The shakeout caused by the Court of Appeals' reformulation of depraved indifference murder (Penal Law § 125.25[2]) convictions by its decisions in People v Suarez, 6 NY3d 202 [2005] and People v Feingold, 7 NY3d 288 [2006] continues in the Appellate Divisions. On Tuesday, the First Department released five decisions on appeals from depraved indifference convictions:
- People v Jean-Baptiste, 2007 NY Slip Op 02597
- People v Pasley, 2007 NY Slip Op 02598
- People v Patterson, 2007 NY Slip Op 02600
- People v Suarez, 2007 NY Slip Op 02625
- People v Danielson, 2007 NY Slip Op 02626
Of most significance are the First Department's decisions in People v Suarez and People v Danielson.
People v Suarez is the same case as decided by the Court of Appeals. In People v Suarez, the defendant was acquitted of intentional murder but convicted of depraved indifference murder. The Court of Appeals held that it was error to submit a depraved indifference count to the jury since the evidence was legally insufficient to support it. It remitted the matter to the First Department for an appropriate remedy. In Tuesday's ruling, the First Department rejected an argument that given defendant's acquittal of intentional murder and the Court of Appeals' reversal of defendant's conviction of depraved indifference murder, the Double Jeopardy provisions of the Federal and State Constitutions, as well as the CPL, barred the defendant from now being tried for intentional manslaughter in the first degree, a charge which was included in the indictment, and submitted to but not considered by the jury. The First Department thus remanded for trial on the unresolved charge of manslaughter in the first degree.
In People v Danielson, the First Department stated that a defendant may not may present an unpreserved legal sufficiency argument (on a depraved indifference conviction) in the guise of a weight-of-the-evidence argument.
Comments