Long Island Felony Defense: Murder, Robbery, Burglary and Arson

A felony charge is not a bigger misdemeanor. It is a different kind of case: a different courthouse, different sentencing rules, and more pressure on every decision from the first hour. If someone you love was arrested this weekend on a robbery, burglary, arson or homicide charge, the two most useful moves are the same ones they were fifty years ago: get a lawyer involved immediately, and make sure nobody gives a statement in the meantime.

The Law Offices of Rudolph F.X. Migliore, P.C. defends felony charges throughout Suffolk and Nassau Counties. Our phones are answered around the clock, and translators are available when needed.

Felony cases are assembled from the first hour, and tested the same way.

What “Violent Felony” Means in New York

New York reserves the label violent felony offense for a specific statutory list. Penal Law section 70.02 names particular class B through E felonies — first- and second-degree robbery, first- and second-degree burglary and second-degree arson are on it, among others. For a charge on that list, the label does real work: a conviction carries a determinate sentence — a fixed term rather than a range — followed by a period of post-release supervision after prison, with mandatory minimums higher than for non-violent felonies of the same letter class. The designation also changes the practical texture of a case: what the prosecution will offer, what a judge can accept, and how much room there is to negotiate.

Not every serious charge is on that list. Third-degree robbery and third-degree burglary are felonies, but not designated violent felony offenses. Murder and first-degree arson sit above the scheme entirely, as class A-I felonies with their own, harsher sentencing rules. The exact statute and degree, not the everyday sense of the word violent, determine which rules apply — one more reason the charging paperwork deserves a careful read before anyone talks about exposure.

For anyone who already has a felony conviction, a qualifying prior can raise the sentencing floors further and take some dispositions off the table entirely. If that is your situation, tell your lawyer everything at the first meeting. The prosecution will find it regardless, and strategy built on an incomplete record is strategy built wrong.

How a Felony Case Moves Through Suffolk County

Felony cases start where misdemeanors do: arraignment, held every day of the year for people in custody in Suffolk County District Court at the Cohalan Court Complex in Central Islip for the five western towns. But they do not stay there. For a felony to proceed to trial, New York requires a grand jury indictment unless the defendant waives it, and once an indictment comes down, or a waiver of indictment is entered, the case moves to County Court at the Cromarty Court Complex in Riverhead.

The grand jury stage matters more than people expect. The presentation is one-sided by design. The prosecutor runs it, and no judge presides over the presentation. A person facing indictment has the right to testify before the grand jury, and occasionally that is the right move; more often it is a gift to the prosecution. It is a decision to make with counsel, deliberately, and it comes up fast. When someone is being held in custody, short statutory clocks also govern how quickly the prosecution must act, one more reason the first days are not a time to wait and see. For a fuller picture of the process from arrest forward, see our criminal defense overview.

The Four Charges, Plainly

Murder and other homicide charges. Homicide is a family of charges (murder, manslaughter in its degrees, criminally negligent homicide) separated mostly by what the prosecution can prove about state of mind, though causation, the surrounding circumstances and felony-murder rules can matter just as much. The distance between an intentional killing and a reckless one is measured in decades of a person’s life, which is why homicide defense is so often a fight about intent, not identity. Where a death involves a vehicle and alcohol, the case sits at the intersection of homicide law and DWI and DUI defense, and both bodies of law shape it.

Robbery. Robbery is forcible stealing: a larceny accomplished by force or the threat of it, against a person. That is what separates it from every other theft charge. The degree climbs with injury, with accomplices, with weapons, and with the display of what appears to be a firearm — statutory language that does real work, because the object displayed does not have to turn out to be a gun.

Burglary. Burglary is not theft, and nothing has to be stolen. It is unlawfully entering or remaining in a building with the intent to commit a crime inside, and the intent element is where these cases are fought, because entering the wrong house without criminal intent is not burglary. The degree turns heavily on whether the building is a dwelling and on what happened during entry or flight: a weapon, an injury, the display of what appears to be a firearm.

Arson. New York grades arson across five degrees, separating reckless fires from intentional ones, damaged property from buildings and vehicles, and, near the top, fires set where another person is present or could be. Not every arson felony is a violent felony offense under the statute, and the degree drives everything. Fire cases are also forensic cases. Origin-and-cause work is a genuine discipline with genuine failure modes, and it can be tested.

Degrees Are Where the Fight Usually Is

The same night can be charged several different ways. Whether an object counts as a dangerous instrument. Whether an attached garage is part of a dwelling. Whether an injury is “physical injury” or “serious physical injury.” These phrases have precise legal meanings, courts have spent decades drawing their boundaries, and the distance between adjacent degrees of the same charge can be years of someone’s life. A significant share of felony defense is contesting the degree — not only the question of who did what, but what, legally, the thing that happened actually was.

Juveniles Facing Felony Charges

Where a young person’s case is heard depends on age and the exact charge. New York routes these cases onto their own tracks, with courts, procedures and outcomes designed around the fact that the person charged is still growing up. If your child is the one arrested, start with our page on juvenile charges — the differences from the adult system are substantial, and they matter from the first appearance.

What Defending These Cases Involves

Felony prosecutions are built from identifications, statements, forensics and electronic records, and each of those has a history that can be examined. How a lineup or photo array was conducted. Whether a statement followed proper warnings and whether it was voluntary. How physical evidence was collected, stored and tested. What phone location data actually shows, as opposed to what it is said to show. Where drugs are part of the picture, the case may overlap with our drug offenses practice.

Suppression motions, when the facts support them, can reshape or end a case. Preparation for trial strengthens every negotiation whether or not the case is ultimately tried. None of this promises an outcome; nothing honestly can. But it is how the ground gets contested, case by case.

Talk to Someone Tonight

Felony arrests do not happen at convenient hours. Our phones are answered around the clock, translators are available, and the first conversation is free and confidential. Call 631-543-3663.

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