Opinion ID: 2046959
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Crime's Historical Development

Text: Depraved indifference murder goes back to the common law. As recounted in Darry v People (10 NY 120 [1854]), a person who took someone's life while evincing a general malice or depraved inclination to mischief, fall where it may was guilty of murder ( id. at 143). From the earliest stages of its development, the crime was reserved for those cases of depraved and reckless conduct, aimed at no one in particular, but endangering indiscriminately the lives of many, and resulting in the death of one or more ( id. at 146). The Darry Court, in noting that its interpretation of the New York homicide statute [1] was rooted in these common-law principles ( see id. at 141-143), described examples of depravity such as willfully riding an unruly horse among a crowd of persons [2] or with reckless indifference shooting a gun into a house with people inside ( see id. at 146). Seventy years later, in People v Jernatowski (238 NY 188 [1924]), we interpreted a successor statute (former Penal Law § 1044) [3] almost identical to the one in Darry. Jernatowski fired multiple shots into a house knowing that people were inside, and killed one of them. Describing the defendant's conduct as barbarous and depraved ( id. at 193), the Court concluded that a jury could properly determine that a person who fired two or more shots into the house where he knew there were human beings    evinced a wicked and depraved mind regardless of human life ( id. at 192). In affirming the conviction for depraved mind murder (as it was then called), the Court focused on the barbaric nature of the defendant's conduct and his utter disregard for the dangerous consequences of that conduct. In its 1967 recodification, the Legislature replaced Penal Law § 1044 with Penal Law § 125.25 (2). [4] The new statute, at issue on this appeal, changed depraved mind to depraved indifference to human life (Penal Law § 125.25 [2]). The concept, however, remained the same. Indeed, the Temporary State Commission on Revision of the Penal Law and Criminal Code expressly noted that the new statute was substantially a restatement of the former statute. [5] Thus, contrary to the majority's assertion that the 1967 recodification left Darry and its progeny far behind (majority op at 383), the Legislature's clear intent was merely to restate the law, not to abrogate this State's decisional law on the requisite mens rea for depraved indifference murder. In the wake of its 1967 restatement, the Legislature continued to contemplate a mental state so morally perverse, and so indifferent to the consequences to human life, as to be considered depraved. People v Poplis (30 NY2d 85 [1972]) was our first opportunity to pass on Penal Law § 125.25 (2). The defendant killed a three-year-old child by beating him repeatedly over a five-day period. Arguing that his actions did not fall within the depraved indifference murder statute, Poplis contended that there was no meaningful difference between depraved indifference murder and reckless manslaughter. The Court rejected his argument, pointing out that depraved indifference murder contemplates conduct that is more than reckless: it envisions actions so extreme as to be brutal, callous and inhuman ( Poplis, 30 NY2d at 87). In reaching this conclusion (and maintaining the depravity standard), we drew on Jernatowski and Darry. Although those cases dealt with the threat of danger to more than one person, [6] they stressed the unchanging core requirement that the killer exhibit such utter indifference to human life as to constitute depravitythat the killing, although not intentional, reflects the defendant's uncommonly evil and morally perverse frame of mind. Often, but not necessarily, this state of mind is revealed by the brutal or savage nature of the crime. [7]