Case Title: The People v. Gregory Taylor

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: new-york

Court: New York Appellate Court

Date: 2010-11-18T00:00:00Z

Document:
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This opinion is uncorrected and subject to revision before
publication in the New York Reports.
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No. 183  
The People &c., 
            Respondent,
        v.
Gregory Taylor,
            Appellant.
Jonathan H. Oberman, for appellant.
Frances Y. Wang, for respondent.
JONES, J.:
On this appeal, we are called upon to determine whether
defendant preserved a legal sufficiency challenge to his depraved
indifference murder conviction and, if preserved, whether his
conviction should be affirmed.  Because defendant sufficiently
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preserved that challenge and the conviction is not in accord with
this Court's precedents regarding depraved indifference murder,
we reverse the Appellate Division order. 
On May 11, 2004, a female victim was found dead on the
roof of an apartment building located in the Bronx.  She was
found partially clothed and barefooted with a black plastic bag
covering her head.  The plastic bag was knotted tightly around
her neck.  An autopsy performed on the victim's body revealed a
one-half-inch laceration above her right eyebrow, abrasions on
her cheek and neck, and purple discoloration of her face.  The
medical examiner found hemorrhaging at the site of the abrasions
and listed the cause of death as "blunt impact of the head and
compression of the neck and chest."  
Defendant was a resident at the building where the
victim was found.  That building was equipped with two video
cameras on each floor.  Videos from May 5th and May 6th showed
defendant approaching the victim and entering his apartment with
her at night, stepping back into the hallway several hours later,
and carrying  her body to the roof in the morning.  Days later, a
search of his apartment revealed beads matching the victim's
broken necklace scattered throughout defendant's apartment and
bloodstains on the bedroom wall and door.  Defendant was later
taken into custody where he made a series of statements. 
According to defendant, he and the victim smoked crack
cocaine on the night of May 5th.  Sometime later, she attacked
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him, and he hit her to protect himself.  She then became quiet
and he went to sleep.  Defendant gave conflicting statements as
to whether the victim was dead or alive when he awoke in the
morning, but admitted covering her head with a plastic bag to
stop the blood from spreading and placing her on the roof of his
building.  
A grand jury indicted defendant for second degree
depraved indifference murder and first degree manslaughter.  At
the close of trial, defendant moved to dismiss the depraved
indifference murder charge based upon the legal insufficiency of
the evidence, citing People v Suarez (6 NY3d 202 [2005]). 
Defendant argued that his actions did not fall within the ambit
of depraved indifference murder as detailed in Suarez and prior
cases where depravity was found, citing People v Best (85 NY2d
826 [1995]) and People v Poplis (30 NY2d 85 [1972]).  He further
argued that the evidence adduced by the People was illustrative
of intentional acts and reasoned that such acts are "not the
theory of depraved indifference murder."  Supreme Court denied
the motion, stating that it was "a question of fact ultimately
for the finder of fact."  
The jury convicted defendant of depraved indifference
murder.  The Appellate Division, with one dissenting Justice,
affirmed.  The court concluded that "defendant's appellate
challenge to the legal sufficiency of the evidence ha[d] not been
preserved inasmuch as his trial motion to dismiss was based on"
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No. 183
*  This Court decided Feingold months after Supreme Court
rendered defendant's judgment of conviction in this case.
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Suarez and his appeal was based on People v Feingold (7 NY3d 288
[2006]).*  The dissent, however, concluded that defendant's
argument was preserved and that his conviction was not supported
by legally sufficient evidence.  A Justice of the Appellate
Division granted defendant leave to appeal.  We now reverse.      
In Suarez, a majority of the Court explained the
limited circumstances in which a defendant may be convicted of
depraved indifference murder where only a single victim has been
endangered (6 NY3d at 212-213).  Because defendant moved to
dismiss the depraved indifference murder charge for legal
insufficiency pursuant to Suarez, he properly preserved the issue
for appellate review.  As we explain below, it is incorrect to
suggest that an argument under Suarez is fundamentally different
from one based on Feingold.  
  To support a depraved indifference conviction, the
People must demonstrate that defendant, "[u]nder circumstances
evincing a depraved indifference to human life, [] recklessly
