approval; no fee, and no two-stop shopping.

Really, is it too much to ask, if Manhattan insists on charging a fee, to at least put a cashier’s terminal in the Appeals Bureau at 100 Centre St. so that—as in the Second Department—there can be one-stop shopping?  Perhaps Denis Reo, the newly appointed clerk of the Supreme Court, Civil Term, which oversees the cashiers at 60 Centre St. (congratulations, by the way), can seek to be innovative.

One can certainly hope.

Mark M. Baker is of counsel to  Brafman & Associates.