Opinion ID: 182431
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: The prosecutor tried this case as a botched robbery. He began his opening statement by arguing that Langston and the men he was working with never had any intentions of selling any guns. Instead, they planned a robbery. And when that didn't work they shot [Marquez] and then tried to shoot [Robert]. (Tr. 461.) The prosecutor then reenforced this argument during summation, asserting that [Langston's] plan was to lure two people... into Brooklyn ... have them outnumbered, have them outarmed and then take what they have got. (Tr. 1091.) There is no question that the evidence presented at trial supported the prosecution's robbery theory. Had the jury convicted Langston after being asked to decide whether the assault on Marquez had been committed in furtherance of an attempted robbery, affirmance of that verdict would present no difficulty. However, Langston was not charged with attempted robbery, and the trial judge instructed the jury that to convict Langston of felony assault it had to find, beyond a reasonable doubt, that [he] or another participant caused ... serious physical injury to Arthur Marquez while in the course of and in furtherance of criminal possession of a weapon. (Tr. 1125.) Under New York law, that instruction's reference only to the criminal possession charge eliminated all other possible theories of conviction. See People v. Bell, 48 N.Y.2d 913, 915, 425 N.Y.S.2d 52, 401 N.E.2d 175 (1979); People v. Suggs, 296 A.D.2d 559, 745 N.Y.S.2d 706, 706 (2d Dep't 2002); People v. Wilson, 213 A.D.2d 1037, 624 N.Y.S.2d 718, 719 (4th Dep't 1995). In contrast to the prosecution's repeated focus on the alleged attempted robbery, the requirement in the jury charge that the assault be committed in furtherance of weapon possession was wholly ignored. The prosecution's sole mention of the necessary relationship between Marquez's injuries and the underlying possession charge occurred in a single sentence during summation: The part that I want you to cue in on and the part that I want to talk to you about is that Artie Marquez suffered these injuries while Kevin Langston, along with the other young men in this case, jointly, together possessed guns that were loaded and that worked. (Tr. 1100) (emphasis added). Even here, the prosecutor spoke only of the required temporal relationship between the assault and the weapon possession; he altogether ignored the in furtherance of requirement. In keeping with this confused approach, the prosecutor presented no evidence tending to show that the officers were assaulted to further, Swansbrough, 802 N.Y.S.2d at 779, the possession of the very guns used in the attackthe theory on which the State principally defends the conviction in this Court. To the contrary, based on the evidence that he did present, the prosecutor concluded that there [was] a very specific reason why these guns were pulled and used and that was to wrest... money from [Robert and Marquez]. (Tr. 1098.) As the prosecutor seemingly admitted, shooting Marquez was in no way part of a plan to ensure that the guns used in the assault remained in the shooters' possession; rather, the guns were used specifically in an attempt to rob. The facts of this case are remarkably similar to those in Swansbrough. There, the unlawful imprisonment was committed for the purpose of facilitating the assault, rather than the assault being committed to further the unlawful imprisonment, 802 N.Y.S.2d at 779; here, Cherry, Brownlee, and Wyman possessed weapons for the very specific reason of assaulting and robbing Robert and Marquezthey did not assault the officers in order to retain their own weapons. (Tr. 1098.) The evidence in Swansbrough could not support the conclusion that the assault was committed to further the unlawful imprisonment, 802 N.Y.S.2d at 779, even though the assault likely aided efforts to restrain the victim. Here, even though shooting Marquez and Robert may have made it less likely that Langston and his accomplices would lose their guns, the evidence against Langston failed to demonstrate that the assault was committed to further the weapon possession. As the district court held: The District Attorney argues that the purpose of the assault was to further the goal of criminally possessing the guns in other words, Langston's accomplices appeared and opened fire in order to prevent the detectives from taking the weapons with which they were committing the assault. Such a scenario strains the bounds of imagination and simply could not be inferred from the evidence presented at trial. Indeed, the District Attorney's argument gets it exactly backwardsthe criminal possession was committed in furtherance of the assault and attempted robbery, the assault was not committed in furtherance of the criminal possession of the weapons. Langston v. Smith, 2010 WL 3119284, at  (internal citation omitted). We do not hold that criminal possession of a weapon may never support a felony assault conviction. In circumstances where, unlike here, the continued possession of the weapon underlying the felony assault charge is threatened before the assault takes place, a jury might reasonably infer that the assault was committed to prevent the victim from disarming his assailant (i.e., that the victim was assaulted in furtherance of the assailant's continued possession). For example, had Marquez responded to a threatened robbery by reaching for Cherry's gun in an attempt to disarm him, then a jury might reasonably conclude that Cherry caused Marquez's injuries in furtherance of his continued possession of that weapon. Unlike that example, however, the