Historically long 12-week trial wraps up six years after Queens murder

Queens Supreme Court, Criminal Term saw potentially the longest murder trial in its history come to a close last week. Photo by Walter KarlinG

By Ryan Schwach

Six years after police made their first arrest in a Richmond Hill murder, the murder trial finally came to a close this week. The 12-week trial marks the longest murder trial in recent Queens Criminal Court history, and is potentially the longest in the history of the court.

On Friday, Queens Supreme Court Justice Ira Margulis and a jury ruled to convict Shakim Allen and Dreshaun Smith, both 29 years old and from Jamaica, in the murder of Rocky Kalisaran, who was visiting Queens from Guyana, and the wounding of his brother, Sonny Kalisaran, back in January 2017 – which was the first homicide of the year.

The extraordinarily long, 12-week trial, which was paused for a week because of a positive COVID test, and another for the holidays, heard 31 witnesses and over 120 items of evidence.

“You don't see that number of witnesses and you don't see that much evidence,” Margulis told the Eagle. “That's very, very high for any type of case.”

Margulis took over the case at the trial stage beginning on Dec. 12, and the first trial appearance began on Jan. 19, according to court documents.

“A murder case goes probably three weeks or so,” Margulis said. “Sometimes I take longer in jury selection than some judges, but jury selection took some time.”

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz also announced the conviction via a press release on Monday night.

“One of the victims, who was visiting from Guyana, lost his life trying to protect his younger brother,” said Katz. “‘This family has experienced tremendous grief and I hope this conviction provides them a measure of closure. The defendants face long sentences for their callous actions.”

According to the DA, Allen was arrested on Jan. 11, 2017, and Smith was arrested in Monroe County, Pennsylvania on Jan. 20, eighteen days after the shooting.

Both were convicted of murder in the second degree, attempted murder in the second degree, assault in the first degree, robbery in the first degree, criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree and tampering with physical evidence. Allen was additionally convicted of criminal possession of stolen property in the fourth degree, while Smith was additionally convicted of arson in the third degree, for trying to burn their car.

And while the trial itself took an unusually long amount of time, getting there also proved tedious.

According to Margulis, the case was heavily delayed due to the onset of the pandemic, and then also by several attempts by the defendants to sever the case, as well as several changes of representation by both defendants. The result was a six-year journey to trial.

“That slowed things down tremendously,” said Margulis. “During that time, as several other people's witnesses retired, they had to get them from out-of-state and other things like that.”

All in all, Allen and Smith each appeared in court nearly 100 times between October 2017 and this week.

Delays to the trial itself could also be blamed on the Department of Corrections, Margulis said. The agency has struggled to produce defendants to court in recent years.

“They're very short staffed, and that creates a lot of problems,” he said, adding that he often had to start the trial late, and finish early.

“I was asked if I could finish the trial by between 4:15 and 4:30 every day, because if I didn't, then defendants would not make the 5 p.m. bus,” he said.

The defendants would arrive at the courthouse around nine in the morning, but the proceedings wouldn’t start until closer to 11.

“I could not get the defendants into the courtroom,” he said.

“They gave Corrections problems, they didn’t give me any problems at all, but they had given corrections problems,” he added. “So, they were brought up one at a time and it took about 15 minutes for each one to be brought up. They cannot be brought up together.”

“We didn't get started until usually 11 o'clock, and we had lots of legal arguments,” he added, saying that they had over 3,500 pages of testimony.

The Department of Corrections rate for producing defendants plummeted last year. In 2021, the DOC produced defendants on time 94 percent of the time. That dropped to 79 percent in 2022.

DOC Commissioner Louis Molina said during a recent City Council budget hearing that production rates have improved in 2023, hitting 80 percent in January, 88 percent in February and 90 percent in March.

During the hearing, Molina blamed a number of the delays in production on the defendants themselves, who Molina said have increasingly began to refuse transportation to the court.

In a statement to the Eagle, Molina said that both Allen and Smith refused to go to court on several occasions.

“We know how important it is for people in custody to appear in court and we do all that we can to ensure that they are produced on time,” Molina said. “There were no delays in producing these detainees, and occurrences in which they did not arrive to their appointments on time were due to them refusing to attend and missing their transportation to court.”

“The Department was not responsible for any delays of these individuals nor was it due to any staff shortages,” Molina added.

Chief Clerk William Reyes could not speak to the trial’s length in relation to others as of late or in the context of Queens County history, but did say that court officials were aware of how long the trial was going on.

“We were aware that it was on for a long time,” he said. “But you want to make sure things get done right and not rush anything either. It's not like in baseball where you have a pitch clock…We want to make sure that whatever is done is done correctly.”

The Eagle reached out to both of the defendants’ attorneys, but neither was available before print time.

Between Jan. 2, 2017 when Rocky Kalisaran was murdered and the ruling in the case, 2,375 people have been killed in New York City, according to NYPD crime statistics.

The duo are due back in court on April 25 for sentencing and face 50 years to life behind bars.