Court Opinion

ID: 9704689
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:43:09.067052+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:04.448289
License: Public Domain

R.S. Smith, J.
(dissenting). I agree with the majority that the evidence was sufficient to support defendant’s burglary conviction. I also agree that defendant’s violation of an order of protection by entry into the complainant’s home cannot be a basis for finding the “intent to commit a crime” element of burglary in this case. I think the latter holding requires us to reverse defendant’s conviction.
Defendant asked for a correct instruction to the effect that the People must show more than unlawful entry. The trial court refused the instruction, and later, in response to a question, told the jury the exact opposite. I do not believe defendant forfeited appellate review of this error, and I therefore dissent.
I
Before I describe my disagreement with the majority, I think my agreement on the sufficiency of the evidence needs a word of explanation. As I understand the Court’s holding on this issue, it does not imply that the “intent to commit a crime” element of burglary could be satisfied by conduct (beyond entry to the premises) that would be innocuous if the order of protection did not prohibit it.
In the case before us, as the majority correctly says, the jury could have found that defendant entered the apartment intending “to harass, menace, intimidate, threaten or interfere with complainant” (majority op at 552). The majority is also correct, I believe, in holding that that intention would be an “intent to commit a crime” and thus would support a burglary conviction. It is true, as the majority says, that each of these acts was prohibited by the order of protection, so that in performing any of them defendant would have committed criminal contempt. But it is probably also true (depending on how broadly *554“interfere with” is read) that each of these acts would be criminal even if the order of protection did not exist.
It is easy to imagine a different, more troubling, case. The order of protection here required defendant, among other things, not to “contact” complainant. It might be argued that if he entered the apartment with the intention of speaking to her, he entered unlawfully with the intent to commit criminal contempt by an act that went beyond entry. Whether that intention could support a burglary conviction is an issue not now before us, and I do not think the majority addresses it.
II
Defendant asked the trial court to instruct the jury “that the intent-to-commit-a-crime-therein element of the burglary statute cannot be satisfied merely by showing the defendant’s intent to violate the court orders by going to, or entering, the complainant’s apartment.” The People now concede, and this Court unanimously agrees, that that proposed charge would have stated the law correctly. The trial court, however, rejected the proposed charge with the observation: “I disagree. . . . [Y]ou just don’t have to do anything more .... [Bjeing there in violation of the Order of Protection ... is a burglary should the jury decide the facts support it.” The court’s view of the law was plainly incorrect.
Though its reasoning was unsound, the trial court may not have erred in refusing to give defendant’s proposed charge, and instead simply describing the elements of second-degree burglary. A charge is not necessarily incorrect merely because it follows the statutory language and does not elucidate it “to the fullest possible extent” (People v Samuels, 99 NY2d 20, 25 [2002]). Thus it might be concluded, as the Appellate Division majority did conclude, that “the court delivered a correct main charge, even if it did so inadvertently” (13 AD3d 208, 213 [2004]).
This issue became academic when the jury later asked the very question defendant’s proposed charge had been designed to anticipate. As the prosecutor summarized the jury’s question, the jury wanted to know whether “the unlawful entry . . . can be the basis of intending to commit the crime therein.” Referring to the court’s earlier statements on the subject, the prosecutor said: “I thought we had a lot of discussion in the charge conference, the answer was yes.”
The prosecutor was right in saying that the trial court had already rejected defendant’s argument on this issue. No doubt for *555that reason, defendant did not reargue the point when discussing the jury’s note. Implicitly accepting the prosecutor’s statement that the court had already ruled, defendant’s counsel assumed that the court would give an affirmative answer to the jury’s question, and suggested a way of wording it, which the court accepted. In doing this, the majority now holds, defendant forfeited his right to complain of the court’s error.
I cannot agree. A waiver or forfeiture may occur when a defendant requests or endorses a ruling of which he later complains (see People v White, 53 NY2d 721, 723-724 [1981]). The reason for this rule is that a defendant should not be able to obtain a reversal based on an error for which he was responsible (see People v Shaffer, 66 NY2d 663, 665 [1985]; People v Ford, 62 NY2d 275, 283 [1984]; People v Aezah, 191 AD2d 312, 313 [1st Dept 1993]). But defendant did not lead the trial court into error here—the court had already stated unequivocally its mistaken understanding of the law, and the defendant’s attempt to talk the court out of it had already failed. Thus the governing rule here is the one the majority states, but does not apply: “an attorney need not repeatedly protest a court’s clear ruling” (majority op at 551) (see also People v Mezon, 80 NY2d 155, 160-161 [1992]).
Of course it would have been a good idea for defendant’s counsel, in his comment on how to respond to the jury note, to err on the side of caution by restating the position he had already argued. He might have said, for example: “As you know, your Honor, I think the correct answer to the question is no. But since you have already decided the correct answer is yes, I suggest that you answer in the following language.” But if he had taken this more prudent course, defense counsel would only have been reciting what everyone in the courtroom knew and the record made clear already. I cannot join the majority in holding that he forfeited his client’s right by failing to perform this ritual.
Chief Judge Kaye and Judges Ciparick, Graffeo and Read concur with Judge Rosenblatt; Judge R.S. Smith dissents in a separate opinion in which Judge G.B. Smith concurs.
Order affirmed.