James Krauseneck's conviction in Brighton ax murder now on path to be tossed out

A regional appellate court has denied the legal bid to keep alive the conviction of the late James Krauseneck Jr., who in May died in prison about seven months after being convicted for the 1982 Brighton ax murder of his wife, Cathleen.

The appellate judges apparently concurred with the Monroe County District Attorney's Office that longstanding precedent in New York requires the indictment to be dismissed and conviction tossed out in cases in which the convicted individual had an active appeal.

Krausenseck was found guilty of killing his wife, while she slept, with a single ax blow to the head. The salacious homicide and the decades that passed before the arrest ― James Krauseneck was indicted in 2019 ― sparked tremendous media attention for the crime.

Both "Dateline" and "48 Hours" dedicated episodes to the crime and a story in People Magazine is expected in coming months.

The somewhat arcane legal debate after Krauseneck's death, steeped in arcane legal history, masked an oddity: Typically in cases like this it is the prosecutors and law enforcement who want the conviction kept intact and the family of the convicted who seeks to have it expunged. But Krauseneck's attorneys and family said they believed there were solid grounds for an appeal when he died and they wanted to continue to pursue it.

Krauseneck, who died of esophageal cancer, maintained his innocence.

In 1967 the state's highest court, the Court of Appeals, ruled that the conviction of a state assemblyman convicted of bribing a police officer must be vacated because of a pending appeal. The assemblyman, Hyman Mintz, died in prison before the appeal could be ruled on.

The Monroe County District Attorney's Office argued that the precedent had to be applied with Krauseneck's appeal.

In a brief July 21 order, the regional appellate court ruled that the state Supreme Court justice who presided over the criminal case, Justice Charles Schiano Jr., should now "vacate the judgment of conviction and dismiss the indictment." An appeal cannot continue because of Krauseneck's death, the court ― the Fourth Department, Appellate Division of State Supreme Court ― determined with its order.

Attorneys for Krauseneck maintained that his trial was unfair because of the passage of time since the crime; the inability to question witnesses who had died; what the defense contended was a lack of new evidence; and an apparent reliance at the grand jury on what, at trial, became a highly challenged opinion about Cathleen Krauseneck's likely time of death.

Prosecutors answered that all parties were slightly hamstrung by the passage of time and that the investigation, while at times inactive, did not have lags that would have led to an improper trial.

The case against Krauseneck was entirely circumstantial. Jurors determined that Krauseneck had badly tried to stage a burglary to make it look as if someone else killed his wife.

William Easton, an attorney for Krauseneck, said Tuesday that the attorneys will ask the state Court of Appeals to consider the case, and whether the Fourth Department's ruling was correct.

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: James Krauseneck conviction in Brighton ax murder may get tossed out