Court Opinion

ID: 9885585
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 13:07:52.093234+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:55.181635
License: Public Domain

Dye, J.
(dissenting). A majority of this court is about to decide that the writ of habeas corpus sought herein was properly issued for the reason that, in light of section 32 of the Penal Law, the lesser included count added to the indictment by the trial court could not survive the verdict of acquittal on the main charge of assault, second degree, without placing relators twice in jeopardy for the same offense (N. Y. Const., art. I, § 6). With this approach, I am unable to agree.
*93The trial court had undoubted statutory authority to add the lesser count of assault, third degree, and to charge the jury accordingly (Code Crim. Pro., §§ 295-j, 444). Had the jury been satisfied with the proof a verdict of conviction based on such lesser count would have been proper (Penal Law, § 610). It has always been the rule that a prosecution should not wholly fail for lack of proof to sustain the main charge if a crime in an inferior degree is made out (Dedieu v. People, 22 N. Y. 178). To say now that because of the circumstance that the jury could not agree — and so reported itself in open court — was equivalent to a verdict of acquittal as a matter of law is to allew the prosecution loss latitude than it had at common law and, in effect, to nullify the legislative pronouncement in the premises (Code Crim. Pro., §§ 443-a, 444; Penal Law, § 610). Nor are any of the decisions in which the courts have inferred from the facts either an acquittal or conviction pertinent where a jury specifically records its disagreement, thus leaving no possible doubt as to its treatment of the charge submitted (cf. People v. Goldfarb, 152 App. Div. 870, affd. 213 N. Y. 664; People ex rel. Stabile v. Warden of City Prison, 202 N. Y. 138, 152; People v. Dowling, 84 N. Y. 478; People ex rel. Ticineto v. Brewster, 241 App. Div. 467).
When the trial court, as is its prerogative, proceeds in a proper case to add a lesser included degree of the same crime charged in the indictment, it is bound to so charge the jury and this is exactly what was done here. When so charged, the oral pronouncement by the court as to the inferior degree is as effective in law as a formal assertion in the body of the indictment (Code Crim. Pro., § 295; People v. Sciascia, 268 App. Div. 14, affd. 294 N. Y. 927) for it is no longer necessary, as it was at common law, to particularize each degree of each offense charged in an indictment (People v. Miller, 143 App. Div. 251, affd. 202 N. Y. 618). Therefore after the jury finds a defendant ‘ ‘ not guilty ’ ’ of the degree charged in the indictment, they are then authorized to find him guilty “ of any degree inferior thereto ” (Code Crim. Pro. § 444; People v. Willson, 109 N. Y. 345) thus preventing a failure of prosecution (People v. Murch, 263 N. Y. 285; cf. People v. Miller, supra).
The situation here is no different than is the expressed disagreement on one or more of the counts in a multi-count indict*94ment (Code Crim. Pro., § 443-a; People ex rel. Chalmers v. Foster, 272 App. Div. 236). By the same token a specific disagreement cannot of itself give rise to a plea of double jeopardy which necessarily involves a retrial for the same act and the same crime for which the original prosecution was instituted and which resulted in either an acquittal or a conviction (People v. Silverman, 281 N. Y. 457; People v. Rodgers, 184 App. Div. 461, affd. 226 N. Y. 671; 15 Am. Jur., Criminal Law, § 380; cf. People v. Caramanica, 276 App. Div. 1027, affd. 301 N. Y. 729). A single set of facts comprising one episode gave rise to the several counts of the indictment, all three of which had been disposed of either by ruling of the court or verdicts of the jury. One count — that added by the trial court — survived. To hold relators for retrial does not under these circumstances subject them to any additional burden within the proscription against double jeopardy (cf. People ex rel. Bullock v. Hayes, 215 N. Y. 172). They were fully apprised with what they were charged and allowed the issue to go to the jury without exception. As to the count in question, they stand in no different position than as if no trial thereof had been had.
The order appealed from should be reversed, the writ denied, and relators remanded to the custody of the warden of the city prison for trial, limited, of course, to the undetermined charge of assault, third degree.
Loughran, Ch. J., Conway and Desmond, JJ., concur with Froessel, J.; Dye, J., dissents and votes for reversal in an opinion in which Lewis and Feld, JJ., concur.
Order affirmed, etc.