By Michele Evans / NYweeklyRecord.com / Date: 11/6/2026
Category: Criminal Courts / Appeals / Access to Justice
NEW YORK CITY, NY – A Queens defendant who missed the deadline to file a criminal appeal will get his case heard after a state appellate court granted extraordinary relief and treated his late notice as timely.
The Appellate Division, Second Department, ruled Wednesday that Ousmane Coulibaly had established his entitlement to a writ of error coram nobis. The order revives his right to appeal a Queens Supreme Court judgment entered on Sept. 29, 2023.
The decision does not reverse Coulibaly’s conviction, order a new trial, or decide whether any legal error occurred in the underlying case. It restores the procedural doorway to appellate review.
That doorway is narrow. New York generally requires a criminal notice of appeal to be filed within 30 days. State law allows some late filings, but ordinary extensions are limited. The Court of Appeals has recognized coram nobis relief in exceptional cases where a defendant lost the right to appeal through no fault that could reasonably have been discovered in time.
The Second Department cited People v. Syville, the 2010 Court of Appeals decision that established that an appellate court is not always powerless after the usual extension period expires. Syville involved defendants who alleged that lawyers failed to carry out timely requests to file notices of appeal and that the omissions could not reasonably have been discovered within the statutory window.
Wednesday’s order is brief. It does not describe Coulibaly’s conviction, identify why the original notice was late, or explain the evidence he submitted. The panel simply found that he met the standard and deemed his application a timely notice of appeal.
Coulibaly filed the application without a lawyer from Los Fresnos, Texas, according to the decision. Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz’s office opposed the application.
The ruling now allows the appellate process to move forward. It does not predict the result. Coulibaly will still have to identify appealable issues, assemble the record, and litigate the merits under the rules that govern criminal appeals.
For New Yorkers, the case underscores a basic accountability principle: a missed filing can close the courthouse door before any judge reviews the alleged error. Coram nobis exists as a limited safeguard when that loss of review would otherwise be unjust.
The unanswered questions remain substantial because the order is so spare. The public record released with the decision does not show what claims Coulibaly plans to raise or when a merits brief will be filed.
What changed Wednesday is concrete. A judgment that had no active appeal now does. The appellate court restored review without prejudging what that review will find.
Sources
People v. Coulibaly, 2026 NY Slip Op 06451
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