Opinion ID: 2042851
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Implicit Acquittal

Text: Alternatively, Suarez contends that once the jury found [him] guilty of depraved indifference murder, it could not then find [him] guilty of intentional manslaughter, because they are inconsistent counts; or, expressed another way [f]inding [Suarez] guilty of depraved indifference murder, the jury necessarily acquitted him of intentional manslaughter. Suarez relies on the Supreme Court's decision in Green, and the decision in People v Robinson (145 AD2d 184 [4th Dept 1989], affd 75 NY2d 879 [1990]) to make this point. In Green, the Supreme Court inferred that there was an acquittal on a greater offense after the jury returned a guilty verdict on a lesser charge and was silent as to its verdict on the greater offense. The Court considered the jury's silence to be significant because it was possible that the jury had unanimously acquitted the defendant of that charge. Moreover, the Court was sensitive to the hardship that retrial on the higher degree of a crime would place on a defendant's right to appeal: Reduced to plain terms, the Government contends that in order to secure the reversal of an erroneous conviction of one offense, a defendant must surrender his valid defense of former jeopardy not only on that offense but also on a different offense for which he was not convicted and which was not involved in his appeal ( Green, 355 US at 193). Retrial imposes no like hardship on Suarez, who was acquitted of one of the higher counts (intentional murder), and whose conviction for the other (depraved indifference murder) was reversed on appeal for legal insufficiency. Further, because of the trial judge's instruction, there is no uncertainty, as was the case in Green, as to how the jury went about considering the four counts submitted. There is no basis for implying an acquittal from silence, because the instruction forced the jury to resolve the counts in a particular order and to cease deliberations upon finding Suarez guilty. Finally, as we have previously noted, implied acquittal presupposes that the first jury was given a full opportunity to return a verdict on the charge at issue, and that did not happen here ( id. at 191). In Robinson, the Appellate Division reversed a defendant's conviction for intentional manslaughter, submitted to the jury as a lesser included offense of intentional murder, because the judge failed to submit counts of intentional murder and depraved indifference murder to the jury in the alternative as mandated by Gallagher. We affirmed for the reasons stated in the Appellate Division's opinion ( Robinson, 75 NY2d at 881), which includes dictum plausibly understood to mean that a defendant cannot be convicted of charges requiring different mental states, even as to different resultsthat is, the infliction of serious physical injury in the case of first-degree manslaughter [7] and death in the case of depraved indifference murder ( see Sweet v Bennett, 353 F3d 135, 143-148 [2d Cir 2003, Walker, J., concurring]). We do not endorse this reading of Robinson, which puts it at odds with our later decision in People v Trappier (87 NY2d 55 [1995]), although we tried to distinguish Robinson in Trappier ( see also People v Carter, 7 NY3d 875, 876-877 [2006] [noting that trial counsel might have made an argument based on Robinson, but in light of our later decision in ( Trappier ) that argument was not so compelling that a failure to make it amounted to ineffective assistance of counsel]). Trappier called upon us to consider whether a defendant could be convicted of attempted assault in the first degree and reckless endangerment in the first degree for shooting his victim. At the outset of our opinion, we defined the issue as follows: Can a defendant intend to cause serious physical injury to another person and at the same time recklessly create a grave risk that death will result from that conduct? We conclude that the two mental states are not mutually exclusive when applied to different outcomes (87 NY2d at 57). We decided that, because the result was different for each offense, the defendant could have different mental states as to these different results. Thus, the defendant could have recklessly caused a grave risk of death while intentionally inflicting serious physical injury (87 NY2d at 58-59). Applying that rationale in this case, the first jury's conviction of Suarez for depraved indifference murder would not be inconsistent with a subsequent conviction for intentional manslaughter. In conclusion, constitutional double jeopardy principles do not bar Suarez's retrial for intentional manslaughter. Although the jury was charged with intentional manslaughter in the first trial, the jurors did not have a full opportunity to consider Suarez's guilt or innocence of this crime because of the order in which they were instructed to decide the counts, and their conviction of Suarez of the more serious crime of depraved indifference murder. Moreover, depraved indifference murder and intentional manslaughter are not inconsistent counts: a defendant can recklessly cause a grave risk of death while intentionally inflicting serious physical injury. Accordingly, the jury did not implicitly acquit Suarez of intentional manslaughter when it convicted him of depraved indifference murder. Suarez's remaining arguments, which relate to collateral estoppel and statutory double jeopardy, are without merit. Accordingly, the judgment of the Appellate Division should be affirmed, without costs. Judgment affirmed, without costs.