evidence offered in this case demonstrated that Cherry, Brownlee, and Wyman ambushed Robert and Marquez. Far from responding to any attempts to disarm them, the gunmen appeared on the scene without warning, immediately opened fire on the officers, and injured Marquez in their initial attack. There was no manifest threat prior to the ambush that might permit a jury to conclude, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the assault was in furtherance of retaining possession of the conspirators' own weapons. The State effectively concedes as much in its reply brief by providing an example of an assault not in furtherance of possession of a weapon: [S]uppose that Individual A had a motive to harm Individual B. And suppose that Individual A [was] walking down the street, armed with a weapon; that individual A happened to see Individual B; and that Individual A took out his weapon and shot Individual B, causing him physical injury or serious physical injury. Under that scenario, Individual A would not be guilty of felony assault, for the simple reason that, under that scenario, there would be no evidence that the shooting was in furtherance of the weapon possession. That example of an ambush on an unsuspecting victim precisely fits the facts of this case. The State nevertheless argues that the assault was committed in furtherance of retaining possession of the very weapons used in the assault. Unable to rely on any activeor even threatenedattempts to disarm Cherry and his crew, the State speculates that the gunmen must have concluded that Robert and Marquez would try to disarm them and, therefore, part of the reason for the shooting was to maintain their possession of the guns. [10] That theory, however, requires us to engage in pure conjecture untethered from the evidence presented at trial. As the prosecutor stated in summation, [Langston] didn't think that Artie Marquez or John Robert were undercover officers who could protect themselves, who could defend themselves, who had guns of their own, who were trained on how to use those guns and use those guns to save their lives. He thought they were crooks. He thought they were gun traffickers, perfect victims of crime. (Tr. 1089.) All of the evidence presented at trial supports the prosecutor's own argument that Langston and his fellow conspirators were unaware of the officers' ability to protect themselves. Robert and Marquez were posing as prospective purchasers, rather than current owners, of handguns. Neither Robert nor Marquez revealed their weapons prior to the shooting. Langston, who testified at trial, never implied that he believed that the officers were armed. There was no evidence that the shooters believed that merely displaying their weapons and demanding the purported purchasers' money would have put their guns at risk, or that their actions were motivated by anything other than a desire to injure and steal. In sum, there simply was no evidence indicating that Langston and his accomplices saw Robert and Marquez as a threat to their own continued weapon possession or that Cherry, Brownlee, and Wyman opened fire in order to protect the very guns that they used in the attack. [11] We cannot project into the gunmen's minds those thoughts necessary to sustain the conviction when the evidence presented at trial does not support it and the prosecution's own summation flatly rejected it. The mere fact that Langston and his accomplices had reason to believe that Robert and Marquez were criminals does not change this calculation. [I]t could not seriously be argued that such a `modicum' of evidence could by itself rationally support a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson, 443 U.S. at 320, 99 S.Ct. 2781; cf. Brown v. Palmer, 441 F.3d 347, 352-53 (6th Cir.2006) (distinguishing between reasonable speculation and sufficient evidence in addressing habeas relief under Jackson v. Virginia ). Allowing a conviction to stand on this evidence would read the in furtherance of requirement out of the statute, exactly what the New York courts and the New York legislature have counseled against. Therefore, we conclude that the evidence at trial was constitutionally insufficient to sustain Langston's conviction for felony assault. [12] While we conclude that Langston's due process rights were violated, in order to grant the writ it is not enough for us merely to disagree with the state appellate court's conclusion about the sufficiency of the evidence; rather, habeas corpus will be granted only if the state court applied Jackson v. Virginia in an unreasonable manner. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1); Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 411, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000); see also Gilchrist v. O'Keefe, 260 F.3d 87, 93 (2d Cir.2001). Furthermore, since Jackson calls for the application of a general standard, the state court is entitled to additional leeway. Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 664, 124 S.Ct. 2140, 158 L.Ed.2d 938 (2004). However, even after giving the state court the appropriate deference, we can think of no reasonable application of Jackson that would permit affirmance of Langston's conviction. [13] The prosecution presented no evidence to support its theory that Langston's accomplices acted in furtherance of their continued possession of the very weapons that they used to ambush Robert and Marquez. As a result, the jury would have had to rely on pure conjecture to establish an element of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Insofar as the state appellate court found otherwise, its ruling unreasonably applied Jackson v. Virginia .