Court Opinion

ID: 9803126
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 15:21:42.307491+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:02:44.879777
License: Public Domain

Hinds-Radix, J.,
dissents and votes to reverse the judgment appealed from, on the law and as a matter of discretion in the interest of justice, and to order a new trial, with the following memorandum: On the evening of December 28, 2010, the defendant and his friend Jonathan Vazquez, along with some other friends, were standing in front of a corner store in Staten Island. As Thomas Re exited the store, Vazquez challenged him to a fight. Re testified at trial that he took his shirt off to show Vazquez that he was unarmed and was going to fight using his hands. Re and Vazquez moved to the side to avoid surveillance cameras, and Re put Vazquez in a “headlock.” Re testified that Vazquez said he was finished, but after Re let him go, Vazquez “sucker punched” him in the lip. Then Re heard a gunshot, which went “in the air,” and he saw that the defendant was holding a gun.
One of Re’s companions similarly testified at trial that the defendant’s first shot went “in the air.” The companion further testified that the defendant fired four or five additional shots, but the defendant “wasn’t aiming it. It was like he had a ham*831xner in his hand.” Re’s sister’s trial testimony described the defendant as flinging his arm as he fired in the direction of the fight.
One shot entered Re’s inner thigh, just above the knee cap, while another shot hit Vazquez. Re and his companions fled the scene to their car. As they fled, Re’s sister turned and said to the defendant, “Oh, my god, you shot your mans [sic].”
It is undisputed that the gun used by the defendant was previously stored under the back porch of Vazquez’s family’s residence. Upon his arrest, the defendant told the police that, after Vazquez and Re decided to fight each other, Vazquez took the gun out of his coat pocket and gave it to the defendant, with instructions that, “if shit gets crazy, burn that nigger.” When Re had Vazquez pinned on the ground, Vazquez looked at the defendant with, what the defendant interpreted was, a “what-the-hell-are-you-doing face.” The defendant claimed that he fired one shot in the air to break up the fight. Re did not release his chokehold of Vazquez, so the defendant fired another shot towards Re. The defendant claimed that he heard two return shots. The defendant fired one more shot towards Vazquez, and noticed that Vazquez was sprawled on the ground. Vazquez died shortly thereafter of a single gunshot wound to the left side of the head.
According to one of Vazquez’s brothers, shortly after the crime, the defendant returned to Vazquez’s family’s residence and told the brother that it was “crazy out there,” and “he may have shot my brother in the leg.”
The defendant’s conduct, as described by the eyewitnesses, and his statements to police, strongly indicated that he may not have intended to kill anyone, but, rather, to the extent he was aiming the gun at all, he fired in the air or at the legs of the participants to stop the fight. He was charged in the indictment, inter alia, with intentional murder based upon a transferred intent to kill, and manslaughter in the first degree based upon a transferred intent to inflict serious physical injury.
During the charge conference, when discussing charging the jury with lesser included offenses of intentional murder, defense counsel requested a charge of manslaughter in the first degree based upon an affirmative defense of extreme emotional disturbance. When making this request, defense counsel stated, in effect, that extreme emotional disturbance was the only basis upon which he was requesting a charge of manslaughter in the first degree. The trial court rejected this request, noting that no testimony with respect to extreme emotional disturbance was elicited at the trial. Defense counsel did not request the man*832slaughter in the first degree charge for the count of the indictment that was based upon a transferred intent to inflict serious physical injury. However, a reasonable view of the evidence supported this charge (see People v Sanchez, 226 AD2d 562, 563-564 [1996]; People v Cotton, 191 AD2d 577 [1993]). In fact, the trial court offered to instruct the jury with respect to manslaughter in the first degree based upon an intent to inflict serious physical injury, and defense counsel replied by asking for a moment to think about it. After a short pause, he responded, “Depending on how you ruled on the — I would ask not to have that charged.” The trial court asked for clarification, and defense counsel replied “I will ask to have it not charged.”
Defense counsel’s failure to request or agree to an instruction with respect to manslaughter in the first degree based upon an intent to cause serious physical injury was not supported by any viable trial strategy and was a prejudicial error which may have affected the outcome. Indeed, during deliberations, the jury asked for additional instructions with respect to “murder in the second degree with intent to cause death, manslaughter in the second degree and attempted murder in the second degree.” After about two days of deliberations, the jury reached the verdict under review.
In view of the foregoing, it is apparent from the record that defense counsel’s performance in this regard constituted ineffective assistance of counsel warranting a new trial (see People v Fisher, 18 NY3d 964, 967 [2012]).