Court Opinion

ID: 9782839
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 19:22:13.265747+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:12.496276
License: Public Domain

Chief Judge Lippman (dissenting).
Because I believe that the majority has ignored the plain words of Penal Law § 120.05 (3), I respectfully dissent. Under the majority’s view, a person who knowingly assaults an on-duty emergency medical technician (EMT) (or any other type of public servant enumerated in the statute) and causes physical injury is guilty of assault in the second degree pursuant to section 120.05 (3). By contrast, the actual language of the statute provides that a person is guilty of assault in the second degree when “[w]ith intent to prevent . . . [an] emergency medical service technician . . . from performing a lawful duty ... he or she causes physical injury to such . . . technician.”
I believe the majority misses the point in this case in focusing on the victim’s activity at the time of the assault (see majority op at 168). The victim’s attempt to enter his ambulance may well be a lawful duty within the meaning of the statute. However, the proper focus here should not be on the nature of the victim’s activity itself, but on whether defendant had the specific intent to prevent the performance of a lawful duty. In other words, it is not enough to determine whether the victim was engaged in a lawful duty at the time of the assault. The question remains: did the People bring forth legally sufficient evidence that defendant had the requisite intent at the time that he committed the assault?
The evidence here was certainly sufficient to show that the defendant intended to injure the victim—that is, assault in the third degree. As to the second degree count charged, however, I agree with the majority that the People need not prove intent to injure (see majority op at 169). Indeed, “a defendant’s intent to injure is irrelevant to the crime of assault in the second degree under Penal Law § 120.05 (3)” (People v Rojas, 97 NY2d 32, 40 [2001] [emphasis added]).* But the majority errs when it seamlessly moves from stating that the People were not required to show intent to injure to concluding that “[e]ven so, the ferocity and persistence of [defendant’s] attack on Spinelli might have *171reasonably caused the jurors to decide that he intended to interfere with Spinelli’s performance of his job duties as an EMT” (majority op at 169). The intent to injure and the extent of the injuries do not suffice to show the intent to prevent the victim from performing a lawful duty required under subdivision (3) of Penal Law § 120.05. The viciousness of the assault does not rationally lead to the conclusion that defendant had the specific requisite intent to interfere with the victim’s performance of his lawful duties in his capacity as an EMT.
The majority relies on this Court’s opinion in People v Steinberg (79 NY2d 673, 685 [1992]) for the proposition that “[a] jury is entitled to infer that a defendant intended the natural and probable consequences of his acts” (majority op at 169), but it is not true that specific intent can be inferred solely from an act’s result. In Steinberg, the jury wrote a note to the court asking, “ ‘[i]f there was no apparent intention to cause injury, but the acts resulted in serious physical injury nonetheless, would that be grounds to conclude intent as spelled out by law?’ ” (Steinberg, 79 NY2d at 684) and this Court held that
“while a simple negative response would have informed the jury that it could not automatically infer intent to cause the injuries merely because the injuries occurred, such a response might have obscured the jury’s right to make a factual finding of intent based on the natural and probable consequences of defendant’s acts and the surrounding circumstances” (id. at 685).
Steinberg does not stand for the proposition that any time a particular result actually occurred, the jury is entitled to infer intent to cause that result. Rather, the jury is charged with looking at the natural and probable consequences and the surrounding circumstances. Otherwise, the result in itself would always be sufficient to support a finding of intent.
Here, the People established only that the victim was subjected to an entirely unexplained, senseless assault at the hands of defendant, and that is precisely why the evidence was insufficient to sustain the conviction under Penal Law § 120.05 (3).
As the rule announced by the majority conflicts with the plain meaning of the statute, I dissent and I would reverse the order of the Appellate Division.
*172Judges Cipabick, Gbaffeo, Pigott and Jones concur with Judge Read; Chief Judge Lippman dissents and votes to reverse in a separate opinion in which Judge Smith concurs.
Order affirmed.

 Nor is it sufficient in this case to show intent to cause physical injury while the EMT was “performing an assigned duty” as is the case with assaults on certain transit workers (Penal Law § 120.05 [11]).