engage[d] in conduct which create[d] a grave risk of death to
another person, and thereby cause[d] the death of another person"
(Penal Law § 125.25[2]).  This Court has cautioned that depraved
indifference murder should rarely be charged in a one-on-one
killing (Suarez, 6 NY3d at 210).  Most killings "are suitably
punished by statutes defining intentional murder, manslaughter in
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the first or second degree or criminally negligent homicide" (id.
at 211).  Thus, those killings do not satisfy the depraved
indifference standard (id.).  In the limited cases where depraved
indifference is applicable, "intent to [harm or] kill is absent,"
but "acts marked by uncommon brutality . . . with depraved
indifference to the victim's plight" are present (id.).  The
Court has made clear that "where defendant's conscious objective
was to 'intentionally injure' the victim," there can be "'no
valid line of reasoning that support a jury's conclusion that
defendant possessed the mental culpability required for depraved
indifference murder'" (id. at 209, quoting People v Hafeez, 100
NY2d 253, 259 [2003]).  
The Suarez Court explained two fact patterns in which a
one-on-one killing could result in a depraved indifference
condition.  While we noted that "other extraordinary cases" had
arisen in which such convictions were upheld (id. at 213), we
said that these two fact patterns "have recurred" (id. at 212).  
The first is "when the defendant intends neither to seriously
injure, nor to kill, but nevertheless abandons a helpless and
vulnerable victim in circumstances where the victim is highly
likely to die" (id. at 212; see People v Mills, 1 NY3d 269 [2003]
[defendant prevented others from aiding and abandoned a drowning
boy who died after defendant pushed him into the water; the boy
did not resurface either because he accidentally struck his head
or had an epileptic seizure]; People v Kibbe, 35 NY2d 407 [1974]
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[defendants robbed an intoxicated victim and stranded him on a
dark, remote, snowy road, partially clothed and barefoot; the
victim was struck by a passing truck and killed]).  The second is
when the "defendant -- acting with a conscious objective not to
kill but to harm -- engages in torture or a brutal, prolonged and
ultimately fatal course of conduct against a particularly
vulnerable victim" (id.; see Best, 85 NY2d 826 [defendant
repeatedly beat his nine-year-old son, inflicted large open
wounds through which bacteria entered and eventually caused his
death]; Poplis 30 NY2d 85 [defendant caused the death of a three-
and-a-half-year-old child by repeatedly beating him over a course
of several days]). 
Feingold, decided after defendant's conviction here,
did not reject, but extended, Suarez's reasoning.  Suarez and
Feingold were the last of the series of cases in which our view
of depraved indifference murder "gradually and perceptibly
changed" (Policano v Herbert, 7 NY3d 588, 602 [2006]) from that
expressed in People v Register (60 NY2d 270 [1983]), which had
held that "depraved indifference to human life" was not a mental
state but referred to an objectively-determined degree of risk. 
In Feingold, we said "explicitly" for the first time that
"depraved indifference to human life is a culpable mental state"
(7 NY3d at 294).  The two fact patterns discussed in Suarez
exemplify that mental state.  Under both Suarez and Feingold, the
decisive question is whether defendant acted with the state of
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mind required by the depraved indifference murder statute -- "an
utter disregard for the value of human life -- a willingness to
act not because one intends harm, but because one simply doesn't
care whether grievous harm results or not" (Suarez, 6 NY3d at
214).  
Here, the evidence was legally insufficient to
establish depraved indifference murder.  In this case, defendant
struck the victim on her head and went to sleep.  After he awoke,
defendant knotted a plastic bag over the victim's head and dumped
her body on the roof of his building.  As the dissent below
noted, the People did not establish "torture or a brutal,
prolonged" course of conduct.  These facts do not fall within the
limited nature of a depraved indifference murder set forth by
this Court, which requires "utter depravity, uncommon brutality
and inhuman cruelty" and "indifference to the victim's plight"
(Suarez, 6 NY3d at 211, 216).    
Accordingly, the Appellate Division order should be
reversed, the first count of the indictment dismissed and a new
trial ordered on the second count of the indictment charging
manslaughter in the first degree.  
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
Order reversed, the first count of the indictment dismissed and a
new trial ordered on the second count of the indictment charging
manslaughter in the first degree.  Opinion by Judge Jones.  Chief
Judge Lippman and Judges Ciparick, Graffeo, Read, Smith and
Pigott concur.
Decided November 18, 2010